Inside 'A Saucerful of Pink': The 1995 Tribute That Turned Pink Floyd into Electronic Noise

The 1995 tribute album A Saucerful of Pink was a weird, wonderful beast. Instead of straightforward covers, it handed Pink Floyd songs to experimental and electronic artists and asked them to deconstruct. The most talked-about track is The Dust Brothers’ version of “Set the Controls for the Heart of the Sun” — they turned the spacey original into a glitchy, beat-heavy trip, using samples from the song plus a spoken-word bit from The Wall movie.

Other contributors made the compilation even stranger. Mainframe’s cover of “Astronomy Domine” was a breakbeat rave blowout. The Drum Club turned “Echoes” into a minimalist, dubby drone. The Orb (who had already collaborated with David Gilmour on a remix) gave “Shine On You Crazy Diamond” the ambient treatment. There was also a noisy “Money” by System 7, a Krautrock‑inspired “Careful with That Axe, Eugene” by La Luna, and a trance version of “One of These Days” by Banco de Gaia. The whole thing felt like a lost 1990s warehouse party where everyone was obsessed with Syd Barrett.