As I’ve mentioned before, Last.FM is one of my favorite sites. One of my favorite things to do on there is to put in the name of a band I like and then listen to songs from other bands that they (Last.FM) think sounds like them. This is a pretty cool way to find new music and also to rediscover good stuff that may have been forgotten about.

Lately I’ve been listening to a lot of Pink Floyd so I’ll put them and see what we get:

#1 “Too Much Rope” – Roger Waters

I guess I can see why they’d think Roger Waters is similar to Pink Floyd. I’m not really familiar with a lot of Waters solo work. This song doesn’t really make me want to get more familiar because while this is similar to Pink Floyd, it is unfortunately more like the Pink Floyd I can’t seem to get into (The Wall & after in specific) and not so much like the Pink Floyd I really like (most everything before The Wall.) It’s a bit strange that it didn’t actually start with a Pink Floyd song. Every time I’ve used this feature before it would start with the band you put in. Maybe they’ve changed that.

#2 “Substitute” – The Who

Hm, sure? The Who are another legendary British classic rock band, so I guess they’re similar? Anyway, this is a cool song and The Who are great but it wasn’t really the sort of thing I had in mind. Dig?

#3 “Here I Go” – Syd Barrett

Ah, that’s a bit more like it. I’m a huge fan of the original Syd lead Pink Floyd and of his two solo albums. Particularly the first one, which this song is from. It’s called The Madcap Laughs. I always pimp Syd whenever I can so yeah, check him out.

#4 “Castellorizon” – David Gilmour

3 out of the 4 so far have been solo Pink Floyd projects. I’m not sure if this is branching out quite as far as I was hoping. Although this is pretty interesting to me as I haven’t really heard any solo material by Gilmour before. This sounds a lot like a later era Pink Floyd song without the vocals. And I do think it sounds a bit better without the vocals. Gilmour is a pretty great guitarist and this is pretty much a five minute guitar solo if you dig that kind of thing, you’ll probably dig this.

#5 “Highway Star” – Deep Purple

This is a band I’ve always thought I should have heard a bit more from. Besides a couple of the songs you can’t escape from on classic rock radio I haven’t really heard them.

This is a pretty cool track, but it definitely doesn’t sound anything like Pink Floyd. It sounds more like Black Sabbath mixed with, ah hell. I forgot what I was thinking about, this organ solo is insane. Maybe they’re like Pink Floyd three times as fast and twice as loud. Or is it the other way around?

“Highway Star” Live In 1972

#6 “Anesthetize” – Porcupine Tree
This is a band I’ve heard a lot of good things about but I’ve never really been able tog into them. See, I like Pink Floyd and some stuff from bands like The Moody Blues & Yes. But I don’t really like it when stuff gets that sort of very sterile “progressive rock” sound to it. It just doesn’t connect with me although I can appreciate it on some level. I usually appreciate it most when it’s in the long instrumental passages. The vocals/lyrics usually kill it for me.

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