Pink Floyd plans to rake in their provident fund

As a pink paper with a readership that loves the opening bars of the song, ‘Money’, with its cash registering chi-chinging with apparent irony, we would like to think we have a divine right to comment about anything Pink Floyd. Turns out, the band that gave us unending guitar solos and broody feelings that start with ‘Hello? Hello? Hello? Is anybody in there?’ has put up its back catalogue for sale. Asking price: £400 million. Or, as the late Bappi Lahiri would have called it, Rs 3,783 crore.

Bidders include music companies like Sony, BMG and

, who frankly sound as much classic rock (read: mood muzak for boomers) as PF, as well as investment firm Blackstone. Speaking of provident fund, back catalogues are a sure signal that there is no quality output left in a band. Blackstone owns the back catalogues of Leonard Cohen and Justin Timberlake. Q.E.D. The firm probably wants to use ‘We don’t want no education’ – the double negative officially the coolest thing about Pink Floyd – as its company ringtone, the cheapest way for middle-of-the-road middle-agers to think they are edgy. For a band that invented woke with ‘Comfortably Numb’, whoever does buy the music rights must think of it as a weapon. Listening to the needlessly operatic ‘Shine On You Crazy Diamond’ can force shareholders to forgive any corporate governance trespass. Chi-ching.