Every Pink Floyd Album, Ranked
The Pink Floyd albums people skip are the ones that explain the band, so vote the whole run. Studio albums only, in full, with nothing left out for being bad. A record is out only if it is wholly live, which keeps Ummagumma, whose second disc is new studio material, and drops the concert albums. More and Obscured by Clouds were written for films but built as Pink Floyd albums of songs rather than as scored cues, so they count. The Endless River came out of unreleased 1993 sessions rather than tracks you already own, so it is an album and not a compilation. Hits sets and box sets are out. A record reaches the upper tier by placing top five on three or more of the discography rankings counted here: Louder, Paste, MOJO, Far Out and Stereogum. Everything that misses that bar forms the second tier. The link goes to the oldest edition Spotify carries of that record, chosen by edition and never by the date the page prints. Inside a tier, the order is yours.
Pink Floyd — Animals (1977) is #1 on “Every Pink Floyd Album, Ranked”.
- 1
Pink Floyd — Animals (1977)
Three long tracks about people, bookended by a two part love song that runs about ninety seconds a side. Dogs is seventeen minutes that turn from a sneer into something much closer to fear. Four of the five rankings counted placed it top five, Paste and Stereogum as high as second. Not a wasted minute on it.
Open in Spotify - 2
Pink Floyd — Meddle (1971)
Echoes is the moment four musicians stopped borrowing ideas and started building one, twenty three minutes grown out of studio fragments they catalogued as separate pieces. The first side is a warm up and sounds like one. On four rankings out of the five counted it placed top five, and only Far Out left it out, on a record that stalled at number 70 in America.
Open in Spotify - 3
Pink Floyd — Wish You Were Here (1975)
Grief and contempt on one record, and the band gives both as long as they need. Welcome to the Machine is a door, a synth drone and Gilmour singing like a man who has quit the industry in his head. All five counted rankings placed it top five, and only MOJO put it lower than second.
Open in Spotify - 4
Pink Floyd — The Dark Side of the Moon (1973)
Perfectly built, perfectly sequenced, and a great deal of its force comes from the mixing desk rather than from four people in a room. Time is the exception: the clocks, that guitar solo, then Wright taking the bridges. Five placements out of five counted, with Louder, MOJO and Far Out all putting it first. Nothing on it sounds unplanned.
Open in Spotify - 5
Pink Floyd — The Wall (1979)
Twenty six tracks, a film script, a divorce from the audience, and session players filling the gaps the band had stopped filling for each other. Comfortably Numb survives all of that because Gilmour wrote the tune and would not hand it over. Far Out put it third, one of four counted rankings that placed it top five. Scale and strength are not the same measurement.
Open in Spotify - 6
Pink Floyd — The Piper at the Gates of Dawn (1967)
Syd's album more than the band's, and by the following January the others had stopped collecting him for gigs. Astronomy Domine pairs a nursery melody with a panning, sputtering middle section that still sounds like an accident. Two counted rankings out of five placed it top five, MOJO putting it second.
Open in Spotify - 7
Pink Floyd — The Division Bell (1994)
Gilmour, Wright and Mason working as a trio again, and Wright's first writing credits on a Pink Floyd album since 1975. High Hopes ends on a bell and a slide figure that earns every second of its length. Zero top five placements across the five counted, and none of them placed it better than seventh. It went straight to number one in Britain and America all the same.
Open in Spotify - 8
Pink Floyd — A Saucerful of Secrets (1968)
A band losing its songwriter in real time and stumbling onto the thing it would do for the next decade. Set the Controls for the Heart of the Sun is one chord, a mallet and Waters whispering, and it held a stage for years afterwards. Far Out, Louder and MOJO all put it eighth, and no counted ranking placed it top five. Barrett's last credit closes the record.
Open in Spotify - 9
Pink Floyd — Obscured by Clouds (1972)
Written and recorded in two short bursts at a chateau outside Paris, with the band already deep into something far bigger. Childhood's End is the last Pink Floyd lyric Gilmour wrote until 1987, and one of the best he ever managed. Paste placed it eighth and the other four lower, so zero top five placements among the counted rankings.
Open in Spotify - 10
Pink Floyd — Atom Heart Mother (1970)
Ron Geesin's orchestra and choir take an entire side, and the band spend it following a score instead of each other. Fat Old Sun opens on a church bell and is otherwise Gilmour on guitars, bass and drums, with Wright's organ the only other hand on it. Of the five counted, Paste alone placed it top five, at fifth, which is one more than Gilmour and Waters would allow: both have disowned the title suite.
Open in Spotify - 11
Pink Floyd — The Final Cut (1983)
Waters writing about his father, Gilmour reduced to a guest, and Wright gone from the group altogether. The Gunner's Dream builds to a saxophone break and a lyric that stops you where you stand. Stereogum's seventh is its best anywhere, and none of the counted rankings placed it top five. Spotify's only carrier runs thirteen tracks, so it folds in When the Tigers Broke Free, added in 2004.
Open in Spotify - 12
Pink Floyd — More (1969)
Knocked out at speed for a Barbet Schroeder film, and the deadline read as permission to try absolutely anything. The Nile Song is fuzz, shouting and nothing else, cut by a band still working out what it was. No ranking among the five counted placed it top five, and MOJO's tenth is its best placement.
Open in Spotify - 13
Pink Floyd — Ummagumma (1969)
Half a concert, half four musicians handed a quarter of the studio disc each and told to please themselves. Grantchester Meadows is Waters alone with an acoustic guitar and a tape of birdsong. MOJO reached seventh with it, better than any other counted ranking managed, and not one placed it top five.
Open in Spotify - 14
Pink Floyd — The Endless River (2014)
Built from 1993 keyboard takes, finished two decades later by Gilmour and Mason as a goodbye to Wright, who had died in the meantime. Louder Than Words is the only track on it carrying a vocal, and its subject is the band's own silence. Across the five counted rankings it placed top five nowhere, Far Out's twelfth being its best. As a wake it works. As an album it drifts.
Open in Spotify - 15
Pink Floyd — A Momentary Lapse of Reason (1987)
Session musicians, an outside lyricist, Mason barely drumming and Wright brought back on wages rather than as a member. Learning to Fly is a genuinely good single with a chorus that still works. Around it sits 1987 studio gloss and a set of songs assembled after the fact. Paste's ninth is the best it gets, and nothing counted placed it top five.
Open in Spotify
How this list was ranked
Readers rank this list by voting items up and down. Items are ordered by reader votes.
