We were recently made aware of an ambitious website, 500songs.com - A History of Rock Music in 500 Songs. This podcast series, available either via the website itself, or via Spotify, Apple Music, etc., looks to take a deep dive into key pieces of music.

This brings us to episode 157, which takes a good look at See Emily Play. It gives a 74 minute analysis of the song, and the development of Pink Floyd in those early days.

Our thanks to Martin Lawson for letting us know about this interesting episode, which you can hear in full here:

With the end of the year looming, it's a good time to look back at what 2024 gave us.

There's been a lot of different releases that we've all experienced over the months, and it is interesting to look back at what there's been in a busy year. In March there was the Mark Knopfler's Guitar Heroes release of Going Home (Theme From Local Hero), which included David Gilmour amongst around 60 musicians.

April saw the lovely looking crystal clear vinyl of The Dark Side Of The Moon, with UV artwork. Later that month, Roger Waters released a picture disc of his Redux version of TDSOTM as part of Record Store Day.

May brought us the Animals 2018 Remix on Blu-ray and on digital platforms, bringing the 1977 album to life in multi channel gloriousness. This was presented with new artwork from the launch of the Animals 2018 remix, showing how Battersea Power Station is used these days for such promotions.

June saw the start of the 35-date Set The Controls tour from Nick Mason's Saucerful Of Secrets, thrilling audiences in the UK and Europe, and getting better and better as a band. Let's hope that there's more next year!

The DVD, Blu-ray and digital release of Have You Got It Yet? The Story Of Syd Barrett and Pink Floyd was released in July, following the 2023 cinema screenings.

Of course, in September, we saw the release of the hotly anticipated Luck And Strange from David Gilmour, which was accompanied from later that month with live shows in Brighton and London, England, Rome, Italy, Los Angeles and New York, USA. Dates in Rome were filmed with the aim to release at some point, and once we have details of that, we'll let you know! David also contributed a guitar solo for Ice-T's band Body Count on their cover version of Comfortably Numb (a very unexpected collaboration!). David's team have also edited together footage from each city of the tour to construct a live version of The Piper's Call, released as a pre-Christmas treat.

Finally, to conclude the year, there's been another release of a bunch of live Pink Floyd concerts to be found on platforms such as Spotify for a limited period. There's thirteen gigs in total, all from 1974, and definitely worth checking out...

Out as a special, pre-Christmas surprise today is David Gilmour's The Piper's Call Live Around The World, recorded at The Brighton Centre, Rome's Circus Maximus, London's Royal Albert Hall, LA's Intuit Dome and NYC's Madison Square Garden. So, elements taken from each city that was lucky enough to get dates on David's 2024 tour.

You can stream or download the song at the various normal places, such as Apple Music, Spotify, Amazon Music, iTunes Store, etc.

The song was edited together by Charlie Andrew and Matt Glasbey to form one seamless track recorded throughout the Luck and Strange tour. The video below premieres today (Friday, 13th December) at 4pm GMT / 5pm CET / 11am ET / 8am PT:

Just published on YouTube is a new interview with David Gilmour, conducted by Rick Beato during the Madison Square Garden concerts in New York City. The nearly hour-long chat with David finds him in expansive mood, explaining how the new album, Luck and Strange, came together and he also talks about the recent concerts.

Nick Mason and his wife Annette are supporting the UK's National Youth Theatre in their current Greatest Gift Auction, which runs until 10pm (UK time) on November 26th, 2024.

The auction is offering incredible experiences and prizes to provide bursaries & life-changing creative opportunities for young people across the UK. The National Youth Theatre is a pioneering youth arts charity engaging thousands of young people aged 11- 30 around the UK every year in their creative and personal development. Your support will help ensure that young people from all backgrounds have access to the transformative power of the arts.

Nick and Annette have contributed two lots to the auction:

• Signed Pink Floyd vinyl collection - a set of ten Pink Floyd remaster and reissue albums (all on heavyweight vinyl) as follows: More, Ummagumma, Atom Heart Mother, Meddle, Obscured By Clouds, The Dark Side Of The Moon (UV edition), Animals (2018 edition), The Wall, The Division Bell, and The Endless River.
• Signed Pink Floyd drum heads and drum sticks - A framed and signed pair of limited edition, hand finished screen-printed Remo drum heads ‘Star Head’ (from an edition of just 10) paired with limited edition signed Promark drumsticks. These drum head prints are direct copies of these famous painted drumheads used during Pink Floyd’s tours in the early 1970s. Printing was supervised by the late artist Kate Hepburn and Matthew Rich of Jealous Print Studio, London.

Visit nyt.org.uk/auction to see details of all the lots, and place your bids!

With David Gilmour concluding his 2024 Luck and Strange concert dates with a string of incredible shows at New York City's Madison Square Garden, in the heart of Manhattan (tonight seeing the final show), he took time out this week during a gap between shows to appear on US TV's The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon.

For those who missed the late evening (in New York, anyway) broadcast of the show, they've put the interview segment online, which we share here. The performance saw David with his backing singers Louise Marshall, the Webb Sisters, and Romany Gilmour, alongside Fallon's house band.