Revolver going over the the dark side

Readers of a nervous disposition are warned that the words "Jethro" and "Tull" will be used in this article, warns Brian Boyd

I bought a Pink Floyd album the other day. Just nine words in that sentence; nine words that can never convey the levels of anguish and guilt involved in the purchase. Nine words that make me feel like a wretched apostate, nine words that were only possible after intensive counselling.

Something had to be done about this paleo-monolith collectively known as The Floyd. Back when it was all fields around here, Pink Floyd were a suitable case for derision. What on earth were these dope-smoking, public schoolboy hippies doing? They released that sort of vague, ethereal, going-nowhere music that made people close their eyes when they were listening to it. They wrote lyrics that could only be described as astral doggerel and dealt in unfathomable abstracts which they probably thought made them look all visionary and interesting but instead gave the rest of us a collective migraine.

Everything they did was a major Sisyphean drama. This was bloated, indulgent, proggy noodling - devoid of meaning and full of the very worst type of art-rock pretension. In the early 1970s they got away with it - but then so would you if the only other music around was Rick Wakeman wibbling on about medieval knights.

Come the latter half of the decade, though, and Floyd's drab, disconnected aural prolix was shunted aside by the short, sharp shock of the punk/new wave movement. "If you can't say it in three minutes, you can't say it at all," and it was off to the trout farm with Messrs Waters, Gilmour, Mason and Wright. The only possibly half-civil thing you could say to them at the time was: "And you even sacked your only talented member".

There was that thing with a Wall or something in the '80s, and then it all seemed to go into a Spinal Tapesque round of lawsuits over who owned the name, and who wrote what 15-minute bass guitar solo.

Years later and you find yourself in Hyde Park watching hit parade imbeciles doing their "I really, really care about poverty" schtick at the Live 8 concert. There are not enough sick bags to go around as you look desperately around for the person who serviced Pete Doherty earlier in the day to service you.

Pink Floyd take to the stage. It's the first time they've played since 1994. Big deal. It's the first time they've played with founding member Roger Waters since 1981. Do I look like I'm bothered? They play four songs. Four coruscatingly wonderful songs. Breathe, Money, Wish You Were Here and Comfortably Numb. Maybe it's the detritus that went before or the altered state of consciousness brought about sitting through Mariah bloody Carey's set, but this is gorgeously layered, textured, inventive stuff.

And it's not just me - everyone is double mad for it (as they say), and everyone smiles at each other when Waters dedicates Wish You Were Here to Syd Barrett. What is going on? My musical world has just tilted on its axis. Better buy an album on the way home.

The best way to approach a Pink Floyd album is to limber up by listening to Radiohead's Kid A first. The next thing to do is turn your signed photograph of Johnny Ramone to the wall (forgive me, Johnny). Finally, be prepared for songs that never, ever end. Honestly, you can put one of their songs on, go out somewhere, come back and it will still be playing.

With trained professional help nearby, I am gingerly working my way through The Floyd's recorded oeuvre. It's far too early in this very delicate process for any comment. One thing, though: if ever you find Revolver offering up a radical revisionist rethink of either Tangerine Dream or Jethro Tull, feel free to come around and kick the shit out of me.

Seriously.