On some Pink Floyd record labels, the band is referred to as The Pink Floyd.
On a Mexican release:
On a Brazilian release:
I didn't include all the occurrences, but it seems to happen in Latin speaking countries... is there a reason for this?
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1i like it. The great band - The Pink Floyd. How about single artists? The Michael Jackson, The Jon Lord. Oh, that's so beautiful.– SovereignSunMar 3, 2017 at 17:17
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2Isn't this obvious? To distinguish themselves from all the other Pink Floyds.– Jason P SallingerApr 4, 2017 at 18:17
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because it is only thing in the world.– Sanzeeb AryalAug 14, 2018 at 14:34
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1 Answer
If you look at the band's early history, Pink Floyd was originally called "the Pink Floyd Sound" until some time in 1966 when one of their manager's, Peter Jenner, suggested that they drop "Sound" from their name to become "the Pink Floyd". And if you look at the covers of their first few singles ("Arnold Layne", "See Emily Play", "Apples And Oranges", all from 1967) the band is listed as "The Pink Floyd" on all of them, including those released in the UK and other English speaking countries. It wasn't until 1968 with the release of their single "It Would Be So Nice" that they were listed as "Pink Floyd", though their album The Piper at the Gates of Dawn was released under the "Pink Floyd" name.
As for why the band continued to be listed at "The Pink Floyd" on some releases, that's a bit harder to track down. Discogs luckily has a way to view all Pink Floyd releases that were released under the band name "The Pink Floyd". It seems like the last album released in some places under the band name "The Pink Floyd" was Atom Heart Mother (though one version of Dark Side of the Moon listed the artist as "Pink Floyd" and the producer as "The Pink Floyd"). Perhaps they didn't get the memo of the band name change? Or maybe they didn't want to confuse record buyers?
I should note though that they're not the only artist whose named varied between having a "The" and no "The" between the releases:
- Red Hot Chili Peppers released their first few albums as The Red Hot Chili Peppers and then randomly added back the "The" for One Hot Minute.
- The Jackson 5 was listed as Jackson 5 on various releases non-US releases.
- Four Tops were occasionally listed as The Four Tops, sometimes even on their US Motown releases.
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2Many bands now known by single names were earlier referred to with 'the' first. Examples include: The Beatles, The Rolling Stones, The Jethro Tull. It seems back in the 60s this was just a thing ! Mar 3, 2017 at 7:57
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One of the older recording of Jethro Tull, when they were doing a 'session' for (I think) the BBC, they announced them as 'the Jethro Tull'. Mar 5, 2017 at 9:02