The Piper at the Gates of Dawn
Before they were every dorm room’s heroes, The Pink Floyd were young John Peel’s favorite, a paisley bunch of psychedelic punks. More concretely, before David Gilmour, the main songwriter was lunatic genius Syd Barrett, and that cat’s something you can’t explain. The band stretches out the way they would later, sort of. They’re mostly a very exploratory and freaky version of the bands down on the High Street, selling singles and seeing visions in the wake of The Beatles cracking open the heavens. Shit is goofy and elevated and wild and dumb and fantastic.