BOSTON — You think Pink Floyd is old news?
It’s been 40 years since the legendary rock group released its iconic album “The Wall,” and nearly 50 since they issued the record-breaking “Dark Side of the Moon.”
But fans — and memorabilia collectors — packed Christie’s auction house in New York on Thursday night to bid record amounts for a collection of guitars being sold by David Gilmour, the British band’s guitarist.
A black Fender Stratocaster that Gilmour played for the recording of the two famous albums fetched $3.98 million, and the total collection a hefty $21.5 million. Christie’s said these were the highest prices ever paid at auction for a single guitar, or a collection of musical instruments.
A white Stratocaster belonging to Gilmour sold for $1.8 million. The guitar featured in Gilmour’s famous solo on “Another Brick In The Wall,” a 1955 Gibson Les Paul, sold for $447,000 — about 10 times what had been estimated.
Christie’s said the auction at Rockefeller Center had to be delayed for an hour to accommodate all the fans, and potential bidders, who had turned up to watch.
In total, more than 12,000 people in Los Angeles, New York and London had turned up in recent months to view the collection when it went on tour, and more than 2,000 bidders from 66 countries registered to bid online.
Gilmour has already said he will donate all the proceeds to the charity ClientEarth to help fight climate change.
“The global climate crisis is the greatest challenge that humanity will ever face, and we are within a few years of the effects of global warming being irreversible,” he said in a statement. “I hope that the sale of these guitars will help ClientEarth in their cause to use the law to bring about real change. We need a civilized world that goes on for all our grandchildren and beyond in which these guitars can be played and songs can be sung.”
It’s hard at this distance to explain just how huge Pink Floyd were in the 1970s and early 1980s. Their most famous albums helped redefine the format, mixing sonic experimentation with complex melodies and lyrics. The albums feel like complete stories, to be listened to from start to finish as a piece, instead of as a standard collection of independent songs.
In total, the BBC estimates they may have sold more than 200 million records, making them one of the most commercially successful bands in history. “Dark Side of the Moon” was the best-selling album of its era, and remains in the top five even now, 46 years later. It spent 917 weeks on the Billboard 100, the most ever.
To be sure, plenty also criticized their music and the so-called “progressive rock” genre as pretentious. Pink Floyd albums are the kind where you feel the need to read up afterward to find out what the music was supposed to be about. Johnny Rotten of the Sex Pistols used them as a foil when launching punk. He famously, or infamously, used to wear a T shirt that said simply “I Hate Pink Floyd.”
But nearly 50 years out, they are still turning out the crowds — to the auction house, if not the arena.
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