Pink Floyd's Household Objects inspected
Written by Matt   
Friday, 25 October 2013

Household Objects fake coverIn an article in the UK's Classic Rock magazine - as a website exclusive - author Mark Blake (who wrote the great study of Pink Floyd, Pigs Might Fly) takes a good look at the Floyd's great "lost" project - Household Objects.

For those unfamiliar with the project, it was an attempt to record an album using no instruments at all. Instead, as the title implied, implements found around the home were pressed into service to see what sort of sounds they could make, with the idea of using them to create a complete suite of songs.

This turned out to be hugely laborious, and little got completed. These days, the task would be simple with samplers and synthesisers making quick work of the exercise. For the Floyd though, they were stuck with having to do things like stretch elastic bands over cardboard boxes, changing the tensions to get different notes.

As Mark points out in the article, "You can understand the band’s reluctance to attach much importance to Household Objects now. After all, The Dark Side Of The Moon turned 20-something ennui and navel-gazing into big business, and Pink Floyd rightly never looked back again. But the sounds of these plucked elastic bands and scraping broomsticks are the last hurrah for the old Pink Floyd; the one that was young, silly and experimental. “It seemed like a good idea at the time,” said Roger Waters. It was, and it still is."

It's a fascinating article, and you can read it in full through this link where you'll find various pictures - including the fun, imaginary cover to the left, created by a fan, and a video clip.