The former Beatle's seal of approval

Ever since the Seventies, Paul McCartney has kept a close eye on the evolution of Pink Floyd, acknowledging their role in redefining what rock could be, both sonically and in terms of pure performance. The release of “The Dark Side Of The Moon” in 1973 would become a fixed point of reference in his own creative world too, as he recounts in his book “The Lyrics: 1956 to the Present”: “The Pink Floyd made some great records in the Seventies. ‘The Dark Side Of The Moon’ had come out in 1973, and it would have been natural for Wings to do something in that style. Lots of people did”, writes Macca, recognising in that album an all-encompassing experience, able to blend sound, technology and lyrical content into a single flow.

In 1972, while Pink Floyd were starting work on “The Dark Side Of The Moon”, Paul McCartney was in the very same studios working on “Red Rose Speedway”. The Liverpool musician recalled that experience in an interview with Rick Rubin, included in the documentary “McCartney 1, 2, 3”. Sharing the space at Abbey Road Studios with Pink Floyd, he got the chance to hear parts of the record before its release: “Pink Floyd used to come in after us (at Abbey Road) and they'd do all sorts of really interesting experimental stuff. The sound engineers were pretty interchangeable. So whoever worked on their material also worked on ours. He'd play us bits of ‘The Dark Side’”, Paul McCartney recounted.

Decades later, the former Beatle would single out an unlikely heir to the Floydian psychedelic saga of “The Dark Side Of The Moon”: American musician Beck Hansen, with his 2014 album “Morning Phase“. “It was very much like a Pink Floyd album – McCartney would say – I listened to it and thought: ‘This owes a lot to their world’. An extraterrestrial world, so a nice place to go to!”. In other words, McCartney recognises in “Morning Phase” that same ability to build a coherent, rarefied, enveloping sonic space, one where the atmospheric dimension still rests on a solid pop structure.

And he wouldn't be the only one to appreciate “Morning Phase“: in 2015, in fact, Beck's album would go on to win two Grammy Awards, for Album of the Year and Best Rock Album, beating out Beyoncé among others and marking him out as one of the most versatile artists of his generation.

Beyond the obvious musical distance between the Floydian universe and Beck, as the magazine Far Out noted, "the 2014 record is a subdued and melancholy work. In true Floydian fashion, its core remains tied to a well-tested musical grammar: beneath a veneer of abstract studio techniques lies a solid pop structure." This ability to fuse familiar elements with shifting originality and innovative depth is a trait shared by Beck and Pink Floyd, one that McCartney was quick to recognise.

But the mutual admiration between McCartney and Beck wouldn't stay confined to statements. The two would end up sharing a stage at a PETA event at the Hollywood Palladium in Los Angeles, performing "Drive My Car" and "I've Just Seen A Face" together, two tracks from the Beatles' catalogue, as part of a set that also included "Let It Be", "Hey Jude" and "Lady Madonna", plus "Looking For Changes", a song written especially for the occasion.

But it doesn't end there. At the close of 2020, Paul McCartney releases "McCartney III", an album born out of the long isolation of lockdown. The project, initially conceived as a solo effort, expands a few months later: in March 2021 comes "McCartney III Imagined", a collective reworking in which a series of artists take on the original material with different approaches - covers, remixes, collaborations - reshaping its shape and sound. The result is a mosaic of styles spanning rock, pop and funk, entrusted to easily recognisable names such as Josh Homme of Queens of the Stone Age, Ed O'Brien of Radiohead, Damon Albarn and Beck himself. And on 22 July 2021, the video for "Find My Way", in the version remixed by Beck, is unveiled as a world premiere. In the clip, McCartney appears rejuvenated, in an explicit visual callback to the aesthetic of his 1960s debut years.

An encounter that ideally closes a circle: from the lessons of Pink Floyd and "The Dark Side Of The Moon" to their contemporary singer-songwriter reworking in "Morning Phase", right up to the direct recognition between two artists who share the same conception of music.

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05/05/2026