It isn’t easy to imagine a world without the legendary outfit Pink Floyd. The band has been such an integral part of what made the 1960s, ’70s, and beyond so powerfully creative. As a behemoth unit, they were champions of the pursuit of artistic purity, so it feels as though they are ever-present in our musical worlds.
Despite this, many fans have only just scraped the surface of Pink Floyd’s back catalogue, largely because it is very easy to get lost in the prog-rock noodling or conceptual construction of their work. So, to make things a little easier, we’ve ranked all of their albums in order of greatness so that you know where to begin and what the essence of the Floyd truly was.
The band changed names several times before settling on Pink Floyd, and it was a propensity for evolution that permeated their music. Arriving on the psyche-rock scene in the mid-1960s as young upstarts, Pink Floyd, at the time, comprised of Syd Barrett, Roger Waters, Nick Mason and Richard Wright, quickly became the talk of the town as their wholly encompassing sound provided a fresh new take on rock and roll.
Of course, Barrett’s time with the band would come to an abrupt end as he struggled with mental health and, after being supported by David Gilmour’s inclusion, was eventually replaced by him. That line-up would oversee some of the group’s best work in the studio and on the stage, much of which resides near the top of this list.
While it is wholly impossible to nail down everybody’s definitive ranking of their albums, below, we’ve got our ranking of all of Pink Floyd’s albums in order of greatness. It stands as a testament to weird and wonderful conceptions that would go on to define not only millions of people and their penchant for space rock but arguably shape the 20th century as a pop culture behemoth.
Ranking Pink Floyd albums from worst to best:
- 1-10
‘More’ (1969)
The album marks a significant moment for the group. As the band began to experience life without frontman Syd Barrett and trusted producer Norman Smith, More was the album that showed there was light at the end of the tunnel.
The record is by no means a vintage piece of their back catalogue, but More is a reminder of the difficulties the band both faced and overcame to produce some of the finest albums of all time.
Waters is at the helm of songwriting, and Gilmour takes on all the vocals—clearly, the band were finding their feet.
‘A Momentary Lapse of Reason’ (1987)
Another record that saw the band deal with the loss of a member was the 1987 effort A Momentary Lapse of Reason, the first post-Roger Waters album the group had produced. It might seem a little churlish to pick the record based solely on the lack of Waters, but it also isn’t entirely incorrect.
A lot of fans have pointed to the record as being one of the more commercially driven albums of their career. After being called a “spent force creatively” by the departing Waters, the band went a long way to prove it with songs like ‘Dogs of War’, ‘Learning to Fly’ and ‘Sorrow’ not offering their usual spark of creativity.
It’s a record that simply doesn’t really feel like Pink Floyd at all.
‘Ummagumma’ (1969)
After Syd Barrett was forced out of the group following his battles with substance abuse and growing mental health issues, Pink Floyd struggled to harmonise with one another in their new structure.
It’s something that can be easily heard in the album, which sees the now-four members of the group allowing their own experimentation to supersede the pursuit of the band’s success.
It’s still a record that can enjoy the odd moment in the sun, even if the shadowy creep of taking oneself too seriously makes its way across the garden.
‘The Endless River’ (2014)
As the flipside to A Momentary Lapse of Reason, this album, comprised of the final recordings keyboardist and jazz enthusiast Rick Wright ever completed with the band, was intently anti-commercial.
Instead, written for Pink Floyd fans, the album is a deep dive into the creative interplay that made the band such a success. A landscape filled with the sonic strums of Gilmour, The Endless River is another largely instrumental record worth revisiting.
But, if you are matching it up against the rest of the groups’ output,, then it struggles. Without any real songs to speak of, standing on its own it generally falls.
‘Obscured By Clouds’ (1972)
This record was originally written for the soundtrack to the French feature film La Vallée and offers up a welcoming series of vignettes and stunning imagery as a series of short and sharp tracks.
While the record may fall down as a complete album, its ability to transport your imagination into a new realm is undeniable.
The record saw Waters and Gilmour move towards a more personal style of songwriting. Roger Waters explored the death of his father in ‘Free Four’ while Gilmour placed himself in the lyric hot seat for the first time on ‘Childhood’s End’. The record struggles against the rest of the catalogue but is a worthy album nonetheless.
‘The Final Cut’ (1983)
The Final Cut may well be one of the band’s better efforts, but it does hold a certain resignation which will not please avid Pink Floyd fans. The album represents a moment where David Gilmour gives up the ghost and lets Roger Waters run wild.
The record was originally written to be the soundtrack to The Wall film but was given its own release after Waters realised the album’s potential. A lot of that spark came from Britain’s involvement in the Falklands War and therefore acted as a moment of global protest—something Waters would become very astute at.
While Waters hasn’t quite hit his peak on the record, The Final Cut still breaks our top ten and can make most Pink Floyd fans smile.
‘Atom Heart Mother’ (1970)
This record may well be one of the most overlooked albums on the list. As well as the transportation title track, a song that takes over the entire side one of the album, is enough to assert its place in the top ten, but the rest of the album is brightly polished too.
Another curious moment from the song was that Waters and Mason were forced to play the bass and drums on the track for the entire 23 minutes.
On Atom Heart Mother, the path of Pink Floyd was beginning to be laid out in front of them. They had moved away from the band’s incendiary moments and were now beginning to construct songs to deliberately engage with the intellect of rock. As well as the title track, the record also features two classic songs ‘If’ and ‘Fat Old Sun’.
‘Saucerful of Secrets’ (1968)
The band’s second record would see them once again assert themselves as the new kids on the block. While Britain had been positively swelling with the R&B bands desperate to capture the essence of the Delta blues, Pink Floyd’s sound was brilliantly weird and wonderful.
As well as it being Gilmour’s first album with the band, it would also be Syd Barrett’s last LP with the group. As well as the strange and yet entirely masterful Barrett composition ‘Jugband Blues’, the album’s best moment was Waters’. The track ‘Set the Controls for the Heart of the Sun’ is easily the greatest moment on the album and was a signal of their upcoming domination.
It was on this record that the band began to push through their expansive sound. There are many moments when a band breaks through the looking glass, and here they do so with aplomb.
‘The Division Bell’ (1994)
Pink Floyd as a trio was never really likely to succeed, but on The Division Bell, David Gilmour, Rick Wright and Nick Mason rallied together to create one of the band’s finest records. Lacking Roger Water’s narrative lyrics meant the LP felt dramatically different to the previous two albums.
Many people would suggest that the loss of Waters makes this album a lowly contender for a spot near the top of this list, and while that is certainly a valid argument, we think the music made on this record outweighs the loss of lyrical storylines.
In fact, without Waters, the album is one of the band’s most focused albums—directly created as a group effort.
‘Meddle’ (1971)
This was when Pink Floyd moved out of the traditional rock sphere and towards forging a new genre in prog-rock. Originally, the group had been expanding the psyche-rock sound, but now jumped out of the realm of rock and towards a new and progressive musical style.
Using everyday objects and brand-new techniques, the group were very much on the path towards greatness, as they embraced the weird and the wonderful to make something nobody could have dreamt of only a few years prior.
In fact, it was the first step towards their most beautiful records, and without Meddle, many of them would not have been made at all. This album is the foundation stone for all of that work, and everybody else’s within the prog-rock arena.
‘Piper at the Gates of Dawn’ (1967)
In 1967, as acid-rock began to hit the streets of London, there was one band who were seemingly soundtracking the new revolution. The band quickly became the sound of a new movement and started to construct the foundations of psychedelic prog-rock almost immediately.
One caveat we must add is that, thanks to the unique way Pink Floyd constructed and textured their songs, there is almost certainly always somebody who has found happiness in their more obscure songs. The band prided themselves on being mercurial, and they certainly lived up to that ethos, even from the very beginning.
Some of the songs are on the sillier side, but the youthful exuberance and enthusiasm that emanate from the album are beguiling. A debut record is your only shot at a first impression, and Pink Floyd made sure they wouldn’t be forgotten in a hurry.
‘Animals’ (1977)
The group were at the top of their game when they released Animals in 1977. Using the concept of George Orwell’s Animal Farm as the base inspiration for the songs on the album was a piece of genius in itself, but the delivery of the songs is what makes it a classic album.
Animals performed well on the charts reaching number two in the UK and number three in the US despite the uncommercially sympathetic runtimes of the tracks, a trademark feature of much of the Pink Floyd discography. The LP consists of only five songs: ‘Dogs’, ‘Sheep’, ‘Pigs on the Wing (parts one and two) and ‘Pigs (Three Different Ones). These song titles point toward the concept of the album before one even listens to the revealing lyrics within.
As punk was swelling around London, the idea that Pink Floyd had become flabby pensioners overnight was soon put to bed when this progressive album was released. The album’s cover may have a ludicrous story behind it, but the rest of the album was dead serious. The record reflects the first moment Waters took on the politics of the world so explicitly.
‘The Wall’ (1979)
One album which showed off Roger Waters as a musical powerhouse in his own right was The Wall. Not only did it show off Waters’ musicianship, but the record was also his most personal album ever. It saw Waters open himself up to his audience and reflect on the pursuit and final loneliness of fame and fortune.
Rightly described as a ‘rock opera’, Waters and the rest of the band were once again carving out their own path as they moved away from the psychedelia which had set them up as a huge act and were now more pointed toward success on a commercial level. With the help of Waters’ lyrical narration, the story of Pink has become one of the most widely loved rock stories of all time and rightly deserves its kudos.
It is difficult to pull off such a record without losing sight of the main part of releasing any album: expressing yourself and entertaining people. Somehow, the band managed to do both while seemingly not attempting to do either.
‘Wish You Were Here’ (1975)
Though Wish You Were Here is often thought of as the signal of Pink Floyd’s eventual demise, the album is also one of their finest creations. It’s a record that saw Gilmour and Waters at loggerheads, but somehow, the music didn’t suffer one single bit.
It may have even propelled the LP into a new space and launched it creatively. The record can be considered one of their best and perhaps one of the greatest albums of the century as it influenced millions of people.
Noted by both Waters and Gilmour as their favourite Floyd album, the record is the distillation of what made Pink Floyd so brilliant. Wright and Gilmour are engines behind the music’s expansive sounds, but the album will be remembered as the final moments of Roger Waters playing nicely with his bandmates.
Of course, it was always going to struggle to match up to the band’s 1973 album.
‘The Dark Side of the Moon’ (1973)
Of course, we couldn’t even begin to argue that The Dark Side of the Moon doesn’t deserve the top spot. While Pink Floyd fans have a propensity to indulge in the rarer moments of the band’s career, this album is undoubtedly the group’s greatest.
The album isn’t only a conceptual masterpiece but also sees the band provide some of their best singular songs too. As well as ‘Money’, ‘Time’ and ‘Breathe’, the album holds perhaps one of their most beloved tracks of all time in ‘The Great Gig in the Sky’. They are individually brilliant, but when the songs are sewn together, the tapestry created is that of legend.
There’s a lot of iconography attached to The Dark Side of the Moon, and it would seem all of the band members also agree on its validity as their greatest album. “I think that when it was finished, everyone thought it was the best thing we’d ever done to date, and everyone was very pleased with it,” remembered Nick Mason.
Wright said of the album, “It felt like the whole band were working together. It was a creative time. We were all very open.” It is this openness and reflective sound that turned Pink Floyd from prog-rock pioneers into bonafide rock icons—untouchable.
