10 Legendary Musicians Who Fought Against The Music Business
4. Pink Floyd
The music business isn't a line of work everyone is cut out for. It can be a dog eat dog world out there, and Pink Floyd saw the direct results happen with Syd Barrett, getting more and more out of control on psychedelics before eventually having to be dismissed from the band because of how much of his mind was lost. It took the band a while to recover from his absence, but losing one of their best friends gave them a target to hurl all of their negative energy towards.
Starting from Dark Side of the Moon onward, Pink Floyd slowly began to morph into a band that was a lot more disenchanted with the record industry, making one record after the next about how the suits of the industry corrupt the honest artist, like the phony A&R man who turns up in the song in Have a Cigar or the disembodied voice who seems to only focus on chewing you up and spitting you out on Welcome to the Machine.
When we got to the Wall though, the dangers of the industry became frighteningly literal, with Roger Waters depicting the rock star that turns up in every one of their songs who becomes so detached that he closes himself off from society. Progressive rock might not be the best genre to get the pin up stars from, but there's a good case to be made that Floyd were trying to be anti rock stars at this point.