Pink Floyd
“I hate Pink Floyd.” – Johnny Rotten
“I HATE PINK FLOYD.” – George Starostin
“Duuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuude! Whoooooooooooooooaaaaaaaaaaaa…” – Stoners everywhere
“Yeah, I’ll get Dark Side. It’s on my list. I did finish getting the whole bluegrass tribute to Led Zeppelin, though. You want me to burn you a copy?” – Al
Albums Reviewed:
The Piper At The Gates Of Dawn
Is There Anybody Out There? The Wall: Live 1980-1981
Echoes: The Best Of Pink Floyd
Well, since I’ve already put up splurgetastically positive pages for both Led Zeppelin and Yes, it was only a matter of time before I did the same for Pink Floyd, now wasn’t it? And make no mistake, this one will be just as incredibly positive as the Yes page (though not so much Led Zeppelin, since they’re my favorite band of all time and all). Whether you like them or not, the Floyd was simply one of the most fascinating, creative, interesting, and intelligent bands of the seventies. And, unlike those other two bands, they did it WITHOUT the benefit of overwhelming musical chops. Sure, Dave Gilmour was a damn good guitarist, but he was more a master of texture, and even with that he’s not even in the same ballpark as Jimmy Page or Steve Howe. The other musicians were just average session-level players. Plus, they didn’t have the greatest knack for writing memorable riffs or melodies or whatever either. So WHY are they so good? Well, “stuff.” Pink Floyd were MASTERS of “stuff.” Atmosphere, texture, feel, emotional reaction, sound effects. Whatever. No one before or since has come CLOSE to the Floydsters in the area of “stuff,” and that is why they are one of the best bands of all time. “Stuff.” Good stuff, eh?
The picture above you is of the “classic” Floyd lineup that made all those masterpieces in the seventies, but the band started out in 1967 as an ultra-freaked-out acid-pop combo under the leadership of original singer/songwriter/guitarist/general weirdo Syd Barrett. The band made one album (and an EXCELLENT one at that) before Syd went bonkers from too much LSD, got replaced with Dave Gilmour, and the Floyd lineup everyone who listens to classic rock radio a lot knows and loves took shape. From left to right in your picture, we first have drummer Nick Mason, who really didn’t do anything except drum, and he was never very good at that, to be honest. Dave Gilmour comes second from left. In addition to guitar duty, he also had quite a good singing voice and originally sang most of Floyd’s material, that is until bassist Roger Waters (third from left) decided to completely dominate the band, its music, its ideology, its lyrics, and (eventually) its vocals. While Dave was a more talented singer, Roger was definitely the better of the two at singing with emotion. And they’re both eons better than Geddy Lee, but that goes without saying. On the right is keyboardist Rick Wright, who was a pretty decent songwriter and occasional third vocalist before Roger took over everything and eventually kicked him out of the band around the time of The Wall. Roger could be a dick. But he was a genius, you know!
Though the Roger period is, in my opinion, by far the best of the Floyd output, and you should all go out and get Dark Side Of The Moon, Wish You Were Here, Animals, and The Wall RIGHT NOW, there’s lots of other neat stuff to be found throughout the Floyd discography that you probably don’t know about, but I’ll get to all of that in the reviews. There’s basically four periods you can separate the band into. The all-too-brief Syd period comes first, ofcourse. I call the mess after Syd left and before Roger took over the “wait…what the fuck are we doing?” period, and it’s VERY uneven, but has its moments (Ummagumma!!! And, um…Ummagumma!). The Meddle/Obscured By Clouds duo transitions you into the Roger period, which runs from Dark Side through The Final Cut, and is one of the greatest winning streaks by any band EVER. Then the solo Dave Gilmour period really, really, really, really, really, realllllllllllllly sucks. SUCKS BALLS. It’s not very good.
And, onto the reviews!
The Piper At The Gates Of Dawn (1967)
Rating: 9
Best Song: “Interstellar Overdrive”
If you read my intro (AND YOU BETTER HAVE! I’ll be testing you on it later. Mostly multiple choice, a few short answers, choice of one of two essays. Blue books will be provided. MUST be done in black or blue pen. No red pen. And absolutely NO pencil.), you know that Pink Floyd originally started out as the vehicle for one Syd Barrett. Now, Syd only really lasted for one (and change) albums, but that one album? HOO-boy. It’s really hilarious to think that one of the most famous bands of all-time started as the backing group for Syd’s ten-year-old-on-acid fantasies, but they did! Everything here is solely Syd penned, except for the group-credited instrumental freakouts “Pow R. Toc H.” (*shrugs*) and “Interstellar Overdrive” (*masturbates violently*), as well as “Take Up Thy Stethoscope And Walk,” Roger Waters’ first song ever (!) and an AWFUL tune. Well, the great ones have to start somewhere, don’t they? Give him five or six years. He’ll be fine. Bitter, but fine.
Even with the piece of shit Roger song, though, I still give this record a weak 9, because the Syd stuff is brilliant! These songs all sound like something an innocent little toddler would write if he were tripping on acid for 23 hours a day. They’re charming! Yet NOT QUITE RIGHT. Have you seen the movie Con Air? What! IT’S A GOOD MOVIE! Anyhoo, if you haven’t, there’s a scene where a cute little girl is having a fake tea party with Steve Buscemi in an abandoned pool near an air field. Oh, and Steve Buscemi’s character is an insane child murderer. That and he’s Steve Buscemi, which really is creepy enough by itself. THAT’S what this album is like. Like that scene. It’s cute, charming, and innocent, in a really foreboding, creepy and disturbing way.
Anyway, Syd was close to completely losing his mind from tripping on too much acid, but he could still write a mean song! The opener “Astronomy Domine” might be my favorite non-“Interstellar Overdrive” (*masturbates violently again*) tune on here. It actually sounds different from the rest of the Syd material, with that foreboding guitar riff and the almost chanted “Lime and limpid green…” vocal line. Syd sounds like an adult! Something he most definitely does NOT sound like on anything else here, with his cute little novelty children’s freaky-acid songs about gnomes and scarecrows and make-believe kings and a mouse named Gerald who hasn’t got a house (“DUDE! “Bike” is the coolest song EVER!). OK, I suppose I don’t really like “Chapter 24” all that much (a little boring, nevertheless fine), but the rest is all A-level Syd. Man, he was one cool dude. Too bad he had to go all fucking insane and shit. Although Wish You Were Here could never have been written if he was still in the band then…so I guess I have no point…OK, I’m gonna move onto another paragraph…
Yes! Good songs! With some of the funniest (yet creepy) lyrics ever! Like the “gnome named Grimble Grumble” from “The Gnome” and “YIPPEE! You can’t see me, but I CAN YOU!” from “Flaming (Homosexual).” Just kidding, it’s only “Flaming.” I added that second part in. Because I like the buttsex, you know. Besides the childish lyrics and the rampant buttsex in my asshole, though, the music is just as cool. Syd on guitar is the COMPLETE opposite of Dave Gilmour. Just weird distorted feedback noises and headphone tricks all over the place. And not like the carefully and methodically planned-out tricks on vintage seventies Floyd releases. Completely random headphone tricks that just leave you all discombobulated. Like at the end of “Interstellar Overdrive,” which is REALLY, REALLY, REALLY, REALLY GOOD. It’s just a ten-minute instrumental, but the riff at the start is the best the Floydsters ever wrote (their classic releases never really had “guitar riffs” in the traditional sense). After it goes out, the song is more or less a weird psychedelic trip that’d probably be cooler if I smoked pot, but I don’t, and it’s still cool anyway! Then the riff comes back at the end and starts SWWWWEEEERRRRRRRVVVVIIIINNNGGGG from one headphone to the next and back again until I feel lightheaded. Then it’s over and I collect myself and I go “COOL! LET’S SING ABOUT GNOMES NOW!” Good shit.
Though this album sounds ABSOLUTELY NOTHING like my (and yours too, if you know what’s good for ya!) beloved Classic Seventies Floyd, it’s one fun, catchy, weird, trippy, childish, charming, cute, disturbing document of late-sixties British psychedelic orangutan feces. Notice I didn’t say “chimpanzee feces,” because chimps throw their shit back at you, and I don’t think we want that now, do we?
A Saucerful Of Secrets (1968)
Rating: 7
Best Song: “Set The Controls For The Heart Of The Sun”
See, Syd couldn’t stop taking the acid. He started to go a lil’ nutballs, so the group hired one David Gilmour as another guitarist/lead singer. The plan was, I believe, for Dave to come to the shows and wait backstage until Syd lost his sanity beans while he was performing, then rush on stage, take Syd’s spot and finish the sets. This wasn’t working out too well. Then one day, the other four guys were driving to a show, and decided to just not pick Syd up! AWWWWW! And five years later or so those four young Brits developed into PINK FLOYD, but for now they’re just those guys Syd Barrett used to be in a band with.
Really, for the utter hodgepodge that this is (Syd plays on some tracks, Dave on others, you can try to guess by the guitar work…what seventies Pink Floyd sounds like vs. the complete opposite of that), and as the “transitional” album between the Syd period and the “wait…what the fuck are we doing?” period, this record ain’t half bad! Sure, there’s nothing REMOTELY close in quality to shit like “Astronomy Domine” or “Interstellar Overdrive” or “Lucifer Sam” (never mentioned that one before…MAN, that’s a great song!) on here, but I still like it fine! It IS an interesting little hodgepodge. Half of it sounds like it could be on the debut, and half sounds like the live half of Ummagumma. I know that no one’s probably HEARD the live half of Ummagumma (it rules!), but trust me, those are VERY different things. Roger contributes three of the songs here and seems schizoid himself. “Set The Controls For The Heart Of The Sun” is very much in the Ummagumma “dark, creepy” vein, and REALLY cooks. It’s by far the best tune here. Neat little drum and keyboard work, and understated, almost whispered vocals. Oooooooo, creepy! Roger’s developing as a songwriter! Or so you THINK! Because the other two Roger tunes aren’t as good, though they’re OK. I like “Let There Be More Light” a good bit (great bass intro!), I guess. It’s sort of half way between the “dark, creepy” type and the “childish Syd” type. “Corporal Clegg,” though, is VERY much “childish Syd.” It’s really dumb and stupid like “Take Up Thy Stethoscope And Walk,” but I think I like it more than that one. It really is funny hearing Roger “Sarcastic Depressed Complaining Man” Waters sing “Corporal Clegg! Had a wooden leg!” Oh, wait…Gilmour sings it, nevermind. Fuck it, this early in their career they sound alike, goddammit! And there’s KAZOOS!!!! Hmmm.
The funny thing is, outside of “Set The Controls,” at this stage in their career, Rick Wright might be a better songwriter than Waters. “Remember A Day” and “See Saw” are both definite highlights of this baby, sounding more like Syd songs than dark ones. Whether Rick Wright really WAS a better songwriter than Roger at this point you can debate, I guess, but he was DEFINITELY better at writing light acid-pop Syd-esque tunes than Roger. I guess that makes sense, considering what Roger-dominated Floyd sounds like. That would have to wait for Roger-dominated Floyd, though, because Syd’s still (sorta) here! He DOES get one song on this record, “Jugband Blues,” which would be lost among the Piper shuffle as “just another tune,” but here it’s cool! I like Syd’s songs! Syd was cool! And maybe he could’ve improved the interminably LONG and BORING title track here, where the fabulous Syd-less foursome try to re-make “Interstellar Overdrive” and fall on their collective faces. “Interstellar Overdrive” had STRUCTURE! And ENERGY! And EXCITEMENT! And this 12-minute monstrosity has NONE of these things. The first few minutes are just aimless noise, then Nick Mason (notice I haven’t mentioned him in a review yet…he doesn’t really do anything! He’s not much of a drummer!) starts playing this repeated marching drum-fill thing over dissonant piano clashing and more noise. The end has like a choir in it or something, but to tell you the truth the whole song just seems like twelve minutes of aimless boring noise. The “anti-‘Interstellar Overdrive,’” if you will.
Still a good album, though! Interesting! Trippy! Kinda boring in spots! Very boring in others! Bye bye, Syd! Little do you know the other four schmucks are gonna develop into one of the coolest and most successful bands of all time without you!
More (1969)
Rating: 6
Best Song: “Green Is The Colour”
First, though, they’re gonna write a soundtrack for a French hippie movie no one’s ever seen. And, because it’s a soundtrack, they’re gonna fill it with a lot of boring yet strangely pleasant go-nowhere instrumental things that sound very, for lack of a better word, “soundtrackish.” Just looking at the track listing, you can figure out a great deal of what you’re gonna get on this baby. The “songs” have ever so evocative titles like “Party Sequence,” “More Blues,” “Main Theme,” “A Spanish Piece,” and (OOOOOOOOOOO!) “Dramatic Theme!” Can you FEEL the excitement! In the words of Marv “Sodomite Back-Nibbler” Albert, “YYYYYYYEEEEEESSSSSSSSSS!!!!”
Actually, only about half of this thing is boring instrumental soundtrack music, and much of that is actually pleasant, though, at its core, it’s really nothing more than elevator music. I like the sort of free jazz piano ‘n’ drums on “Up The Khyber,” and stuff like “Main Theme” and “Dramatic Theme” never went and shot anyone’s dog. They’re pleasant! “Party Sequence” is a minute of neat percussion shit that’s either bongos or electronic drums, I dunno which, and “A Spanish Piece” is a minute of Dave Gilmour (oh yeah, Syd’s completely gone now, though you could have probably figured that out from how I ended the last review) playing some fun flamenco guitar licks. No problems there! “Quicksilver” is a piece of shit, however. Sounds like an INCREDIBLY substandard version of “A Saucerful Of Secrets,” which itself sounded like an INCREDIBLY substandard version of “Interstellar Overdrive.” And it’s SEVEN MINUTES LONG! Fuck THAT shit. And “More Blues” is a boring, useless, two-minute rudimentary instrumental blues jam thing. Pink Floyd were never really a blues band, so it passes like the average “soothing” new-age music you might hear in your dentist’s office. Unless your dentist listens to adult schlock-pop like mine, in which case I have two words for him: MY POOP.
There’s some real songs here too, though most of them never really become any more exciting than the instrumentals. I honestly barely ever know that the folky acoustic ballads “Cirrus Minor” and “The Crying Song” are ever PLAYING, they’re so damn quiet. They’re purty though, and Roger wrote both of ‘em! Looking at the writing credits for this record, he’s starting to assert himself a good bit. He takes sole credit on all the actual songs, while the instrumentals are mostly credited to the group as a whole (though Gilmour gets sole credit for “A Spanish Piece,” because, you know, it’s a guitar solo). I like Roger’s sorta folky purty acoustic balladry. It’s nice. What is NOT nice is that he tries to RRRRRRRRRRAWK OUT like some pre-AC/DC AC/DC twice on this record, and both of these tunes (though you could debate they’re the same song, which is what I tend to do) turn out AWFULLY. Ugh. “The Nile Song” and “Ibiza Bar” really are COMPLETE anomalies on this album here. It’s just pleasant, background soundtrack music, drifting along without offending anyone, and then here comes Dave “Bon Scott” Gilmour yelling “I WAS STANDING BY THE NIIIIIIIILE! WHEN I SAW THE LADY SMIIIIIIIIILE!” Horseshit! Stick to pretty stuff, Roger! Like “Green Is The Colour” and “Cymbaline,” which are the only two tracks on this thing that really do anything besides “hmm, oh, that’s nice” for me. The former is GORGEOUS, though a little too quiet and unassuming (like most everything here). The piano work at the end, though it seems overly simple, is some real beautiful stuff. The latter has the only real vocal “hook” on the album, with the “Its hiiiiiiiigh time, Cymbaline!” chorus, but it don’t do so much for me. I’ll take “Green Is The Colour,” thank you!
And then I’ll probably fall asleep. Honestly, except for “Green Is The Color” and “Cymbaline” (for good reasons), as well as “The Nile Song” and “Ibiza Bar” (for VERY BAD reasons), you could listen to this whole record and never actually know it’s there. There’s no real complaints I can make about most of it. It’s just soundtrack music. Nothing more, nothing less. It’s fine. I kinda like it. Eh.
Ummagumma (1969)
Rating: 9
Best Song: “Astronomy Domine”
The
thing about Pink Floyd is that they were REMARKABLY creative and original. Even though during this “wait…what the fuck
are we doing?” period they really had NO IDEA WHATSOEVER what their style was
or what kind of music they wanted to make, they were still awfully
creative. When a band like that is
muddling through such fucked-up times, every now and then something will click
and they’ll churn out an extremely interesting, entertaining, and worthwhile
record, even if they had no fucking idea what they were doing when they made
it. Ummagumma is one of those
records. It’s a double album, half-live
and half-studio, and it really is the
And the live half RULES MY ASS. Just COMPLETELY RULES MY ASS. It consists of four long, dark, meandering thingys (NOT jams, these are carefully planned out) that go nowhere, yet go everywhere, if you follow me. If you don’t, fine, you’ll just have to trust me that they rule. The Floydians take “Astronomy Domine” from Piper, “Set The Controls For The Heart Of The Sun” and “A Saucerful Of Secrets” from Saucerful, and a new tune called (BEST SONG TITLE EVER!) “Careful With That Axe, Eugene,” and turn in forty minutes of some of the tastiest droning avant-garde pseudo-jams you’re likely to hear. “Careful With That Axe, Eugene” is the consensus favorite of the four, and it RULES, just a slow, sort of monotonous (yet always interesting) buildup, before Roger quietly whispers the song’s sole line, “careful with that axe, Eugene…”, and the band builds up a bit more, before the song climaxes with a blood-curdling high-pitched scream from one of the band members (Roger? In dunno). Awesome. Yet I think “Astronomy Domine” is even BETTER, as my favorite conventional “song” from Piper gets the “extended length, extra-creepy” treatment, coming out absolutely FANTASTIC! “Set The Controls” also gets lengthened by an extra three or four minutes and creepified, and “A Saucerful Of Secrets” ALSO, despite blowing in studio, manages to kick ass here. It has ENERGY! And the end of it is ORGASMIC, as, where in the studio a choir chipped in to sing some vocal nonsense, this time one of the Floydsters (I THINK Dave, but don’t hold me to it) fills in on ethereal vocals, and it REALLY works! Much darker and creepier than before. I really dig this live version! I really dig ALL these live versions! Huzzah! Goooooooooooood stuff!
Now, the studio half of the record can’t help but be a letdown (and it is), but it’s still ridiculously interesting. Each band member is given roughly half an LP-side to lay down some solo material, and each of them takes the opportunity to just be as weird, fucked-up, and avant-garde as they possibly can. Rick Wright contributes the four-part “Sisyphus” suite, which takes the award for “most fucked-up for the sake of being fucked-up” on the LP. It’s just a REALLY weird keyboard instrumental, and there’s not much else I can do to describe it, I think. It probably helps to smoke pot. Roger’s contributions are solid stuff, including another folky acoustic ballad, this time the seven-minute “Grantchester Meadows,” whose pleasantness and relaxing spring picnic-time atmosphere are enhanced by birds chirping all over the place. Then at its end a fly gets swatted with a newspaper, and this leads us into the four-minute sound collage (SECOND BEST SONG TITLE EVER!) “Several Species Of Small Furry Animals Gathered Together In A Cave And Grooving With A Pict,” and no, that wasn’t one of my clever re-titlings. That’s what it’s called. Cool! To me, it provides sort of a preview of later Floyd successes, if you follow me. The coolness of all the interlocking weird sounds previews what would make classic Floyd so awesome in the first place, and the goofy Scottish accent Roger uses at the end sounds just like some of the evil characters from The Wall, if indeed that guy at the end is even speaking English. It could be Scots Gaelic, for all I know. Gilmour’s three-part “The Narrow Way” is interesting stuff as well, and the third part is notable because, like, it’s an actual SONG! With vocals and everything! And a pretty one, too! Neat. Then Nick Mason’s hilariously-titled “The Grand Vizier’s Garden Party” is just an “avant-garde” drum solo surrounded by pretty flutes at the beginning and end. It shows, once and for all, that he was just the fucking drummer and couldn’t really do anything. Not that we didn’t know that already.
MAN, is this album weird. I mean, REALLY weird. I like it a LOT, but I can’t really recommend it in the traditional “Dude, it’s a 9! Go get it!” sense, because it’s just so gosh-darn ODD. The live album is the reason to grab it, and it’s MUCH less odd than the incomprehensible studio LP, but even that I’d have trouble giving a normal recommendation for. If you only like, um, “regular” stuff, then you should probably stay away from this record. If, on the other hand, you have a penchant for the weird, the strange, and the “avant-garde” in music, then by ALL means go and get this album today. It RULES!
Mike Noto (thepublicimage79@hotmail.com) writes:
The live half does indeed
rule. I like em all pretty much equally, but
Careful With That Axe, Eugene is so much better than the studio version that
I just have to give it the nod. The high falsetto singing on
Gilmour, and the screaming is Waters. The singing on Saucerful is indeed
Gilmour, and damn, is that intro bassline creepy or what? Good idea, Roger.
All the tracks are long extended semi-jams, but they all are creepy and
cool-as-hell space rock stuff that actually doesn't sound all that dated.
least halfway planned out, but still staggeringly cool. Saucerful is better
here because there's more melody (mostly from the bass), Astronomy sounds
like a different song, and Set The Controls has a huge midsong explosion
which a friend once characterized as "kill the beast music." Great
stuff.
The studio half...hell, the studio half sucks the plaque off my molars. I
dislike most of it. Sysyphus starts off interesting, but degenerates into
pretentious bullshit. Part Four, which resembles Quicksilver off of More, is
interesting, though, as it sounds very much like a theme for a horror movie.
Freaky shit, man. Grantchester Meadows is a nice and soothing folk song,
though overlong, and Several Species of Small Furry Band Members Gathered
Together In a Studio And Smoking Syd Barrett's Nose Hair With A Drunken
Scotsman is shit. The
and Nick Mason finishes the record by getting his wife to play flute for a
minute and then practicing how to play drums. Apparently all the band
members did almost all of the instrumentation themselves on their half-an-LP
space. Waters came up with the idea and wouldn't budge from it. Bad idea,
Roger.
If you slow down Several Species, apparently you can hear Dave and Roger
yelling random shit like "Gimme my guitar!" and "That was pretty
avant-garde, wasn't it?" No joke, apparently they actually say that. So
that's about a B- or so, I don't know. The live half kicks ass.
Atom Heart Mother (1970)
Rating: 6
Best Song: “Summer ‘68”
Well, yup, hmmmm…Pink Floyd still have no idea what the fuck they’re doing. After doing the “avant-garde for the sake of avant-garde” thing on Ummagumma, on this one they try to be, well…I have no fucking idea actually. There’s a twenty-three minute completely-instrumental classical suite, three pop tunes (one each by Roger, Rick, and Dave), and a thirteen-minute sound collage that features a guy eating breakfast. Sure makes sense to me! If by “makes sense,” you mean “does not make any sense at all, not ONE FUCKING IOTA.”
Anyway, why don’t we start with the behemoth title track that is side one, shall we? If the phrase “twenty-three minute classical suite” scares you and makes you doo-doo your hoo-hah’s, just bear with me, and we’ll get to the pop tunes soon, OK? Now, Pink Floyd’s first attempt at a sidelong, well, it’s kinda boring. It’s definitely not their best. That’s for sure. And ofcourse they only made two. So therefore it’s their WORST! HA! I mean, yeah, the first few minutes (subtitled “Father’s Shout”) DEFINITELY rock my socks off with their catchy triumphant horn line tastiness, but after that it gets a little mucky. It’d be cool if this thing had LYRICS, you know, if only because some of the sections (“Breast Milky,” “Funky Dung”) have such insanely hilarious names, one can only wonder what the lyrics to them might sound like. “Oh, your breasts are so milky and white! Let me take them home tonight! And then let’s play in the funky dung! For, baby, you know I’m well-hung!” Oh, and maybe the suite wouldn’t be so fucking boring. That might be another reason to add lyrics. We’ve got some church-choir sections a-la “A Saucerful Of Secrets,” as well as some weird “TAKATIKA!” or something chants a-la Crocodile Dundee IV: Back With The Aborigines, but that’s it. Now, this sidelong DOES have some good stuff going on inside at various parts, some organ breaks, guitar solos, choir parts and a recurrence of that KICK-ASS horn line from “Father’s Shout,” but not enough to justify a twenty-three minute running time. It’s entertaining, to be sure, more so than, say, “A Saucerful Of Secrets” or like half of the More album, and it seemingly has structure, unlike some earlier Floydian freakouts, though it doesn’t have that cool “dark, creepy” vibe they had. It just kinda meanders, I guess, making you sit through minutes upon of completely uneventful “music” to wait for that cool horn line or keyboard trill or guitar solo you so DIG. Not awful, though, and not bad for a twenty-three minute instrumental suite from a band that didn’t really have any musical chops. But good GOD do looooooooooong stretches of it suck donkey dick. My final verdict? “Ehhhhhhh…”
The real meat of the album, then, comes at you with the pop songs on side 2. As I mentioned before, all three members of the band who weren’t Nick Mason get a solo song, and they each make a solid contribution. Roger’s “If” is another uneventful entry in his catalog of REALLY quiet acoustic ballads, and Dave’s “Fat Old Sun” actually sounds REMARKABLY similar to a Roger acoustic thing until the last two minutes, when Nick’s drums and, ofcourse, the two-minute guitar solo kick in. However, Rick’s fun, poppy, happy keyboard/horn pop song “Summer ‘68” VERY much steals the show here. It starts off kinda quiet, with gentle piano and an organ overdub, before the “How do you feel? How do you feel?” chorus comes in and presents us with the most poppy, fun, catchy, and energetic moment laid down on a Floyd’s Pink Penis record since the Syd days! Love those “Ba ba ba ba”’a! Love those horn overdubs! Good stuff.
Oh, then the second half of side 2 is taken up by “Alan’s Psychedelic Breakfast,” a sound collage whose title is an entirely too accurate representation of its content. It’s funny at times, I guess. Like when Alan is chewing his eggs or whatever and having a conversation with some other guy over the morning paper. The last few minutes ARE actual “music,” however, though they just consist of “generic Pink Floyd jamming,” and since Pink Floyd, as stated before, didn’t have much in the way of chops, it’s not very interesting.
Interesting record, though. The ginormous title track isn’t much to look at, but it’s interesting at least, and moments of scrumdiddlyumptious-ness pop up now and then. A few decent acoustic ballads, a NEAT piano pop song, and a guy eating breakfast for thirteen minutes! Um…solid! I guess. This is definitely a higher 6 than More, and I get a fairly high about of entertainment out of this sumbitch, but so much of it just bores me to death, and only one song here can be described as better than “pretty good.” And the fact that there’s a cow on the cover makes no fucking sense whatsoever, by the way. Not that I’m slagging the cow, man. I’m all for the cow. Cool cow. Good, solid cow. It’s a fucking cow, though.
Mike Liva (eavyumble69@hotmail.com) writes:
Well, I guess I get a charge
out of someone acknowledging how good "Summer
'68" is. I think there's more to appreciate in the verse than the chorus,
actually. The lyrics could possibly be construed as arrogant, but are also
wistful (sorry for the Pitchfork word). I really like the titlesuite; it's
not for punks or Top-40 assholes, but come on, this is Floyd. With a little
patience (chemically provided) you could really love this song. "If"
is a
little generic, but so is "Fat Old Sun". I sure do like that solo,
though.
"A. P. B" will satisfy you if you have a pair of headphones (once
again,
this is Floyd), so keep 'em on hand, eh? OK, that's enough of this crap, so
how about an 8/10 and a good nap, huh?
Relics (1971)
Rating: 8
Best Song: “Interstellar Overdrive”
A
compilation of early Pink Floyd goodness, this album’s not gonna get much of a
review from me, since it’s a fucking compilation, but it IS deserving of your
attention and respect, because there’s some cool new stuff to be found! Two famous Syd-era non-LP singles, “Arnold
Layne” and “See Emily Play,” blast you the FUCK out of your chair by reminding
you how fucking COOL Syd Barrett was and recreating that weird “Steve Buscemi
as a serial child murderer having a fake tea party with a young, innocent girl
in the middle of an empty pool by an abandoned air field” feeling that creeped
you out so much on Piper. “Arnold
Layne” is about a transvestite, and I have no idea what “See Emily Play” is
about, though it DOES have the neatest five-second pseudo-harspichord break in
the history of mortal man imbedded in its yumminess. In terms of new stuff, we’ve also got the fun
Rick Wright pop song “Paintbox,” about an alcoholic
(“Drink-a-drink-a-drink-a-drink-a!!!!!”), Roger’s gentle “Julia Dream,” which
isn’t as good as “Paintbox” (remember when Rick was a better songwriter than
Roger? Man, those were good times…), a
studio version of (BEST SONG TITLE EVER!) “Careful With That Axe, Eugene”
(which SUCKS HORSESHIT’S COCK compared to the live Ummagumma version), and Roger’s interestingly goofy
lounge-jazz-pop piece “Biding My Time.”
Winners, all! Oh, no,
wait…winners, five out of six!!!!!!
Now, I’m sure there was other new
stuff lying around the Steven Pinkers could have rounded this album out with
(“Vegetable Man,” for instance, which I STILL have not heard), but nevertheless
they chose to slap on five tracks from previous LP’s to finish it. How’d they choose? Well, mixed-bag-edly. From Piper, they chose
“Interstellar Overdrive” (*masturbates violently*) and the
never-will-cease-to-be-hilarious “Bike.”
Two winners! From Saucerful, they plopped on Wright’s “Remember A Day,” which could’ve been better
(“Set The Controls For The Heart Of The Sun”), but also could’ve been worse
(“Colonel Klink”). Then from More they left off the two songs that actually did JACK-SHIT for me (“Green
Is The Colour” and “Cymbaline”), and instead chose “Cirrus Minor” (eh) and “The
Nile Song” (WHAT THE FUCK IS THAT SHIT?
“I WAS STANDING BY THE NIIIIIIIIIIIIILE” MY ASS!!!!!!). I guess you could say “The
Nile Song” mixes up the mixed bag of this album more than anything else. Because it BLOWS. BLOWS TASTY, DELICIOUS, NUTRITIOUS ARMADILLO
SCHLONG.
All in all, pretty good compilation,
I say.
Meddle (1971)
Rating: 8
Best Song: “Fearless”
Well, 1971 rolled around, and, wouldn’t you
know it, our favorite Floydians finally started to figure out what the fuck they
were doing! This album here, along with
the obscure soundtrack album nobody’s ever heard of that comes after it on my
lovely Pink Floyd page of tasty buttsex, constitutes the second transitional
period in the Floyd catalog, this time between the “wait…what the fuck are we
doing?” period and, ofcourse, the Roger Waters domination period, for which
everyone (including yours truly) knows and loves this band. But this one?
Hey, it’s a pretty darn good album!
REALLY good, even! Cool.
One reason this one seems different
from the last few is that the band is finally working together, and not filling up their LP’s with solo material like on Ummagumma and Atom Heart Mother. The
sound is starting to creep EVER SO CLOSE to that of PINK FLOYD, and though it’s
not quite there yet, I’d characterize this record as the first in Pink’s
“classic string” of six (throw out the soundtrack, it doesn’t count)
albums. The first side starts off with
the drivingest driving rocker the band ever did, the (mostly) instrumental
bass-fest “One Of These Days.” The first
few minutes, before the song’s only line, a distorted and contorted Nick Mason
(!!!???) yelling out “one of these days I’m gonna cut you into little pieces!”,
are SO GODDAMN FUCKING COOL, because, like (except for a few little organ
swells), it’s ALL bass. Double and triple tracked bass emanating from your sexy
speakerphones of love and KICKING YOUR ASS until it’s red and swollen. Rick’s on bass. Dave’s on bass. Roger’s on triple bass. ALL BASS.
Then after the line it turns into a fun keyboard jam that sounds like a
particularly energetic excerpt from Dark
Side Of The Album Everyone Has,
only without the ticking clocks and exploding cash registers. Fun stuff!
The rest of the side provides its share
of interesting moments as well. To
counteract the drivingness and rockingness of “One Of These Days,” the band
throws on two gentle acoustic songs directly afterwards. “A Pillow Of Winds” is pretty structureless,
and sort of drifts along without ever making you realize it’s there, but “Fearless,” which follows it, does NONE of these things. I know “One Of These Days” and that long song
on side two get all the praise but, DANGIT, I wanna give “Fearless” its due. I have no problem with the football (i.e.
soccer for you people with good teeth) fans chanting incoherently to end the
song after the fadeout, and that ascending guitar line these bastards came up
with is fucking catchier than an especially catchy chalupa drowned in salsa and
guacamole. And the vocal melody! “Fearlessly the idiot faced the
croooowwwwwd.
Smiiiiiiiiiiiiliiiiiiing!”
Awesome. I’m taking a stand
here: “Fearless,” and NOT the two songs
that procure the great majority of critical oral sex, is the best damn thing on
Meddle. HA! And the last two tunes on side one are dumb
throwaway fun. “San Tropez” is another
Roger-penned goofy lounge jazz tune in the vein of “Biding My Time,” and
“Seamus” is a generic twelve-bar blues with vocals provided by a constipated
dog. So that’s pretty cool. I like dogs, you know.
Oh, right! There’s another song on here. HOW COULD I FORGET!!!??? The twenty-three minute jizm streak all over
your mother’s face that is “Echoes” takes up alllllll of side two, has been
called “the ultimate Pink Floyd song
ever” by a bunch of college
students that smoke pot, and is very, very, very good. That piano note *ping* *ping* *ping* that
opens the tune is BREATHTAKING, and for my money the single best solitary note
the band ever plastered to tape. The
fact that it has lyrics by ITSELF makes this tune give the “Atom
Heart Mother” suite a good, swift kick in the ass. It’s incredibly well thought-out,
interesting, and trippy.
HOWEVER, I can’t help but think it’s a little overrated. It tends to drift into boring-ness-osity a
few times (especially that music-less chirping seagulls part), and, fuckdammit,
PINK FLOYD NEVER HAD THE CHOPS TO PULL OF A TOP-NOTCH SIDELONG. The fact that they make “Echoes” as fucking
awesome as it is (and it DOES rule) just goes to show how incredibly creative
they were at atmosphere and other intangibles (you know, “STUFF”),
but the fact remains that the sidelongs from, say, Yes, tend to excite me much
much more than “Echoes.” I’ll take
“Close To The Edge” and “The Gates Of Delirium” over it any day of the week
(though NOT the Tales From
Topographic Oceans sidelongs,
those are padded), and it’s because Yes were virtuosos on their instruments,
and just kept packing those tunes to the brim with interesting and exciting
musical ideas. I mean, “Echoes” rules,
and I love that ascending-then-descending bassline, but after TWENTY-THREE
MINUTES it gets a little boring. Still,
I am NOT slagging “Echoes” here. With the
band’s relative lack of playing ability, I don’t know if they ever could have
done any better with a sidelong composition.
Ofcourse, they never tried again (technically, “Shine On You Crazy
Diamond,” though longer, is two songs, and “Dogs” is two minutes short of being
a sidelong…those songs are both better than “Echoes,” by the way…THAT DOESN’T
MEAN “ECHOES” DOESN’T RULE! IT DOES!),
so look at me all-a-speculatin’! Aw,
hell. I think I’ve managed to contradict
myself concerning “Echoes” enough times.
I think I’ll end this review………..
……………….NOW!
SneakthaSlinger@aol.com writes:
You
sir, are FUCKED. "Echoes" is vastly superior to both
"SoYcD" and "Dogs",
oh and just for the record it's also better than "Atom Heart Mother
Suite",
"Saucerful Of Secrets Suite", AND "Interstellar Overdrive".
You simply cannot
beat that part after the "seagulls/crows/whales & dolphins having
sex" section
where the band is slowly, subtly building everything up and you hear the
*ping!*.....*ping!*....*ping!* from the beginning of the song, and as it goes
on &
gets louder, it suddenly changes into *ping!...PONG!*.....*ping!...PONG!* and
HOLY SHIT, it's like playing 2 different notes dude! And then Rick plays
a
simple little keyboard solo, and BOOM!!!!! Dave steps in with the best goddamn
guitar thing he's ever played which clangs & echoes all over the place with
ringing, chiming, high-pitched beautifuckingfulness!!!!
As for the rest of the album, well it's pretty goddamn near perfect. "One
Of
These Days" kicks your butt, "A Pillow Of Winds"(you are FUCKED
concerning
that song too. It RULES, and has a structure too!) caresses it,
"Fearless" rubs
moisturizing lotion all over it, "San Tropez" kisses it,
"Seamus" sniffs
it(cause it's a dog & all. Not because I don't like it. I DO), and
"Echoes"???
FUCKING OWNS IT. My favorite Pink Floyd album by far, a 10, goddammit, a
goddamn
10. I like that word "fuckdammit" though, can I borrow it?
Mike Noto
(thepublicimage79@hotmail.com) writes:
Rick wasn't playing bass on
"one of these days," it was just dave and roger.
This one is good, I give it an 8 or an A minus, and say that all the songs
are great, but they aren't as cool as some of the things the band has done.
Echoes is awesome, though not as bust-your-nut-orgasmatron as everyone says
it is. "One Of These Days" is the best song on here. Bass Madness!!!
(Brad responds:
Someone needs to rent Spinal Tap.)
Obscured By Clouds (1972)
Rating: 7
Best Song: “Wot’s…Uh The Deal”
For those of you who caught the obscure
reference to Spinal Tap in my Meddle review, give yourselves
a good pat on the back! YOU have a
knowledge of useless pop culture! That’s
something we all should have, really.
And your prize? Well, you get to
read a review of this obscure little soundtrack al-OOF! Arrrghhhhhhhhhhhh!! *Grabs head in pained manner*…
Hey, do you think KFC’s still open?
…*Shakes head, looks up in
confusion* DERF! Huh?
Oh…wait, what happened? I blacked
out there for a minute. But, THAT’S HOW
YOU DEBATE!!!!
OK now, moving on, this little
record, I believe, was recorded during a break from the sessions for Dark Side (Is that correct? DAMNED if I
know. I just feel like speculating. I heard it somewhere, I think…) as another
soundtrack for another French hippie film that another group of exactly ZERO
people have ever seen. Just like More, it has its share of boring soundtrack instrumental filler (the title
track, “When You’re In,” “Mudmen,” and WHAT THE FUCK are those Aboriginal chant
things at the end of “Absolutely Curtains?”
Geez…that’s second reference to Aborigines on this page so far. Didn’t see that one coming when I
started). However, more than half of
this sumbitch is thankfully taken up by ACTUAL SONGS. As a bonus, those songs are very good (easily
better than the More actual songs). And they’d better be, since the instrumental
soundtrack music is about 1/10 as interesting as the More stuff.
Still, the songs are cool enough to
bring the rating for this album up to a good, solid 7, and that ain’t no
slouch. “Burning Bridges” is a nice
ballad, and “Stay” is a little corny, but Rick Wright provides the vocals,
which is cool because that’d completely stop FOREVER (almost) pretty soon. “The Gold It’s In The…” is a hard rocker,
and, shockingly, it’s actually GOOD. No
“Nile Song” here, NO sir! It’s so
obscenely optimistic (“Come on my friends let’s make for the hills! They say there’s gold but I’m looking for
thrills!”) that it never fails to put a smile on my face, especially
considering this is the last album for which Roger “Look at me! I’m bitter and sarcastic!” Waters didn’t
write all the lyrics. Plus, like a said,
it’s riff rocker, and the idea of a good Pink Floyd hard
riff rocker is something that should normally sound utterly ridiculous.
As for the rest of the songs…they’re
good! I left the best ones for
last! Why? Because it’s my site and I can do what I
want. Anyway, “Free Four” has a
hilariously-derived title (“one, two, free, four!”), and it’s bouncy and jumpy,
but the lyrics are about death and how short life is (Sound familiar? Hmm…).
“Wot’s…Uh The Deal” is the most gorgeous thing the Floyd The Barbers had
yet to record (though they’d go one better), and “Childhood’s End?” Well, you know what “Childhood’s End”
is? It’s “Time.” No, it doesn’t sound like “Time.” It IS “Time.”
Same sort of spooky buildup intro.
Same drum beat that sounds EXACTLY like a clock ticking. Same tempo.
Same guitar/organ interplay. Same
EVERYTHING. Now, none of these things
are as cool as their counterparts in “Time” (plus there’s no alarm clocks going
off or the coolest drum intro EVER), but, still, it’s like the same goddamn
fucking song!
Ofcourse, that should make sense. Even if I’m wrong
about my “break in the sessions” thing (and I probably am), this IS the last
album the band recorded before, you know, THAT one, and a lot of it sounds like
roughly sketched-out musical ideas that would come to full fruition on, you
know, THAT one. Besides “Childhood’s
End,” I’m mostly talking about the instrumental soundtrack poo on here (come
on, LISTEN to the intro to the title track, and “When You’re In” sounds JUST
like an inferior version of like half the jams on, you know, THAT one). And lyrically you can see the transition too,
as “Wots…Uh The Deal,” “Childhood’s End,” and “Free Four” ALL deal with death,
growing old, the monotonousness of daily life, etc., themes that get expanded a
whole lot on, you know, THAT one. Thus,
for any Pink Floyd fan, this is really a fascinating document, showing the band
RIGHT before they went and made, you know, THAT one.
Now, let’s move onto, you know, THAT
one.
Dark Side Of The Moon (1973)
Rating: 9
Best Song: “Time”
For those of you who caught the obscure
double-reference to Old School (which is the funniest movie I’ve seen in
YEARS and you should all go and see it RIGHT NOW) in my Obscured By Clouds review, give yourselves a good pat on the
back! And your prize? Well, you get to read the 6,878,524,913th
review of Dark Side Of The Moon!
Good for you! OH, HAPPY DAY! HAPPY DAY FOR ALL!
Anyway, I really have no fucking
idea what to write about this album, seeing as everyone in the world has
already listened to it, internalized it, come up with conclusions about it, and
then posted a review of it online. What
should I say? Well, for starters, I can
remind you all that this is the OFFICIAL start of Pink Floyd Mach III: The Roger Years. Though he didn’t completely take over the
musical side of the band for another few albums and the boys mostly work as a
group on this record, this is the first of a string of Pink Floyd records for
which our friend Mr. Roger Waters provides all of the thematic and lyrical content.
And, if you couldn’t guess, he was one PESSIMISTIC SON OF A BITCH. Not that I have a problem with
that, though. I mean, I am too, which
could be why I worship this album and the three that follow it with the kind of
reverence usually reserved for deities and Led Zeppelin. Roger (for a decade, anyway) was one of the
great lyricists and general musical thinkers of our time. And it all starts right here, with Dark Side Of The Moon.
Truthfully, this record isn’t THAT
big of a musical leap from Meddle and the best few songs on Obscured By Clouds, though it is the best set of songs they’d
written to this point. It’s just a
combination of factors working together that makes this album so brilliant
compared to their previous output, and, ofcourse, led to its selling like 10
trillion copies and staying on the Billboard charts for A DECADE. Besides the music and the lyrical content (which
I’ve touched on), the band is finally FOCUSED.
No more crazy sidelong excursions a-la “Echoes” and “Atom Heart Mother”
that would turn off Joe Six-Pack AC/DC fan (not that I’m slagging AC/DC here,
you understand, just a point of comparison).
No more goofy throwaway tracks like “Seamus” or sound collages like
“Alan’s Pyschedelic Breakfast.” Just an
incredibly tight and focused set of well-written tunes that form a lyrical and
thematic whole, something they hadn’t yet managed to accomplish before.
Ofcourse, I leave off the BIGGEST
reason that this record sold so damn well, and that is the “STUFF.” Pink had used “stuff” on their previous
records, but never to this degree, and NO band had EVER so seamlessly integrated
so much “stuff” into their music and not only have it fit and make sense, but,
even better, have it ADD to the music.
The slowly-fading-in heartbeat and frightened screams that open the
album. The 100 alarm clocks going off at
once in “Time.” The 7/4 time-clinking
cash registers in “Money.” The simply
UNMATCHED atmosphere of “The Great Gig In The Sky,” with Clare Torry providing
the best damn vocal ever captured on ANY Pink Floyd song. The ability to make a three-minute
“doodly-doodly” noise (“On The Run”) and a three-minute keyboard jam (“Any
Colour You Like”) absolutely RULE ASS.
The crazy voices popping in and out of both headphones throughout the
ENTIRE album and saying shit like “I don’t know, I was really drunk at the
time,” “I’m not frightened of dying. Any
time will do, I don’t mind,” and “I’m really gonna kill ya.” I said in the intro that Pink Floyd were,
are, and always will be UNDISPUTED masters of “stuff,” and right here is where
I can finally back up that claim.
So, why no 10? Well, it’s a little slow sometimes. It’s so perfectly produced and so
smoooooooooooth that sometimes it’s a little too smooth. Like it’s so smooth, slow, and mellow that it
lulls me to sleep. Try as I might, I
just can’t get QUITE as excited about this one as I do about the next two Floyd
records. It’s still fucking AWESOME,
though. I mean, it’s the most famous
album of all time not by The Beatles for a REASON, y’know?
Oh, and at the end of the record,
after everything’s pretty much faded out, that British guy who’s been popping into
your headphones for the whole record says “There is no dark side of the moon,
really. As a matter of fact, it’s all
dark.” SHIBBY!
Oh, sorry, and by the way, that famed “synchronicity” between Dark Side and The Wizard Of Oz?
Well, that ain’t no hogwash. I
did it once, and it is UNCANNY. Just
insane. There’s no fucking way it’s a
crazy coincidence, as the band members claim.
For instance, “On The Run” corresponds to a scene near the beginning
when Dorothy is running around her farm and talking to people. Boring, right? Well, throughout “On The Run,” those creepy
voices I was talking about pop in and out INCESSANTLY, and they correspond exactly to the dialogue from the movie, like 100% perfectly. And the only female voice in the whole song
pops up like the only time a woman speaks.
Again, 100% in time with the movie.
I won’t mention anything else (OK, one thing, those midgets dancing for
Dorothy doing their steps exactly in time to “Us And Them”). It’s eerie.
Just start the album at the lion’s third roar. Or download a movie file with the album
pre-synched to the movie for you, which is what I did. Er, actually, my roommate did, and then sent
it to me. Either way, COOL STUFF!
Wish You Were Here (1975)
Rating: 10
Best Song: “Wish You Were Here”
And so we continue on quite possibly the
greatest winning streak of the seventies (non-Led Zeppelin category…though,
actually, maybe not…). How does one
follow up the most famous and successful album of all time? Well, Roger was QUITE annoyed at all the
Johnny-come-lately “big fans” of Pink Floyd who didn’t know Syd Barrett from
Marty Barrett (obscure Red Sox reference!), and he was also QUITE annoyed at
all the Johnny-come-lately record company boobs who suddenly thought the band
was the best thing since buttplugs and fawned all over them, and who also
didn’t know Syd Barrett from Marty Barrett (OPENING DAY IN TWO WEEKS! GO NOMAHHHHHH!). And so he squashed these dual themes together
and came out with MY personal Pink Floyd record. Yes, better than Dark Side. Yes, better than The Wall. Yes, better than A Momentary Lapse Of Reason. THIS is where it’s at, my friends. Right here, on this piece. Hell, piece and a half, maybe.
And, concept be damned for a moment,
because it’s all about the SOUND on this album.
It’s not as smooth as Dark
Side, and there are not NEARLY as
many sound effects (elevator noises and squeaky radio sounds are about all you
get), but oh my is this album just produced PERFECTLY for my
oh-so-discriminating ears. The keyboard
textures that Rick Wright splotches all over this thing are just so perfect and
so ORGASMIC, I don’t even know where to begin, so let’s start with sarcastic
attack on the music business #1, “Welcome To The Machine.” Many people tend to HATE this song and call
it a weak link, and, sure, it’s the weakest song on the album, but that doesn’t
mean it’s WEAK! It’s AWESOME! And, like, there’s NO melody. At ALL.
It gets by completely on atmosphere. And WHAT an atmosphere! Personally, I could give a fuck that it’s
supposed to be like “The Inside Of The Machine, Because Record Companies Are
Like Machines. OOOOO!! SCARY!!!”
What I do give a fuck about are those screeching
keyboard blasts that Rick delivers. God,
those are AWESOME. I’ll be listening to
this thing late at night, with my headphones on, and right before those
keyboard blasts come in, I’ll just lean back, close my eyes, and…...yeah. Nice.
Then, ofcourse, there’s sarcastic
attack on the music business #2, “Have A Cigar,” a perfectly PERFECT enjoyable
boogie-rocker sung by one Roy Harper (of “Hats Off To (Roy) Harper” fame, even
though that song SUCKS) because Dave Gilmour didn’t really like the
lyrics. Come on, what’s wrong with “And
did we tell you the name of the game, boy?
We call it riding the gravy traaaaaaaaaiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiin!!!!!” Whatever, it’s not like Roy Harper sounds any
different than the rest of the Floydians.
And in the song, when he goes “Oh, by the way, which one’s Pink?” THAT ACTUALLY HAPPENED! God, record company people are DOUCHES,
aren’t they? Not as big douches as John
Edward, though. He’s the biggest douche
in the universe! He’s even a bigger douche
than a 6-foot tall, walking, talking space-douche! That’s ONE BIG DOUCHE! What’s NOT a douche, though, is the
*WWWWWHHHHHOOOOOOOOOOSSSSSSSSHHH* that ends “Have A Cigar,” which eventually
leads into those squeaky radio noises, which eventually lead into the title
track, which you’ve all heard, and isn’t it like the most beautiful song EVER? “Running over the same old ground, what have
we found? The same old fears. Wish you were here.” Pink Floyd, because Roger Waters was an
overly bitter sarcastic prick (but a genius in his time!), were never all that
sincere, but this song really IS sincere, since it’s Roger’s note to his old
high-school chum Syd, probably whacked out on acid somewhere, going all nuts
and shit, in seclusion, losing his mind…
…AND SHOWING UP IN THE STUDIO DURING
THE RECORDING OF THE ALBUM WITH A TOOTHBRUSH!
Yup, that’s what happened. He was
fat and bald and dirty, and they didn’t even realize it was him for a while,
but it was Syd! That appearance probably
gave a little extra oomph of feeling and sincerity to the whole
proceedings, making the title track indescribably beautiful, and doing the same
for the mindblowing “Shine On You Crazy Diamond” (“SOYCD?” “SoYcD?”
“SYD?” COOL!) suite, broken up
into nine parts, taking up a total of roughly twenty-six minutes, split in two,
and acting as the two very thick loaves of bread in this Pink Floyd album
sandwich, with the other three tunes smooshed into the middle. It’s all incredibly gorgeous (well, except
for Part VIII, a neat boogie keyboard jam), and the first three or four minutes
of the suite (and, therefore, the first three or four minutes of the album),
might be the most beautiful three or four minutes of music I’ve ever
heard. The keyboards slooooowwwwwly
fading in, topped by another synth playing most likely the most beautiful lines
Rick Wright ever came up with, and then, after a few more minutes, those four
notes! “Syd’s theme!” Never have four inconsequential guitar notes,
played in such a way that anyone off the street could pick up an axe and play
them, been so PERFECTLY written, planned and executed. And Roger’s lyrics, like on the title track,
are so beautiful and so heartfelt, and…oh, geez. This album is so good! It’s like a forty-four minute love note to
Syd Barrett! Except for the thirteen
minutes of anti-record company rants!
But those are cool, too!
I’d better stop writing. But I’ll leave you with this: No other Pink Floyd album you’ll find will
give you such a warm and fuzzy feeling as this one here. Actually, to be more exact, no other Pink
Floyd album will give you a warm and fuzzy feeling at ALL. Also, this is probably the greatest “keyboard
texture” album I’ve ever heard. The
soundscapes of “SoYcD.” Those
apocalyptic blasts in “Welcome To The Machine.”
BRILLIANT! Too bad Roger would
kick Rick out in a few years. Oh
well. Man, does this album rule ASS. Get it today.
Mike Noto
(thepublicimage79@hotmail.com) writes:
It's been at least 3 years
since I've listened to this album. It's as good
as I remembered, and still has the same problems that it did. I don't like
"Have A Cigar" as much as I should, as a Floyd fan. But really - I've
heard
better versions of the song the band did on live bootlegs. Where it actually
decides to, you know, Rock, instead of making an Eye-Ronic Approximation of
Bluesy Soft Rock. Cause that's what it is - funny as the lyrics are, the
studio version's just not that appetizing, although I do dig Roger's bass
line and the hard-to-notice flanged/stuttering bass chattering away in the
background (it may be Rick on synth, but it sure sounds like a bass to me).
Roy Harper's vocal is funny, and nails the bored/sleazy studio CEO, but if
I'm not in the mood, he can just be annoying. I would have preferred one of
the band members singing it - apparently Roger's voice was completely shot
after making numerous attempts to put the perfect vocal on both parts of
"Shine On," and Dave hated the lyrics and wouldn't sing them, and
Rick just
didn't have the requisite sneer necessary to put the lyrics across, so they
went to Roy Harper. And the synths are cheesy. Dave made Roger sing it live,
where it's better - well, the version I have of it from the "Animals"
tour
is better - the guitar's actually heavy and distorted, the vocals are
hilarious (Roger sneers and manages the high notes, while Dave sings
completely off-key "pompous exec" backing vocals), it's actually
kinda
funky, and the solo is absolutely on fire. Great stuff.
Fortunately, the rest of the album is completely classic. "Welcome To The
Machine" gets slammed a lot, but I think it's a great commentary on how
most
media imagemongering is b.s., and Rick Wright's synths are arctic and great.
The last time I'd listened to it, I looked outside and suddenly saw a house
burning down, right when Rick rips into the solo after Dave finishes singing
for the last time. It was really scary. And I can't say anything about the
title track and the "Shine On" suite that anyone else hasn't already
said,
except that it's got a ton of heart and Roger actually means it, for once.
It hurts, but it's gorgeous. Absolute brilliance. Even the funky part in
"Shine On" Part 2 is fantastic.
Putting N.W.A. on the prog page is probably the funniest thing you've ever
done. Brilliant.
Animals (1977)
Rating: 10
Best Song: “Sheep”
*SSSSSCCCCCRRRREEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEECH*
That, my friends, is the sound of the
Pink Floyd Winnebago Of Loooooooove doing a COMPLETE 180 from Wish You Were Here and releasing such a dark, pessimistic, and
foreboding album that I can’t help but give it a 10, too, because IT’S
PRACTICALLY ALMOST NEARLY JUST AS GOOD!
Roger had started to take over the band proceedings a bit more on the
last album, but on this one he more or less completely takes over
EVERYTHING. Almost. Dave Gilmour gets a co-writing credit on
“Dogs,” but that’s it. Thankfully, Roger
does let Dave go nuts with all sorts of fun guitar work all over this thing (in
my opinion Dave’s best album with the band), but Rick Wright, after making WYWH so fucking AWESOME, outside of the intros to “Pigs (Three Different
Ones)” and “Sheep,” is shoved out to sideman status, and Nick Mason is still
drumming, and still not doing much else.
But back to the record at hand, and
I have to say that, in terms of cleverness of concept and brilliance of
carrying it out, this is the best Pink Floyd record, HANDS DOWN. Essentially, in quite Orwellian fashion,
Roger has subdivided the entire human race into three species of metaphorical
animals. The dogs are the criminals, the
back-stabbing, money-grubbing, completely immoral cutthroats that feed on the
weak, or, in Roger’s world, the sheep, who are supposed to represent you, me,
and our friends, I guess. Just the
regular people who get robbed, beaten and oppressed by the dogs, while species
#3, the pigs, as the rich, corporate, tax-evading fatcats that currently reside
in the United States Cabinet, watch over all of this from their posh high-rise
offices, bidding the dogs to do their dirty work and laughing all the way to
the piggy-bank. Optimistic, huh?
Good thing the music on this thing
(though very different from WYWH) is so fucking AWESOME! Outside of the three monster tracks which
take up the bulk of the record, Roger bookends this baby with two little
acoustic ballads called “Pigs On The Wing,” which, to me, are supposed to
intimate that there is SOME hope out there, outside of this horribly repressive
musical world that Roger has created.
They’re nice. Good acoustic
strummin’! After the first, the
seventeen-minute “Dogs” comes along and eats all the rest of side 1’s kibble by
itself. The line “You have to be trusted
by the people that you lie to, so that, when they turn their backs on you,
you’ll get the chance to put the knife in!” explains what the dogs are about in
Roger’s world better than anything I could bullshit out. Gilmour actually sings the first half (the
only singing he does on the album…remember when he sang like ALL of Dark Side? Those were good times…), and
his part ends with this “draaaaaagged down by the stone” line, with “stone”
repeated OVER AND OVER for minutes upon minutes until you don’t even realize
it’s there, which is BRILLIANT, but not as brilliant as the music! It’s the only true “multi-part” tune of the
three behemoths on this bitch, and the sections are all brilliant, as Dave
steps to the fore, providing the EXACT right texture at the EXACT right time,
just like Rick did on WYWH, and ending with some neat pseudo-metallic
heavy stuff while Roger sings that “dragged down by the stone” line again. Phew.
*Collects self*
OK, “Pigs (Three Different Ones)” is the most thematically uninteresting
of the songs here, and Roger more or less uses it as an excuse to mock
politicians (and Mary Whitehouse, an elderly British version of Tipper Gore),
but that weird sorta quasi-coughing sound that leeds into the CREEPIEST
KEYBOARD INTRO EVER is neat as FUCK, and there’s so much musical brilliance
here it’s busting out at the seams. The
pig-noises Dave makes with his guitar.
How Roger sings most of the lyrics through a Vocoder to give them that
“dark, chilling” tone. The “creepy
middle part” where the keyboard from the intro recurs, before the song slowly
builds back to its former glory. SWEET
stuff, my man.
And that just leaves my personal
favorite Pink Floyd song of all time, “Sheep.”
After some sheep “baaahhhhh”-ing noises mark the transition between the
two really long songs (not THAT long, though, only like 10 minutes each!), this
sort of faux-peaceful Hammond organ comes in, and you can really picture the
sheep harmlessly grazing on some grass, just lumbering along, suspecting not a whit
that the dogs are about to come and BEAT on them. Then, ofcourse, Roger has to go and fuck up
the peacefulness! “Harmlessly passing
your time in the grassland awaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaayyyyyyyyyyy!!!!!!!”
*B-BOOM!* You know what that *b-boom*
noise is? Oh, only the most brilliant
single thing Pink Floyd ever did in their entire fucking career! See, Roger holds the last note of each line
out forever and ever and ever, until it merges with the synth, and you can’t tell
which is which, and you’re getting all confused, and then *B-BOOM* goes an
apocalyptic Dave Gilmour guitar riff to break it all up. It happens EVERY TIME! “Only dimly aware of a certain unease in the
aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiir!!!!!!!!!” *B-BOOM!*
MAN, that is the shit. After
you’re blown away by this for a bit, the “creepy middle part” comes in, and
guess what you hear? That
“stone…stone…stone…stone…” line from “Dogs!”
They’re coming to attack the sheep!
UH-OH! The songs builds back up
for a bit, with some EXTREMELY purposeful guitar riffing, before it goes
“creepy” again, and Rick Wright, his voice heavily altered, speaks an, ahem,
“modified” version of the Lord’s Prayer, with lines like “He maketh me to hang
on hooks in high places.” Then, the last
lines of the prayer go “Lo, we shall rise up, and then we’ll make the buggars’
eyes water,” leading back into the song, with Roger YELLING “Bleating and
babbling I fell on his neck with a screeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaam!!!!”
*B-BOOM!* It’s the ultimate battle of
good vs. evil! Who will win? Oh, “Have you heard the news? The dogs are dead!” I guess the sheep did. Man, is that line chilling. Then the last two minutes (THE BEST PART OF
THE SONG, if you can believe it) are a triumphant guitar freakout due to the sheep’s
historic, bloody victory over their canine oppressors. Then “Pigs On The Wing (Part 2)” comes in and
calms you down. “And any fool knows a
dog needs a home, a shelter from pigs on the wing.” PHEW.
*Collects self*
Man, is this album the shit. It’s INCREDIBLY dark, disturbing, and
foreboding (especially when you figure out what’s actually going on during
“Sheep,” which took me a while), and it takes a bit of time to get into, but
MAN, IS THIS ALBUM THE SHIT. Actually
their most hard-rocking album ever as well, funnily enough. And Wish You Were Here is even
better! What a band. WHAT!
A! BAND!
nator9999@comcast.net
writes:
Christ,
when will you internet reviewers get OVER this record? It's not that
good!!!!! It doesn't come close to Wish You Were Here, and certainly
nowhere near DSOTM. Hell, even the Wall kicks its ass. First of all, David
Gilmour is not a good guitarist. I don't care what anybody says, his solos are
boring, and not particularly innovative either. This is why the other albums
relied on complex, diverse instrumentation, because Gilmour sucks. This album
is in no way dark. It's their most conventional album, just a bunch of
Gilmour's monotonous, soulless, classic rock guitar lines with Roger Waters
bitching about something over it. Oh, have I mentioned how much i hate Roger
Waters yet? HEY GUYS, GEORGE ORWELL WAS A REALLY CLEVER WRITER, SO MAYBE IF I
BASE THIS ALBUM ON ONE OF HIS BOOKS, I'LL BE CLEVER TOO! AND MAYBE IF I WRITE
OVERLY NIHILISTIC, CYNICAL, AND SICKENINGLY PRETENTIOUS LYRICS, THAT WILL MAKE
THE MUSIC DARK!! AM I COOL OR WHAT?!
God, what an idiot. As if the world needed another album based on Animal
Farm or 1984. If you enjoy this album for the theme and lyrical message, you
truly are a fool. Some of the music is okay, but there's always something that
annoys me in each song (like that annoying 'stone' tape loop in dogs) and it's
not very interesting. Or layered. or well composed. Just standard 70's classic
rock instrumentation with progressive pretensions. Sorry, but if I want
something like this I'll take DSOTM or some King Crimson over Animals any day.
Pedro Andino
(pedroandino@msn.com) writes:
shove it up ya ass!, faggot!.
Mike Noto
(thepublicimage79@hotmail.com) writes:
My favorite Pink Floyd album.
Absolute 10. The one I started with and still
the one with the most impact. Davey plays the best lead guitar of his life
on "Dogs," the best primary rhythm guitar (ka-BRANG!!!) of his life
on
"Sheep," and the best bass guitar of his life on "Pigs (3
different ones)."
Roger wanted to play secondary rhythm guitar on the studio tracks for
"Pigs
(3)" and "Sheep," so he did - foreboding other Gilmour bass
parts on "The
Wall" - but Dave wasn't really taking over the bass on record until around
this point. To clarify, Roger plays bass on "Sheep" as well as the
secondary
rhythm guitar.
Roger sings with an overdose of venom on all the long tracks, plays some
great bass on "Dogs" and especially "Sheep" (that flanged
bass intro is just
evil...and it's just one effects-bent
note...Must...Overcome...Inner
acoustic folk all by himself on the two short tracks (you really need to
hear the version of "Pigs on the Wing" that came out on 8-track - it
connects both Pigs on the Wing 1 and Pigs on the Wing 2 with this
fantabulous guitar solo - I obtained it from the famous music label Bootleg
Records along with this amazing concert bootleg of one of Pink Floyd's best
live performances ever, from the Animals tour - so fucking good).
Rick is taken down a little from the peaks he'd ascended with "Wish You
Were
Here," but he really makes "Dogs," "Pigs," and
"Sheep" with some stellar
playing (especially the "stone" synth-program shit on
"Dogs," the oddly
funky piano on "Pigs (3)" and the electric piano intro on
"Sheep").
Nick contributes the best drumming of his life on the bridge to "Pigs
(3)"
(More Cowbell!!!), and acquits himself with complete competence on all the
other parts of the album.
Floyd was never tighter or better as a musical unit, and Waters' poisonous
lyrics were also peaking. Absolute classic - still blows my mind like it did
in eighth grade.
The Wall (1979)
Rating: 9
Best Song: “One
Of My Turns”
And so we finally come to the band’s “magnum opus.” Their “masterpiece.” As this is to Pink Floyd, Lord Of The Rings is to J.R.R. Tolkein, Citizen
Kane is to Orson Welles, and Dirty Work is to Norm MacDonald. Or so our
good friend Roger Waters would have you believe. What do I think? Well, not so much. They already made their masterpiece two
albums ago, DOOF! It still RULES, and,
just like Dark Side, it’s VERY close to that coveted 10 rating
(so close it can TASTE IT!), but it can’t quite get there. Why?
Well, side 4 is just a bunch of weird Gilbert-and-Sullivan-from-hell
carnival music.
It’s easy to see why Roger believes
this is his splurge to end all splurges, though. Supposedly inspired from an incident on the Animals tour when Roger spit on a fan and was summarily disgusted with himself (or some shit), it’s the story of a young boy named Pink
Floyd (wow, original name…), whose childhood blows (Mother is overbearing! Schoolteachers are MEAN! Daddy got killed in the war!), becomes a rock
star for some reason, and then goes insane, building up a metaphorical “wall”
between himself and his loved ones, the audience, etc. I’m guessing the first part of the story is
autobiographical and the second part is Syd-based. Lyrically, everything is PUUUUUUURE Roger
though!
By that, ofcourse, I mean bitter,
sad, complaining, and generally mean-spirited, with moments of beauty strewn
about, and LOADS of sound effects. Good
fucking LORD. This one blows Dark Side away COMPLETELY in the “stuff” department. Babies a-crying, helicopters a-flying,
schoolmasters a-scolding, TV’s a-smashing, phone calls from Pink’s mother a-not
being accepted (“I don’t know, he just hung up.”), that *sigh* right before
“Mother” starts that is SO emotionally hard-hitting I don’t even know where to
begin, backwards messages to Syd Barrett, that little girl innocently saying
“Look, mummy, there’s an airplane up in the sky!” before “Goodbye Blue
Sky.” You’ll find most of these AMAZING
little catches on the first disc, since the plot of the second revolves
completely around a) Pink sitting alone in his hotel room watching a war movie
(since he still misses his dad and all), b) some sort of weird pseudo-Nazi
rally that erupts at Pink’s concert, and c) “The Trial,” that weird carnival
music I mentioned before, which takes place completely in Pink’s head and, um…it’s
just pretty fucked up. Yeah. A lot of this album is pretty fucked-up. Not in a musical kinda way like Ummagumma, but in a “mess with your head by means of the perfectly-placed sound
effect or musical snatch to elicit a certain emotion at the appropriate time”
kinda way.
The thing is, this album is produced
SO perfectly and SO cleverly and employs SO much cool “stuff,” that you don’t
realize the relative lack of musical merit it has. Gilmour wrote like one or two songs and still
plays guitar (though not NEARLY as interestingly as on Animals), but this is practically a Roger Waters solo album (he fucking KICKED
RICK WRIGHT OUT OF THE BAND, which is funny considering Rick was a better
songwriter than Roger ten years ago, sometime either during or right after the
recording sessions, I forget which), and the lack of group collaboration can be
felt. I mean, a handful of these songs
DO rule ass (“Hey You,” “Mother,” the “Another Brick” / “Happiest Days” medley,
ofcourse “Comfortably Numb”), but there’s so many little connecting songs
(“Empty Spaces,” like half of disc 2) that the album is less a musical experience than a mental one.
My favorite moments on this beee-atch derive more from the mental
picture or sense of the plot I get from the music than the music itself. This is why “Comfortably Numb” rules so much,
with that “there’ll be no more ahhhhhhhhhhh” line and whatnot, but my FAVORITE tune has
to be “One Of My Turns,” which documents Pink’s throwing a nutty at a groupie
that came up to his hotel room to get wined, dined, sixty-nined, and then
fucked in the ass. You hear this
innocent young girl going “Oh my god, are all these your guitars?” and other
shit, and you can tell she’s trying to talk to Pink, but he just keeps ignoring
her in his quasi-insane semi-comatose state of mind, mumbling something about
“love turns grey,” saying he feels “one of my turns coming on,” before BOOM, he
just goes BONKERS. “Don’t be so
frightened! This is just a passing
phase! One of my bad days!!!” Then you hear all sorts of
“smashy-smashy-smashy” noises in the background, and you can just PICTURE Pink
raving around his hotel room like a lunatic while this poor slut who just
wanted to give Pink a good rogering stands there TERRIFIED. I don’t know why I find this image so
cool. I don’t know what it says about
me, and, frankly, I don’t wanna know.
And side 4 is still a bunch of weird Gilbert-and-Sullivan-from-hell
carnival music. Except for “Run Like
Hell,” I guess. That’s a pretty cool
song.
Hey, I’ll be the first to admit
that, without all the “stuff” splattered throughout this record, it wouldn’t be
much to look at. Hell, musically Meddle has more going on. But if any
band can base an album COMPLETELY around atmosphere and sound effects and not
just have it work, but have it RULE MERCILESSLY, Pink Floyd
is that band. And they do a damn good
job of it right here. Get it today! Put on your headphones! It’ll fuck you up.
Oh, and how’s about THIS for the
coolest thing ever! At
the end of the album, after the wall topples (shit, gave away the ending…),
turn up the volume, and this little soft thing called “Outside The Wall” comes
on with its pretty clarinet goodness.
Now, after Roger’s done with his lyrics, turn up the volume some more, and right at the end of the record, you’ll hear a man saying “Isn’t
this where…” Now, leaving the volume
where it is, start disc 1 again, and you’ll hear the same man saying “…we came
in?” Isn’t that like SO FUCKING
COOL!!!!!!!!!!!!!
naterules1992@aol.com writes:
You obviously know very
little about the concepst off the wall. I have some addvice on how to fix that.
1) See the movie. Its not that great, and the alternate song versions suck,
but its watchable and it will help you understand the concept much
better.
2) There is a great site that has a full analyisis of "The Wall" on
it. It over-analysis it a little, but it is still pretty good. The site is http://home.mchsi.com/~ttint/.
Is There Anybody Out There? The Wall: Live 1980-1981 (2000)
Rating: 9
Best Song: “Run
Like Hell”
This record is about as essential as an ass bunion. Nevertheless, I gave The Wall a 9 (and a HIGH 9, mind you), and this album here is basically the same fucking thing, so therefore it gets a 9 too. See, performing The Wall live was quite a task, and, to make sure all the little sound catches that made the studio album so COOL matched up perfectly with the music, they basically play the whole goddamn thing straight through note-for-note. If you love the studio record, you’ll love this one. But, please GOD, don’t get them both unless you can do it for free (Hello me!) or are just THAT BIG of a fan. It’s a waste of time and money. Time and money that could be better spent on high-end Thai mail-order brides.
OK, here are the differences from the studio album: The singing is worse (no surprise, since they had to coordinate the whole visual extravaganza, and Roger and Dave aren’t exactly David Lee Roth in the first place), a handful of songs let Dave solo for a few extra minutes (usually good, but “Comfortably Numb” goes on WAY too long), they add two new tunes that don’t really add anything to anything, and “Outside the Wall” at the end is turned into a real song (with excellent results). Oh, and they change the arrangement of “Mother” enough that it comes out sounding more like “Wish You Were Here” than itself. And “The Show Must Go On” is prettier than its studio counterpart. And the opening to “Run Like Hell” is hilarious (“Are there any WEAK people in the audience???”) and at the end it gets all fucked-up and messy and COOL. Otherwise, it’s the same fucking album, and if that actually seems like a lot of changes to you, remember that The Wall has twenty-six tracks. See? Don’t buy it.
It’s still The Wall, though, so it’s still really, really GOOD, ofcourse. Just utterly needless. I’d hazard to say it’s the most inessential album in the history of the world. Unless you worship Pink Floyd even more than I do (not easy to do!) or have some sort of psychosexual obsession with wanky Dave Gilmour guitar solos, you should NOT spend money on this album under any circumstances. And, I mean, I’m not even gonna type any more. I don’t have any fucking time. I’m about ready to whip up a review of Van Halen 3 (not a very good record, mind you), but I’m just gonna go ahead and post this 25-word review now by itself, because that other review might not get written for another two weeks or something. As long as my Red Sox keep making me spend four hours of every day generally acting like a psychopath I just have NO TIME TO DO ANYTHING. If they make it to the World Series, I think I might fail out of school. I’m dead serious. Ugh.
So, yeah, don’t buy this album.
It’s really good, though.
And GO SOX!!!!!
The Final Cut (1983)
Rating: 8
Best Song: “Paranoid Eyes”
While The Wall was practically a
Roger Waters solo album, this record IS a Roger Waters solo album. It even says so on it: “A requiem for the post war dream, by Roger
Waters, performed by Pink Floyd.” Rick
Wright isn’t even in the group anymore, Dave Gilmour contributes a few crappy
guitar solos he probably layed down in about ten seconds each (as well as
providing (purposefully?) AWFUL vocals for “Not Now John”), and if some studio
hack did more drumming than Nick Mason on the album, I wouldn’t be that
surprised. The musical merit of this
record is the lowest of ANY Pink Floyd album to this point, and a bunch of it
sounds like outtakes from The Wall (which, actually, a bunch of it is). So, you ask, WHY do I give it an 8?
Well, allow me to add myself to the
chorus of “I’m normally not a ‘lyrics guy,’ but, like, it’s the LYRICS,
dude!” Because it really is. Lyrically, this is the best album I’ve ever
heard, and to tell you the truth it’s not even close. And the lyrics BETTER be good, since Roger
mixes himself about fifty times higher than any of the actual fucking
instruments. He returns to the “war
sucks, my daddy died in one” theme that took up a decent chunk of The Wall, and BOY does he do it eloquently.
The first two lines of the album-opening “The Post War Dream” go “Tell
me true, tell me why was Jesus crucified?
Was it for this that daddy died?”
And that pretty much sets the tone for the record as a whole. If you loved side 3 of The Wall, then BABY you’ll be in heaven listening to the slow, monotonous ballads
that all sound the same, all blend together so that you can’t tell when one
song turns into another, and are all interspersed with all sorts of sound
snatches that don’t really do anything interesting (OOOOH! I heard an explosion! I wonder what THAT was! OOOOOH!
People are talking to each other in cockney British accents! They must be soldiers about to get brutally
slaughtered!) float along softly in the background while Roger emotionally
sings some of the best lyrics I’ve yet to hear.
That’s not to say the music is BAD,
though. It’s nice, pleasant background
music, and occasionally it IS beautiful, but, like I said, that’s no reason to
get this album. See, no, it’s the
LYRICS, man! Dude! Buddy!
Duuuuuuuuuude! The
LYYYYYRIIIIIIICS, man! They’re
cool! My favorites come from “Paranoid
Eyes.” “You believed in their stories of
fame, fortune, and glory. Now you’re
lost in a haze of alcohol soft middle age.
The pie in the sky turned out to be miles too high. And you hide, hide, hide behind brown and
mild eyes.” And when Roger whispers
“Sweetheart, sweetheart, are you fast asleep?
Good. That’s the only time that I
can really speak to you” in “The Hero’s Return,” well, Jesus H. Fucking Christ that’s moving. And, YES, I know
I quoted all the same lines Prindle did.
Great minds, man! Great
minds! Or one great mind and one me, in
any case.
A couple of songs miss the mark,
ofcourse. “The Fletcher Memorial Home”
neglects to even have any discernible melody or structure, something the rest
of the album at least manages to accomplish, and is quite content with its
clever, satirical lyrics. The title
track sounds so much like “Comfortably Numb” it makes my
ball-sack itchy and uncomfortable.
That’s not to say it’s a bad song, though. Anything that sounds EXACTLY like
“Comfortably Numb” can’t be that bad!
“Not Now John” is quite possibly one of the worst songs ever written by
mortal man, however, but, since it’s an offensive rocker, has pro-war lyrics,
and Dave sings it, I bet Roger INTENDED for it to suck! Yeah, that’s it…
There’s not much more to say about
this one. Musically, it has very VERY little
to add to the Pink Floyd canon, but it’s pleasant enough background splooch for
the best lyrics Roger ever wrote. I
could do without the saxophone solos though.
No call whatsoever for those. And
“Not Now John” is a flaming piece of shit.
The rest is fully jerk-worthy. If
you like Roger Waters, you’ll probably like this album. If you think he’s a cocksucker, you probably
won’t, and you’ll probably want him to continue sucking all that cock he’s
continually sucking on. I like him,
though. So I like it! And hey, you know what would’ve been
cool? IF THE BAND HADN’T RELEASED ANY
MORE ALBUMS. Yeah. That would’ve been nice.
A Momentary Lapse Of Reason (1987)
Rating: 2
Best Song: “On The Turning Away”
OH FUCK NO! Fuckin’
A, what the fuck is this fucking piece of shit?
Fuck you, Dave Gilmour! FUCK
YOU!!!!!!
For those unfamiliar with Pink Floyd’s history and confused as to how such a sickeningly drastic drop in quality could take place in such a fine band’s output, let me explain. The band parted ways after The Final Cut, basically because no one could stand Roger anymore, and Roger didn’t give a fuck about working with Dave or Nick again. Dave realized no one wants a DAVID GILMOUR SOLO ALBUM though, so he dragged Nick and Rick back to re-form Pink Floyd. Ofcourse, Roger sued, claiming he was Pink Floyd (and he was, it’s like calling The Who “The Who” without Pete Townshend). He lost the case (though he was awarded sole rights over The Wall concept, lyrics, etc., being his “masterpiece” and all), and Dave went and released a David Gilmour solo album under the guise of Pink Floyd. And it SUCKS. HARD. I mean, this is one AWFUL, NAUSEATING, GROTESQUE album.
The opening four minute instrumental (!!!!!!) “Signs Of Life” (*resists urge to make puns about both song title “Signs Of Life” and album title A Momentary Lapse Of Reason*) emulates almost-exactly the keyboard intro section to “Shine On You Crazy Diamond” for its first half, and for its second half rips off EXACTLY, note-for-note, the intro to Yes’s “Roundabout.” The fact that it completely steals its musical ideas from two songs of this caliber and yet still manages to SUCK OPOSSUM VAGINA shows just how much right Dave had dragging the Pink Floyd name through the mud. The rest of side 1 isn’t much to write home about either. “Learning To Fly” was the big hit single, and unlike most of the album it’s at least LISTENABLE, but are you trying to tell me THIS is a good song? I just hear what I hear when I listen to every hit single from 1987. CRAP. Big, booming drums. Fake production. Blech. The fact that it’s the second-best song on the album (it’s kinda catchy) should tell you something right there. “The Dogs Of War” is the worst song to ever be placed on a Pink Floyd album by FAR, with Dave trying to write anti-war lyrics like Roger was so good at but FAILING MISERABLY (“Dogs of war and men of hate! With no cause we don’t discriminate!”), and setting them to odd pseudo-industrial ear torture, in the middle of which he places a FUNKY SAXOPHONE BREAK. It’s as if, upon finishing the record, he thought to himself “Now, where would the most inappropriate place for a sax solo be?” and then put one there. Shite, it is. Awful shite. “One Slip” is the other mid-‘80’s hit single-type song, and again the chorus is kinda catchy, but the verses illustrate a problem Dave seems to have throughout this puppy, and that is the complete inability to write an actual melody. He just mumbles the verse lines like spoken word poetry over his hip, overproduced musical backing, not even singing as much as monotonally declaiming. He’s a pretty good singer, too! JUST WRITE A FUCKING MELODY LINE! IT’S NOT THAT HARD! “On The Turning Away” is the only song I can sorta hesitantly throw a small percentage of my support behind, and sounds like a pleasantly generic Wall/Final Cut-era ballad. Then it goes on about three minutes too long and completely loses my interest. But it’s pleasant, like The Final Cut. Doesn’t have Roger Waters writing lyrics for it, though, so, um, that’s a problem.
Oh, jesus, you want me to talk about side 2 now? DO I HAVE TO????? If I never listen to this twenty-five minute monstrosity of an album side again, I’ll be a happy man. Fuck, fine then, here we go. “Yet Another Movie” is six minutes long, and it’s so boring and useless I’ve listened to this album six times and I still couldn’t tell you what one second of it sounds like, except for the intro, which sounds like “The Dogs Of War.” That’s not a good thing, remember. “Round And Round” is a one-minute instrumental that bears no discernable musical difference from anything else on this side. “A New Machine,” both Parts I and II, is Dave Gilmour going “look at how I can sound scary when my voice sounds like a robot,” and the two parts surround a six minute instrumental (!!!!!!) called “Terminal Frost” that sounds exactly like “Yet Another Movie,” whatever that sounds like. Then “Sorrow” is eight minutes of one ugly, distorted guitar chord that sounds like a cow taking a dump, over which Dave mumbles incoherently, again completely unable to come up with an actual melody line for his lyrics. And that’s it. That’s side two. If the whole thing were to drop off the face of the earth, I don’t think anyone would ever notice. But at least none of it sucks as much as “The Dogs Of War.”
This album
is terrible. I recommend you purchase a
copy at your local record store and then ritualistically burn it at some sort
of funeral pyre used in ancient
Wesley
Gregory (doneloveboomer@hotmail.com) writes:
How
dare you take an album such as Pink Floyd and rate it a 2 or even a four. It is such a monstrosity; it makes me want to
puke. Or how can you live with yourself
after giving that outlandish band Zwan an 8? They are the epitome of shit. The only thing that we do agree on is that
Creed Sucks and that they should get a Tea Bag. IE: My nuts in their mouth.
The Division Bell (1994)
Rating: 4
Best Song: “Coming Back To Life”
First, that is one COOL album cover. Best one since Animals! Second, this is MUCH better than A Momentary Fifty-Minute Pile Of Shit. MUCH, MUCH, MUCH better. Instead of making me want to dry heave, the music on this handjob, with a handful of exceptions (ofcourse, being 66 minutes long…stupid CD era), is quite pleasant, and even ENJOYABLE (!!!!) in places. Dave, for the most part, actually SINGS the lyrics instead of lazily mumbling them incoherently. And, also, the lyrics are ABOUT something, instead of the random gibberish on A Momentary…Aw, Fuck It. The concept is basically a big “FUCK YOU!” to Roger. You can feel real anger in some of the lines, like “Should I sing until I can’t sing anymore? Play these strings until my fingers are raw?” from “What Do You Want From Me?”, “Why did we tell you then you were always the golden boy?” from “Poles Apart,” and, my favorite, “So I open the door to my enemies, and I ask if we could wipe the slate clean, but they tell me to please go fuck myself” from “Lost For Words.” Overall, this is actually, shockingly, a decent, somewhat enjoyable album, if a bit overlong. If I had just picked it up at Newbury Comics, had no idea who “Pink Floyd” was, and stuck it on a miscellaneous review page, I’d give it a 6. A strong 6. However, as you see, that’s not a 6 up there. That’s a 4. WHY is it a 4? Well, for one reason:
This is the biggest self-ripoff in the history of popular music.
Seriously, it’s completely fucking ridiculous. On A Momentary Fist Plunged Up Your Ass, Dave at least TRIED to do something somewhat new (though he did fail MISERABLY, ofcourse). On this one, however, he just plops the classic foursome of Dark Side through The Wall into a blender, mixes, adds a dash of The Final Cut where appropriate, and comes out with this. And it’s not just that everything here sounds like it was written in the mid-‘70’s. No, see, Dave spends most of this record ripping off SPECIFIC SONGS from the Floyd heyday, i.e. the Roger dominated period. So he’s skewering Roger while imitating to a TEE the music Floyd produced when Roger was the dominant force (and, in the end, the ONLY force). Fucking dickwad. I mean, it’s so fucking blatant. The main enjoyment I get out of this album is playing “spot the ripoff.” It’s fun. You should try it sometime. Really. I drop the record’s rating TWO WHOLE POINTS because of the self-ripoff factor.
Examples? Sure! OK. For starters, the opening instrumental “Cluster One” tries desperately to emulate the guitar part of the intro to “Shine On” but fails pathetically, just like the last album. At least they don’t try to rip off Yes this time, though. “What Do You Want From Me?” IS “Have A Cigar.” I mean, it’s the same fucking song. “Poles Apart” sounds like a medley of all the ballads from The Wall, specifically ripping off “Hey You” (the “hey you” line, ofcourse) and “Goodbye Blue Sky” (the “golden boy” line is a replica of Roger’s “did you ever wonder why we had to run for shelter” line). “A Great Day For Freedom” actually sounds exactly like something from The Final Cut, which is odd considering the circumstances under which that album was recorded. “Lost For Words” is a blatant “Wish You Were Here” rewrite. “Keep Talking,” which is a flaming piece of shit by itself, by the way, is a veritable cornucopia (Harvard word!) of shit, discounting ofcourse the STEPHEN HAWKING sample (I kid you not). There’s the guitar tone straight out of “Another Brick In The Wall (Part 2),” completely fucking out-of-place pig-noise guitar solos from “Pigs (Three Different Ones),” female backup singers from “Not Now John” and like ten other songs…ugh.
OK, not EVERYTHING can be pinpointed to a specific seventies-Floyd song, but all the remaining material still gives off a putrid “recorded twenty years too late” vibe or, even worse, sounds like something from A Momentary Explosion Of POOP!!!! Concerning the latter, I’m speaking of the stupid, awful, hideous closer “High Hopes,” the only song on this record where Dave reverts to his “mumble the lyrics incoherently without actually writing a melody line” singing technique he employed oh so CRAPPILY on A Momentary Passing Of A Kidney Stone. Bullshit. “Marooned” sucks ass as well, just being a five-minute instrumental that doesn’t really go anywhere, because Dave doesn’t really know what he’s doing. Rick Wright provides the vocals for “Wearing The Inside Out,” which is a nice little novelty (first real vocals since Dark Side!!!!) for about thirty seconds, until you realize the song is seven minutes long and never stops boring the shit out of you. But, hey, you know what? There’s two neat pop songs that come after it! “Take It Back” is solid, I think, and its intro sounds exactly like the intro to U2’s “Where The Streets Have No Name,” so that’s cool. “Coming Back To Life” doesn’t really sound like anything specific, though the cowbell (I’ve got a disease…and the only cure is MORE COWBELL!!!!!!!!!!!) reminds me vaguely of “Pigs (Three Different Ones),” but it’s not like I’m gonna accuse something of being a ripoff just because both songs have a fucking COWBELL in them. It’s a pretty song! And catchy! I like it!
There are some other very nice songs here, but I already mentioned them as blatant ripoffs (“What Do You Want From Me?” and “Lost For Words” are both quite good songs by themselves), and, except for “Keep Talking” and “High Hopes,” the album is quite a pleasant listen, as I mentioned before I started tearing into it. But, fuckdammit, it’s just too much of a ripoff for me. It rubs my penis the wrong way. It’s all chafed up now. I can’t even beat off. Fucking Dave Gilmour. Thank GOD this is the last Pink Floyd studio record (I assume he’s not gonna drag Nick and Rick back into the studio again…I mean, what are they now, like 90?). This record’s a LOT better than the other Dave album, but I’d still recommend you get it under its original titles, Dark Side Of The Moon, Wish You Were Here, Animals, and The Wall.
Echoes: The Best Of Pink Floyd
(2001)
Rating: 9
Best Song: “Sheep”
Normally, I don’t go around buying compilations for bands from whom I already have lots of albums, but in my defense, I DID purchase this while I only had about half of Floyd’s discography and before the idea for this little website popped into my head (and thus the motivation to get the rest). So, since I have the damn thing, I might as well review it, right? Right. Well, though the idea of a “Pink Floyd greatest hits” album should sound weird to you, I hope (What the fuck would “One Of My Turns” sound like out of context? Just a half-decent rocker with nothing else redeemable, that’s what!), Roger and Dave (who communicated about track selection through an intermediary since they don’t talk anymore…I just think that’s funny, don’t you?) actually make a pretty nice compilation here. I appreciate the ideas of both a non-chronological track listing and blending the songs into one another, giving you nonsensical shit like “Learning To Fly” segueing into “Arnold Layne” and whatnot. The cover art is neat as FUCK, and playing “spot the album art” is a fun time (Oh! There’s the prism from Dark Side! Oh! There’s the pig from Animals, on the windowsill there!). The liner notes are also SUPERB and incredibly detailed, and the remixed production is EXCELLENT. I listened to this thing when I first got it and the sound of it just TOTALLY blew me a way. Awesome. Whoever remixed the tracks and segued them together for this bitch gets a special blowjob from Dave Haddow’s mom. MAN, she’s a slut. I fucked her last night, you know, just REPEATEDLY in the ass. I was exhausted at the end, but when I left there were STILL about fifteen other guys there waiting for sloppy twentieths. Including Pat Von Rickenbach.
Anyway, in terms of the actual SONGS, being a Pink Floyd compilation that covers their ENTIRE career (even the shit), there’s bound to be some missteps. The only new song included is “When The Tigers Broke Free,” which was only on The Wall movie soundtrack previously, and sorta stinks, so for hardcore fans who have everything there’s really no reason to buy this thing at all. And some of the song choices are mystifying. I’m fine with the heavy emphasis on the radio standards from Dark Side and The Wall here, and the selections from my two favorite Floyd records (an edited (Parts I-VII) and segued-together version of “Shine On” and the title track from WYWH and “Sheep” from Animals) are fine by me. The stuff from after this golden run of awesomeness leaves me scratching my cock-and-balls, though. “The Fletcher Memorial Home” from The Final Cut?? Couldn’t you have included something better, like EVERYTHING ON THE RECORD (except “Not Now John”)???? And FIVE SONGS FROM FLOYD MACH IV!!!!!?????? ARE YOU FUCKING KIDDING ME!!!!!??? “Learning To Fly?” Fine. But why is “Sorrow” there too? That song is unlistenable!!!!!! And THREE songs from The Division Bell? Fuckin’ A. And look at what they are! “Marooned,” “Keep Talking,” and “High Hopes!” The three worst songs on the whole goddamn album! Ugh. You know, if you limit each of the Dave records to one song each and lop off “Sorrow,” “Marooned,” (which is edited down to two minutes…what the fuck is it even DOING here?) and “High Hopes” (fine, we’ll leave “Keep Talking,” despite its suckitude), you could replace them with “Interstellar Overdrive” (CRIMINALLY absent here) and “Summer ’68!!!” And if you then lop off “Bike” because you don’t want more than two songs from the debut album, you could probably squeeze “Wot’s…Uh The Deal” on there too! See how smart I am! God, solo-Dave Floyd blows.
However,
despite there being TOOOOOOOO much material from the last two albums, this is
still an excellent, well-produced, superbly-packaged compilation. That doesn’t mean you shouldn’t still get the
full albums, though. You should. They rule.
Plus everything from Dark Side onward loses a
Oh, and some have complained that seven minutes was edited from “Echoes” to fit it on here. To those people, I say “please, go stick a gerbil up your ass like Richard Gere.” It’s an AWESOME song, ofcourse, but losing seven minutes of uneventful atmospheric dicking isn’t gonna kill it. Plus, they can use that time to add “High Hopes!” YEAH!!!!