The Final Cut

Pink Floyd

Track	Score
The Post War Dream	1	3
Your Possible Pasts	2	4
One of the Few	2	2
The Hero's Return	2	3
The Gunner's Dream	2	5
Paranoid Eyes	1	4
Get your Filthy Hands off my Desert	1	1
The Fletcher Memorial Home	2	4
Southampton Dock	0	2
The Final cut	2	5
Not Now John	4	5
Two Suns in the Sunset	2	5
Total:	21	43
49%

If you know anything about me, you probably know that I'm not a big Roger Waters fan. Or rather, that I believe the communist fascist son of a feminine dog should burn in the vapours caused by the combustion of his own gastric juices. If you don't already know, Roger Waters was the mastermind behind The Wall. The Wall was a big success, at least in commercial terms. In fact it was so good Roger had decided to release an LP containing the outtakes, i.e. The Final Cut, since whoever was left in the band really couldn't seem to care less at this point. It didn't do nearly as well as The Wall commercially, but how good is it on its own?
The first we hear on this record you can barely hear. It's barely audible radio noise from what i gather. Eventually a brass section starts to play, and then we're greeted with Mr. Waters voice on The Post War dream. And no, his voice isn't good at all, especially when it gets loud. Ruins a perfectly good brass song.
Your Possible pasts starts out nice enough, with a soft guitar. Then it suddenly gets a lot heavier. The instruments work really well, but then the vocals are made even worse by having an echo effect. Another song for the Rush filter I think (which feels strangely apt).
One of the Few has a strange four note guitar sequence which is strangely touching. The whole thing is very chilling, and just short enough to not get old.
Then suddenly we have a George Harrison Indian style song called The Hero's Return. The song is very well composed, and the instruments are played very well. The vocals still mess it up though.
The Gunner's Dream starts off with a bit of a piano piece by Michael Kamen (not Richard Wright), and sort of keeps going the same way for the rest of the song, barring a sax solo by Raphael Ravenscroft (not Dick Perry). Not that the replacement musicians are bad per se, but it doesn't sound quite right. The "hold on to the DREAM" part is rather interesting though.
Paranoid Eyes is where we start to see the dark side of concept albums show up here. Paranoid Eyes you see is a reprise of the Your Possible Pasts, among other songs. Besides that it isn't really very interesting at all.
To finish off the first side of vinyl we have a song with a bit of a pun in the title, Get Your Filthy Hands off my Desert. It's quite a stupid song, and it's meant to be, and it works well.
And starting off the second half of the album there's the Fletcher Memorial Home. It features a distinct lack of the non-Waters parts of the band, with the exception of a guitar solo which is actually rather well conceived. Other than that there's a lot of orchestral parts, and a poorly thought out spoken part.
The next song, Southampton Dock, has no music really, just singing. Hopefully I don't need to explain the problem with that now.
After all of this we finally reach the title track. Unfortunately it's all been there, done that. Perhaps it's the climax of the album conceptually, but musically it's another reprise of Your Possible Pasts.
And then surprisingly we hear David Gilmour's voice. And behind that one of the hardest songs to bear the Pink Floyd name. Despite the obsessive language, Not Now John is perhaps one of the better songs. Until the music suddenly becomes softer and Roger Waters starts singing again. But he doesn't do it too long.
The final song, Two suns in the Sunset, starts off well enough. The drumming is different in this song because it was actually done by Andy Newmark, which makes it stick out from the rest. Unfortunately, this novelty quickly gets boring, as does the rest of the song.
In all honesty, I don't believe this album is as bad as everyone says it is. That isn't to say it's a good album, but it does definitely have enjoyable moments. Don't think it's the wall, because it isn't. It's a lot calmer, and less driven, which is perhaps why it wasn't so commercially successful. It's also rather alienating to some people (myself included) who care to listen to the lyrics. In the end, I wouldn't get this album unless you're a big Roger Waters fan, you need to have the complete Pink Floyd collection, or you're still angry about the Falklands war for some reason.
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