News

At the risk of playing “Six Degrees of Floyd,” a couple weeks ago we reported that actor Richard Todd, probably best-known for his role in 1954’s “The Dam Busters,” the film playing on Pink’s TV during the film “Pink Floyd The Wall,” died at age 90.

Now there’s news Peter Jackson plans to remake “The Dam Busters” using new 3-D technology.

The director, most-recently known for bringing “The Lord of the Rings” to the screen, is shooting test footage in 3-D. If the tests prove successful, “Dam Busters” will be his first feature to use the technology.

Christian Rivers, responsible for animation in Jackson’s “King Kong,” will be part of the £24 million project. Stephen Fry will be co-writing the screenplay, adapted from the 1951 Paul Brickhill book.

As we predicted a few weeks ago, Pink Floyd’s venerable “Dark Side of the Moon” album returned to the Billboard 200 chart this week, after a change in the magazine’s methodology forced it off the list in 1988.

“Dark Side” returned for its 742nd week on the chart, appearing at #189. Its last week on the chart was Oct. 8, 1988.

Billboard recently began basing its chart on Nielsen SoundScan sales data, an all-inclusive list that disregards release date. This change was responsible for the album’s return. (Read more about the change in our previous post.)

The album, which debuted on the chart March 17, 1973, is the longest charting album in Billboard history — by far:

1. “Dark Side of the Moon,” Pink Floyd (1973), 742 weeks
2. “Johnny’s Greatest Hits,” Johnny Mathis (1958), 490 weeks
3. “My Fair Lady,” Original Cast (1956), 480 weeks
4. “Highlights From the Phantom of the Opera,” Original Cast (1990), 331 weeks
5. “Tapestry,” Carole King (1971), 302 weeks

Rare footage of Pink Floyd performing during a 1967 TV broadcast of “Top of the Pops” has recently been discovered in an anonymous collector’s stash by archivist Bill Harrison.

The heavily damaged one-inch reel-to-reel tape is from the July 6 and 27, 1967, broadcasts of the British television show. It shows the band, with Syd Barrett, performing “See Emily Play.”

The tape has been restored and will be shown at the British Film Institute (BFI) South Bank’s “Missing Believed Wiped” event to be held Jan. 9 in London. The performance hasn’t been seen since its original broadcast more than 40 years ago.

BFI’s Dick Fiddy told Mojo magazine, ”We gave the tape to the archive boffins. It was in a dreadful condition, with the oxide falling off. The best possible picture quality was recovered.”

BFI curator Steve Bryant said, “This is an enormously significant discovery that will generate huge interest amongst music fans all over the world, even though the surviving material is in poor condition.

“Footage of Pink Floyd from this era is extremely rare.”

BBC footage from the 1960s and ’70s is hard to find because the network often recorded over old tape or simply threw it out.

Music fans in Britain would like to see members of ’70s pop group ABBA reform more than Pink Floyd.

Music licensing firm PRS for Music conducted the poll of 1,500 Britons, which revealed 25 percent wished most for a reunion of Anni-Frid Lyngstad, Bjorn Ulvaeus, Benny Andersson and Agnetha Faltskog —better known as ABBA.

The Police were second in the survey (13 percent), with Floyd tied at number three with The Smiths (11 percent).

Here’s the top 10:

1. ABBA
2. The Police
3. Pink Floyd
4. The Smiths
5. Oasis
6. The Jam
7. Dire Straits
8. The Clash
9. Spice Girls
10. Sex Pistols

ABBA last performed live in 1982.

It looks like Pink Floyd’s seminal 1973 album “Dark Side of the Moon” is set to return to the Billboard Top 200 album chart.

Its return won’t be due to any surge in sales — though the album continues to be one of the most enduring back-catalog titles in the history of rock. Instead, it’ll likely return to the Top 200 next month when Billboard begins basing its chart on Nielsen SoundScan sales data, an all-inclusive list that disregards release date.

“The events of 2009 and the continuing creativity in the repackaging of catalog titles have led us to the conclude that the Billboard 200 would be best served presenting the true best-sellers in the country, without any catalog-related rules or stipulations, to our readers, the media and music fans,” said Silvio Pietroluongo, Billboard’s director of charts, in a statement released yesterday.

In 1988, Billboard changed its chart methodology so older titles were prohibited from returning to the Top 200 after they dipped below #200. As a result, “Dark Side,” which had logged 724 weeks on the chart, came off the Top 200 and started appearing on Billboard’s list of back catalog albums.

The chaos inflicted on Billboard’s charts by the recent re-release of The Beatles catalog and the surge in sales of Michael Jackson‘s albums following his death are believed to be the impetus for the change.

“The ability of consumers to impulsively purchase new or catalog titles electronically has changed music sales behavior,” Pietroluongo added. “There is a more immediate cause and effect between artist exposure and album sales in this day and age, and the Billboard 200 should reflect this activity, regardless of an album’s release date.”

The first issue of Billboard to reflect the change will be published Dec. 5.

News broke last week that The Flaming Lips’ next album will be a re-recording of Pink Floyd’s “The Dark Side of the Moon.”

Last Friday, the band appeared on KCRW’s excellent “Morning Becomes Eclectic” program and spoke at some length about the recording before performing “Eclipse” live in the studio.

You’ll find the Floyd content 28 minutes 30 seconds into the program.

Here’s the segment that WCAX-TV Channel 3 aired last week about Floydian Slip’s return to the FM airwaves.

Shot and edited by Andy Gordon.

Streaming video: Floydian Slip on WCAX-TV

Does anybody here remember Vera Lynn? Apparently so.

Lynn, the World War II-era vocalist immortalized in Roger Waters‘ “Vera” on Pink Floyd’s “The Wall” (1979) is sitting at the top of the UK music charts at age 92.

Her greatest hits compilation “We’ll Meet Again — The Very Best of Vera Lynn” even managed to beat out the flurry of Beatles remasters that hit stores recently.

“I am extremely surprised and delighted, and a big ‘thank you’ to all my fans for putting me there,” Lynn said to the UK Press Association.