With the possible exception of the Beatles, no band has remained relevant through the decades quite like Pink Floyd. From their 1967 debut album, The Piper at the Gates of Dawn, to their 2014 swan song The Endless River, they’ve managed to sell over 250 million records worldwide. Legions of fans still attend concerts headlined by Roger Waters or David Gilmour, just to hear even the faintest hint of the classic Pink Floyd sound in their performances. Their albums have gone down as some of the greatest and most influential in music history. The only question is: which one is their best?

This is my personal ranking of every Pink Floyd studio album from worst to first – from my least favorite, right through to the one that I consider to be their greatest achievement. Note that this list focuses exclusively on the band’s studio output, which means I’m excluding both live albums and compilations. Also bear in mind that it does not cover any of the solo albums put out by individual members over the years. In other words, you might be Amused to Death by The Delicate Sound of Thunder you hear on The Madcap Laughs, but I’m afraid you’ll not find any of that here. Finally, remember that this list is based entirely around my own opinion and should not dissuade you from checking out any of the lower-placing records here. Who knows? You might find some of them to be your absolute favorites!

And with that, let’s begin.

15) More

One of two Pink Floyd soundtrack albums (the other being Obscured by Clouds, written for the French film La Vallée), More has no specific style to call its own – as with many of the band’s earliest albums, it is very experimental. The sound ranges from something akin to post-punk (“The Nile Song”), early David Bowie (“Cymbaline”), free-form jazz (“Up the Khyber”), blues rock (“More Blues”), avant-garde (“Quicksilver”), flamenco (“A Spanish Piece”) and several other disparate genres; given how this album was released in 1969 and at least a few of those things weren’t even things yet, that’s pretty impressive. Not quite impressive enough to call More a great album, but it’s still fair to say that Pink Floyd were ahead of their time.

The good news is that More is far from being a terrible record. If this is their worst, then it’s safe to say that they have never released an album that was anything less than mediocre.

Standout tracks: “The Nile Song” and “Ibiza Sun” are notable for being much heavier than virtually anything else the band has ever done, especially for an album released in 1969. Otherwise, “Cymbaline” is probably the best song on the record.

14) A Momentary Lapse of Reason



The first of three albums released under the direction of guitarist David Gilmour following the departure of Roger Waters, A Momentary Lapse of Reason has its own 80s-esque sound, but it’s still more or less a Pink Floyd record. While a very good all-around collection of music, A Momentary Lapse of Reason isn’t quite on par with their earlier works. The band does manage to create interesting soundscapes with its special effects, and they probably should have focused more on developing its distinctive atmosphere rather than writing contemporary pop rock songs. Instead, it sometimes feels like a somewhat unsuccessful attempt at simulating their past glory.

Standout tracks: “Signs of Life” and “Learning to Fly”. Most of the songs on the album have their moments.

13) The Endless River

For their final studio album, the remnants of Pink Floyd (i.e. David Gilmour and Nick Mason) compiled several unused demos and outtakes from previous recording sessions, particularly those of The Division Bell, and created nearly an hour’s worth of instrumentals. Only the closing track, “Louder than Words”, actually features any vocals. The result is a record that is musically competent, if slightly forgettable – but it achieves what it set out to achieve, and that’s creating an ambiance to get lost in. In addition to being the band’s closing number, The Endless River also serves as a tribute to founding member and keyboardist Richard Wright, who sadly died of cancer in 2008.

Standout tracks: “Sum”, “Allons-y” (parts 1 and 2), and “Louder than Words”.

12) Obscured by Clouds

You could say that this 1972 soundtrack album for the French film La Vallée was in fact “obscured” by Pink Floyd’s 1973 international breakthrough, The Dark Side of the Moon. Adding to the fact that it was preceded by Meddle, an album that has since gotten plenty of retroactive recognition on its own merits, and Obscured by Clouds is generally overlooked outright. Many fans have never even heard of it. And to be fair, they’re not missing out on a bona fide masterpiece. Yes, Obscured by Clouds does have a few highlights (namely its instrumental pieces); however, the overall package still feels like an inferior version of its 1971 predecessor. On the other hand, it can be said that if you liked Meddle – or The Dark Side of the Moon, for that matter – then there’s a good chance you’ll enjoy at least some of what Obscured by Clouds has to offer as well. It’s not a bad album.

Standout tracks: The title track, “Mudmen”, and “Free Four”.

11) Atom Heart Mother

Where to begin with Atom Heart Mother? Well for starters, the band hates it. Critics aren’t overly kind to it either. Casual fans don’t know about it, and the ones who do usually aren’t particularly fond of it. If we were talking solely about the second half, they would probably have a point. “If” and “Fat Old Sun” are lacklustre attempts at folk rock. “Summer ’68” is decent, though nowhere near on par with some of their better works. And finally, there’s “Alan’s Psychedelic Breakfast”, which is basically music set to a guy having breakfast. Macrobiotic stuff!

But no, these songs are not what make Atom Heart Mother worthwhile. The reason you should listen to this album is its namesake, a 23-minute suite that goes places never heard before or since. In the beginning and towards the end, “Atom Heart Mother” is brass-driven and orchestral, but the middle is an eerie corridor dominated by choir vocals and ambient keyboard. Comprising the entirety of the album’s first half, it comes together surprisingly well and largely redeems the less impressive songs that followed.

Standout tracks: The eponymous suite, and “Alan’s Psychedelic Breakfast” because it’s funny.

10) Ummagumma

The band’s 1969 double album Ummagumma is a tale of two cities. On one record, you have what amounts to a self-contained live album featuring four classic Pink Floyd songs: “Astronomy Domine”, “Careful with That Axe, Eugene”, “Set the Controls for the Heart of the Sun”, and “A Saucerful of Secrets”. Each is an epic jam session in its own right, and it is generally considered to be the better half of the overall Ummagumma experience. Which brings us to its eccentric sister – arguably the most experimental thing Pink Floyd has ever done. The premise was that each member would work on an individual project, which would then take up its own quarter of the studio LP. The result is a particularly bizarre collection of avant-garde music. The band doesn’t care much for it, critics generally look upon it with distain, and yet, there’s nothing about it that stands out as particularly bad. If anything, it has more of a niche appeal. Do you enjoy free-form jazz, or Trout Mask Replica by Captain Beefheart and his Magic Band? If so, you’d be well-advised to ignore the negative reputation surrounding the studio half of Ummagumma and give it a listen.

Standout tracks: There’s something to be said for a composition with a name like “Several Species of Small Furry Animals Gathered Together in a Cave and Grooving with a Pict”, which is basically what it says on the tin (i.e. Roger Waters making strange animal-like noises with his voice). The live album contains the definitive versions of “Careful with That Axe, Eugene” and “A Saucerful of Secrets”. “Sysyphus” and “The Narrow Way” also have their moments.

9) A Saucerful of Secrets

By the time recording for A Saucerful of Secrets commenced, former bandleader Syd Barrett’s mental health had deteriorated to such an extent that it necessitated the recruiting of a new lead guitarist. The band approached David Gilmour to cover for Barrett, at which point he became their newest member. However, some of the material they had already recorded for their second LP was retained, making A Saucerful of Secrets the only Pink Floyd album to feature all five members. Often held in lower regard than both its predecessor and the band’s later albums from the 1970s, A Saucerful of Secrets is nevertheless a very respectable collection of songs and a pioneering record in the space rock genre. It deserves more recognition than it receives.

Standout tracks: “Let There Be More Light”, “Set the Controls for the Heart of the Sun”, the title track, and “Jugband Blues”.

8) The Final Cut

Pink Floyd’s saddest album is aptly summarized on the back cover as follows: “A Requiem for the Post-War Dream – By Roger Waters, performed by Pink Floyd”. Not only did Waters write everything on The Final Cut, but he also sings lead vocals on nearly every single track, with the sole exception being “Not Now John” which has David Gilmour doing the three main verses. By this point, the band was falling apart at the seams. You can practically hear the tension in Waters’ voice as he shifts between choked-up scowls and impassioned wailing. He admits that it’s not his best performance, but it is uniquely authentic and sincere, and it suits the album’s anti-war theme perfectly. This is also the only album to not feature Rick Wright, who had been fired from the band during the recording sessions of The Wall; his absence has a noticeable impact on the band’s sound. The electronic elements of their past work are all but completely absent here, making The Final Cut less impressive from a technological standpoint, yet placing an added emphasis on its raw emotion. The musicianship and production are all top-notch, and it hardly deserves the derision it has gotten over the years. It is a beautiful record in every respect. Even so, it is impossible to shake this niggling feeling that The Final Cut is hardly a Pink Floyd album at all.

Standout tracks: “The Fletcher Memorial Home” and “The Final Cut” are the two highlights, but I also very much enjoy “Your Possible Pasts”, “The Hero’s Return” (particularly the extended single version), “Not Now John”, and “When the Tigers Broke Free” (included in later reissues of the album).

7) The Division Bell

By far the greatest of the three albums released under David Gilmour’s leadership, listening to The Division Bell after the relatively unimpressive A Momentary Lapse of Reason is like the difference between night and day. Sure, neither Gilmour nor his wife Polly Samson (who contributed to the lyrics) possess the poeticism of Roger Waters, but what The Division Bell lacks in new insight, it makes up for in soul. From start to finish, the album showcases Gilmour at the top of his game, both as a guitarist and as a vocalist. It also marks the return of Rick Wright as a creative force, not just a keyboardist in a supporting role, as he had been when Roger Waters was in charge. On top of everything else, it really does feel like a revival of the early 1970s Pink Floyd sound. The beginning of “What Do You Want from Me” is a nice throwback to “Have a Cigar”. The majestic serenity of “Marooned” wouldn’t sound out of place on Meddle. “Cluster One” takes many of its cues from the first part of “Shine On You Crazy Diamond”. Of course, none of this should suggest that The Division Bell doesn’t have its own distinctive sound. It feels like an album put together by a band that’s come of age, complete with all of the techniques they mastered in their earlier years, but taken in a creative new direction. This is not a record that banks on nostalgia. The Division Bell stands strong on its own merits.

Standout tracks: “Cluster One”, “What Do You Want from Me”, “Poles Apart”, “Marooned”, “A Great Day for Freedom”, “Keep Talking”, “Lost for Words”, and “High Hopes”.

6) Meddle

Meddle has been referred to as the first “true” Pink Floyd album. It’s the record on which they discovered their distinctive sound, bridging the gap between the band’s earlier space rock jams and their subsequent best-sellers. Like Atom Heart Mother before it, Meddle is divided into two halves: one comprised of a single song, the other featuring several more. Unlike Atom Heart Mother, one half isn’t distinctly superior to the other. Both are very enjoyable.

“Echoes” is the behemoth that most people associate with Meddle – a 23-minute adventure to the depths of the ocean, complete with something akin to whales screeching unearthly noises. However, almost every other song is good as well. “One of These Days” begins the album on an exciting, adrenaline-pumping bass line, after which “A Pillow of Winds” brings it down to the serenity that would define the rest of side one. The only track that the album really could have done without is “Seamus”; not because it’s a bad song per se, but as a fun little blues ditty, it just feels completely out of place on the generally serious, melodic record. Even then, that’s basically just splitting hairs when considering how well-rounded an album this is. Not a bad way to set the stage for their breakthrough era.

Standout tracks: “Seamus”, but for all the wrong reasons. Otherwise, “Echoes” and “One of These Days”. I also happen to enjoy “A Pillow of Winds” quite a bit.

5) The Piper at the Gates of Dawn

If you came into The Piper at the Gates of Dawn from virtually any other Pink Floyd album (particularly if it’s from the Waters-led era, like The Wall or The Final Cut), you’d probably think you were listening to a completely different band. And in a way, you would be right. This is not the solemn, thought-provoking Pink Floyd you’ve likely come to know and love. What you’re hearing on their debut album is the delightfully disjointed musical style of Syd Barrett, the band’s original creative mastermind. His lyrics weren’t about mental illness, war, or the ills of modern life. Instead, he wrote songs about gnomes, scarecrows, and impressing women with bikes. The Piper at the Gates of Dawn is a uniquely whimsical album – too whimsical, in fact. So whimsical that it frequently veers towards the outskirts of the dreaded uncanny valley before diving right off the deep end in the very last minute of the record.

The Piper at the Gates of Dawn remains Syd Barrett’s most celebrated achievement, arguably Pink Floyd’s most influential record, and a landmark album in the development of psychedelic rock. You can hear its impact on everything from progressive rock (the label usually applied to what the band would later become) to punk and beyond. Its significance is difficult to overstate.

Standout tracks: “Astronomy Domine”, “Flaming”, “Interstellar Overdrive”, and “Bike”. Not that anything stands out as even remotely bad.

4) Wish You Were Here

Wish You Were Here is moving in a way that almost no other record could emulate. The album functions both as a tribute to Syd Barrett and an angry diatribe against the recording industry, who seem to view music as a simple commodity to be bought and sold, and the musicians who create it as mere “investments” rather than human beings. Of the band’s major concept albums, Wish You Were Here is by far the most abstract. It touches on something that is intangible, something that is difficult to describe using words; there’s a certain humanity to what Pink Floyd are attempting to convey. And it is felt on every track, from the melancholic two-part opus “Shine On You Crazy Diamond” to the cold, synthesizer-laden “Welcome to the Machine”. The raw emotion that went into writing and recording every lyric, every guitar chord, every keyboard effect – it is deeply resonant.

Taking everything into consideration, Wish You Were Here is probably the definitive Pink Floyd album and a good introduction to the band. It contains all of the elements that defined their sound during their most successful era: the varied musical influences, the prominent use of synthesizers, the incisive lyrics, and the cohesiveness of their sound. The way the band can shift so seamlessly between wildly different atmospheres – such as the evocative sax solos of “Shine On You Crazy Diamond” segueing into the mechanical rhythm of “Welcome to the Machine”, or the radio-esque transition from “Have a Cigar” to the title track – is impressive. It doesn’t even feel jarring. Everything just flows naturally.

Perhaps most remarkable of all, Wish You Were Here doesn’t feel like a product of its time. This isn’t a plain old relic of 1970s rock music that’s passed its prime. Instead, Wish You Were Here is a classic record that will live on for decades, perhaps even centuries, to come.

Standout tracks: The entire album. It may only contain four songs – “Shine On You Crazy Diamond”, “Welcome to the Machine”, “Have a Cigar”, and “Wish You Were Here” – but each one ranks among the band’s greatest works.

3) The Wall

Bombastic. Bloated. Brechtian. The Wall is probably the most divisive of Pink Floyd’s studio albums. It is either hailed as the band’s creative apex, or derided as the pretentious posturing of its bassist-turned-frontman Roger Waters. Either way, it needs to be stated that this diamond-certified double album was very much a collaborative effort. Waters led the creative process, but Gilmour contributed musically to three of the album’s tracks: “Young Lust”, “Comfortably Numb”, and “Run Like Hell”. No surprise that each of these compositions rank among the band’s greatest and most popular works. Pink Floyd also enlisted the help of producer Bob Ezrin in putting The Wall together (no pun intended), and his contributions were immense – it was Ezrin who recruited the school choir that sang the latter half of “Another Brick in the Wall (Part 2)”, and he was also involved in composing “The Trial”, a fittingly theatrical climax to such a dramatically self-indulgent record.

The Wall is at once absurd, ostentatious, Orwellian in its vision and uncompromising in its execution. The basic synopsis is that it’s a rock opera centered around a rock star named Pink, a man who grows increasingly dispirited with the world around him and decides to construct a metaphorical “wall” separating himself from society. As time wears on, he grows increasingly desperate to reconnect with the people who were once in his life, and is slowly driven insane. Finally, he gets drugged out and turns a rock concert into a Fascist rally where he sics his fans against the “queers” in attendance. You know, more or less what you’d expect to happen. Pink Floyd covers a lot of ground on those two LPs: war, infidelity, domestic abuse, educational abuse, overprotectiveness, mental illness, Nazism, the Holocaust, self-loathing, alienation, and drug-induced hallucinations. They do all this without losing sight of the album’s central theme, which is impressive no matter how you look at it.

If nothing else, nobody could ever argue that The Wall was not an ambitious album. It has attained a level of cultural significance on par with that of The Dark Side of the Moon, and perhaps beyond. There was even a 1982 movie based on it, complete with terrifying imagery and Bob Geldof shaving his eyebrows off. What’s not to like?

Standout tracks: “The Thin Ice” (apart from the baby crying), the entire sequence from “Another Brick in the Wall (Part 1)” through “Another Brick in the Wall (Part 2)” (which I consider to be essentially one song), “Mother”, “Goodbye Blue Sky”, “Empty Spaces” and “Young Lust” played in conjunction with one another, “Hey You”, “Is There Anybody Out There?”, “Nobody Home”, “Vera”, “Comfortably Numb”, “Run Like Hell”, “Waiting for the Worms”, and “The Trial”. “One of My Turns”, “Don’t Leave Me Now”, and “Another Brick in the Wall (Part Three)” are also amazing for when you’re depressed, especially if you’re dealing with a failed relationship. “Bring the Boys Back Home” is magnificent when performed live, preceded by “Vera”.

2) Animals

The darkest and grittiest of all Pink Floyd albums, Animals was released when the world was in the midst of a disco haze and punk rock was spreading across Great Britain like wildfire. Pink Floyd swiftly became a relic of the psychedelic era, the poster boys of popular music marketed towards the lowest common denominator. The irony of this belief was lost on everyone who subscribed to it, but the band themselves took no notice. As usual, they did their own thing and came out with an album so intricate and acerbic as to be inaccessible to many casual listeners.

Most Pink Floyd records have one or two progressive opuses, usually positioned as either an opening or closing track. Animals has exactly three such compositions – “Dogs”, “Pigs (Three Different Ones)”, and “Sheep” – bookended by a simple acoustic piece called “Pigs on the Wing”. Each one of the three main songs are over ten minutes long, with “Dogs” clocking in at over seventeen. What’s more, they each have their own distinctive feel: “Dogs” is chillingly somber, “Pigs” is viciously sarcastic, and “Sheep” is bleak with feigned optimism towards the end. They go together so well that it almost sounds like a single, continuous song. The thing that is most fascinating about Animals is how Roger Waters took George Orwell’s Animal Farm, an allegory to the rise of Stalin in the USSR, and reimagined it as a scathing critique of plutocratic governance in the post-industrial world. It’s almost a complete reversal of the novel’s original meaning, and yet, it’s cut from the same philosophical cloth.

Animals is utterly bereft of what little warmth their other studio albums may have possessed – Dick Parry doesn’t have any sax solos this time around, and there’s no introspective orchestral pieces either. No, Animals is raw, unbridled guitar from start to finish, with plenty of eerie keyboard effects to go around. It’s shrill, uncompromising, and cynical – as grimy and unpalatable as the Battersea Power Station on the front cover. It’s not for everyone, but those who take the time to appreciate Animals for what it is will discover an underappreciated gem of an album that carves out its own special place within the annals of progressive rock.

Standout tracks: The three epics that comprise over 90% of Animals. “Pigs on the Wing” is a decent way to bookend them, but it’s even better when abridged with a guitar solo by Snowy White on the cartridge version of the album.

1) The Dark Side of the Moon

The numbers speak for themselves: 741 consecutive weeks spent on the Billboard 200, the longest duration of any album by far. A total of 45 million certified units sold worldwide, placing it behind only Michael Jackson’s Thriller and AC/DC’s Back in Black as one of the best-selling albums of all time. Nearly every result in a simple Google search for “greatest albums ever made” has The Dark Side of the Moon at or near the top. Its cover art has become so iconic that the mere image of a refracting prism is intrinsically linked to the band.

No one can deny the enormous popularity of The Dark Side of the Moon – it has touched many millions of lives. What’s even more undeniable is the fact that this is an album fully deserving of the praise and admiration it gets. The band is at the top of its game here, from the slide guitar on “Breathe”, to the raunchy sax and guitar solos on “Money” (the former courtesy of Dick Parry, who also performs on “Us and Them”), to the mesmerizing keyboard effects on “Any Colour You Like”. But the show-stopping performance comes from little-known improvisational vocalist Clare Torry on “The Great Gig in the Sky”, whose singing has been the soundtrack to many an orgasm – ironic, seeing as the song is literally about dying. Beyond merely sounding good, The Dark Side of the Moon manages to be at once accessible, relatable, and profound. Who over the ages of 20-25 doesn’t know what it feels like to “miss the starting gun”, as David Gilmour sings on “Time”? What decent human being isn’t disturbed at how the “lines on the map move from side to side” (“Us and Them”), with an emotional detachment typically reserved for things that don’t involve casting people’s lives away? These are things that any casual listener can relate to, but together they convey something greater than the sum of their parts. At its core, it is an album about life and death, a powerful statement on the human condition that will never lose its relevancy.

In short, Pink Floyd’s 1973 breakthrough is a timeless record. It is for this reason and many others that The Dark Side of the Moon takes the #1 spot on this list.

Standout tracks: The entire album. With the possible exception of “Speak to Me” (if you even count it), there is not a single weak track to be found here.

Do you agree with this list? What are your favorite Pink Floyd albums?