RADAR
ROCK MUSIC doesn’t have much need for museums. The music either lives in our heads or it doesn’t. Some rock bands, however, are great stories. Museums are ideally placed to tell these stories, particularly if the band was, like Pink Floyd, farsighted enough to squirrel away its relics as it went along. Not all of them did. The most memorable part of a recent Rolling Stones’ exhibition was their noisome 1960s flat in Edith Grove, which had to be simulated.
It’s 50 years since Pink Floyd’s first album, so the imminent display of “Their Mortal Remains” at London’s Victoria and Albert Museum qualifies on historical grounds. The equipment on which the band members played and recorded is as attractively heavy and soulful to modern eyes as the ironmongery of Isambard Kingdom Brunel, so it’s ideal for an exhibition.