Pink Floyd Thread

[iron yuppie]

Originally Posted by liamcool

Alan's Psychedelic Breakfast is Pink Floyd at their most pastoral and folky - unlike the dark psychedelia of songs like Julia Dream or Cirrus Minor or the paranoia of If and Fearless, it's major key and hopeful. It exposes a lot of the folkier influences of their music, like Pete Seeger and The Kinks, in a manner that none of the rest of their music does, and for that reason it's worthwhile.

That's a good point, and one that hits at my biases about Floyd a bit. Of the many, many things they did well, pastoralism isn't one of them IMO. Run alongside the back half of Led Zeppelin III, for example, the folkiness of AHM sounds downright amateurish.

[iron yuppie]

Regarding studio Ummagumma, I have a hard time seeing it as anything other then the band actively testing their audience's patience. I admire the moxy in that to an extent, but it doesn't make for a terribly rewarding listening experience.

You can see they had plenty of ability to put together songs with more replay value during that period by the existence of Embryo, which is the best track to emerge from the entire Ummagumma-AHM era.

[LemonMelon]

Summer '68 and Cymbaline are the best songs of the post-Syd Barrett, pre-Meddle era. Both might honestly be top 10 for me as far as the band goes.

[iron yuppie]

I wasn't counting More in the post above, just to be clear. If I were, Cirrus Minor is easily my favorite song of Post-Syd Pre-Meddle Floyd.

[LemonMelon]

I've always had a fondness for More. A lot of blatantly obvious filler material in there, but it captures a very palpable atmosphere and sense of place. It's very good as a soundtrack. Cirrus Minor, Cymbaline, Green Is the Colour and Nile Song/Ibiza Bar stand strong on their own.

[cobl04]

Originally Posted by bono_212

I just can't even... I already knew about Cobl's weird ass love of Vera, but seeing it beside his calling Young Lust their worst song and I'm just dumbfounded.

What do people not like about it? Is it because it's short? I love the strings and the earnestness and emotion in Waters' voice. It's so lovely, particularly the second verse.

It seems The Wall fans are getting a bit testy here, so I'll just throw a couple more bombs before I talk some good. It all falls to absolute shit after Run Like Hell. The last 10 or so minutes are garbage, and that's mostly thanks to the story taking precedence over the music. The Trial is well up there in 'Pink Floyd Worst Song' discussions. How anyone could enjoy that outside of the context of the album, heck even within the context of the album, is beyond me. The "waiting ... waiting" dirge in Waiting for the Worms is horrendous. Stop and Outside the Wall are nothing, really.

But there is a lot of good on The Wall. Imagine being David Gilmour, waking up every morning and thinking to yourself, "I wrote the solos in Comfortably Numb". I mean, fuck me. An all-time all-music towering achievement. The album starts so very well, In the Flesh? fucking rules and the Brick-Happiest Days-Brick suite is fantastic. Mother is a great song that can stand on its own. One of My Turns is a great song, once it kicks in awesome two-thirds of the way in. I don't consider Don't Leave Me Now to be so bad, but it's a bit annoying coming after One of My Turns as they're essentially the same song, same structure. Hey You is another brilliant song that can stand on its own. Nobody Home is beautiful. You get another In the Flesh. (Which I'm just listening to now, and holy shit, how popular is that chord sequence that comes in after the intro? U2 used it on Love Rescue Me)

Also it's easier to shit on The Wall when you haven't heard all their albums. Maybe Ummagumma is a steaming pile of shit, I don't know, I haven't heard it. Mostly because everyone says it sucks dogs balls.

And while I take your point iyup that Floyd's attempts at folk were more amateurish than other bands of their time, A Pillow of Winds and Fearless both show that they could do it and do it well.

[DaveC]

I'm tossing Careful With That Axe Eugene into the Post-Syd Pre-Meddle ring.

The Ummagumma version is the best one, then Pompeii, then the Relics version. I love the dynamics and menacing atmosphere.

[cobl04]

Don't forget Set the Controls. LCD Soundsystem referenced that in their best song.

[DaveC]

Originally Posted by cobl04

Also it's easier to shit on The Wall when you haven't heard all their albums. Maybe Ummagumma is a steaming pile of shit, I don't know, I haven't heard it. Mostly because everyone says it sucks dogs balls.

I agree that the last 10 minutes of The Wall are pretty tedious. I never listen to any of those songs anymore, I've heard it all a million times by now anyways.

This is about the only thing I would say you really need to listen to from Ummagumma, other than maybe Grantchester Meadows:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VQH8LcAsEvA

[LemonMelon]

The Trial is hilarious. It's cabaret, and that might not be for everyone, but it's more likable than many give it credit for. And you know what? Yeah, it's essential to the story above all, but it ties that story together impressively for the medium. I love that we revisit the cast of characters and have one more laugh with them.

To be honest, the album had such a profound impact on me at age 13 and I've heard it so many times since that I don't think I can be objective about The Wall anymore. One thing I'm certain of though is that it's not indulgent drivel. In fact, I think Roger has a great message to tell with his story and it certainly came from an autobiographical space. I applaud him for opening himself to scrutiny and criticism through the Pink persona while placing just enough distance between himself and the protagonist to make it feel more like a twisted fable than a confession.

The great irony of The Wall, though, is that an album cautioning isolation and insularity was a pet project. This is why it will never be their greatest work. There's something sickly and thin about many of these songs, as if they're in dire need of attention from their writer. Maybe Gilmour could have warmed them up a bit the way he did with Comfortably Numb. Alas, we'll never know, but it is still a damn good record that I find engaging from start to finish. It's gruesome, allegorical and very personal.

[cobl04]

Are there any [i]queeeers[i/] in the theatre tonight, get em up against the wall
There's one in the spotlight, he don't look right to me, get him up against the wall
And that one looks Jewish, and that one's a coon!
Who let all o'this riff-raff into the room
There's one smoking a joint! And another with spots!!!
If I had my way... ID HAVE ALL O'YER SHOT!!!!


Sent from my iPhone using U2 Interference

[liamcool]

Originally Posted by cobl04

Don't forget Set the Controls. LCD Soundsystem referenced that in their best song.

stickler note Syd plays on Set The Controls.

[Axver]

Originally Posted by iron yuppie

I'm sorry, I know opinions are opinions and all, but I can't imagine any scenario or interpretation where Momentary Lapse or Division Bell are superior to The Wall or The Final Cut. I know it's fashionable around here to shit on any Waters-centric albums, but Jesus Christ, MLoR and Division Bell are so vapid lyrically and unfocused musically to place them beneath any Floyd album but Ummagumma. Both of those would have been better served as instrumental albums a la The Endless River than anything else. I challenge anyone to sit down and simply read the lyrics to Division Bell in particular without wincing innumerable times.

And Atom Heart Mother better than The Wall? 2/3 of AHM's runtime is pure wankery. A guy actually reads the ingredients of his breakfast. It's amusing and shit but it's little more than a curio in the scope of their wider catalogue. That period between Saucerful and AHM had some serious growing pains for the band.

I'm not even shitting on The Wall or The Final Cut because they're Waters-centric - to be honest, I couldn't tell you who wrote my favourite PF songs off the top of my head and I'm one of these people who finds Gilmour and Waters to have rather similar voices - but because they are so fucking interminably boring. The Wall has a couple of obviously legendary moments, but they are lost amidst an album so bloated that I have literally never been able to sit through the entire thing in one listen. Not once. I just cannot do it. It's not often an album defeats me like that, especially not an album by a band I like, but it's where my hatred of double albums began as a teenager. And I find The Final Cut entirely lacking in interest. At least Ummagumma has curiosity value, though I'm hardly going to come in to bat for it.

Of course AHM is better than either of those two albums. "If"/"Summer '68"/"Fat Old Sun" is one of the best three-song runs on any PF album. I agree the psychedelic brekkie is gimmicky and only merits a single listen, and the title track is overblown, but those middle three songs are good enough to redeem almost anything.

I won't defend AMLOR outside of "Sorrow". It sticks out glaringly, this one astonishingly great song to reward you for sitting through an album overwise burdened with terrible song after terrible song. The lyrics are excruciating. I don't get your disdain for The Division Bell though. That has some duds, yes, but also some very good songs and stands well as a final album (The Endless River doesn't count). "High Hopes", what a track. I'd rate Division Bell as PF's fifth or sixth best album. Maybe I'm biased in that my first serious exposure to PF was from Pulse, so a lot of those songs have a kind of nostalgia value ("Sorrow" on Pulse is what made me realise that I needed to hear more of the band's work), but I think that Division Bell stacks up even without that.

[lazarus]

Originally Posted by cobl04

It seems The Wall fans are getting a bit testy here, so I'll just throw a couple more bombs before I talk some good. It all falls to absolute shit after Run Like Hell. The last 10 or so minutes are garbage, and that's mostly thanks to the story taking precedence over the music. The Trial is well up there in 'Pink Floyd Worst Song' discussions. How anyone could enjoy that outside of the context of the album, heck even within the context of the album, is beyond me.

Well, you're not supposed to hear it outside the context of the album. IT'S A FUCKING CONCEPT ALBUM.

And obviously they're going for something more along the lines of musical theatre on some of this material, with spoken word elements, sound effects, short musical interludes, etc.

Now I do agree that they focused too much on the story and that the music is lacking in parts, but I still find it to be a tremendous achievement and far from a slog as a listening experience.

Originally Posted by LemonMelon

The Trial is hilarious. It's cabaret, and that might not be for everyone, but it's more likable than many give it credit for. And you know what? Yeah, it's essential to the story above all, but it ties that story together impressively for the medium. I love that we revisit the cast of characters and have one more laugh with them.

To be honest, the album had such a profound impact on me at age 13 and I've heard it so many times since that I don't think I can be objective about The Wall anymore. One thing I'm certain of though is that it's not indulgent drivel. In fact, I think Roger has a great message to tell with his story and it certainly came from an autobiographical space. I applaud him for opening himself to scrutiny and criticism through the Pink persona while placing just enough distance between himself and the protagonist to make it feel more like a twisted fable than a confession.

The great irony of The Wall, though, is that an album cautioning isolation and insularity was a pet project. This is why it will never be their greatest work. There's something sickly and thin about many of these songs, as if they're in dire need of attention from their writer. Maybe Gilmour could have warmed them up a bit the way he did with Comfortably Numb. Alas, we'll never know, but it is still a damn good record that I find engaging from start to finish. It's gruesome, allegorical and very personal.

^^^ and all of that, too.

Originally Posted by Axver

I'd rate Division Bell as PF's fifth or sixth best album. Maybe I'm biased in that my first serious exposure to PF was from Pulse, so a lot of those songs have a kind of nostalgia value ("Sorrow" on Pulse is what made me realise that I needed to hear more of the band's work), but I think that Division Bell stacks up even without that.

You were right the first time. You're biased.

And it hasn't been mentioned yet, but Gilmour writing with random non-band members (6 tracks with his wife??) is just colossally lame.

[cobl04]

Originally Posted by lazarus

colossally lame.

As is firing most of your bandmates and using the project to make solo albums 💁🏻

[trainmaniac]

The Wall is my favourite album from PF, because I just love the whole concept - it's the best rock opera ever.

I usually also prefer Waters-written songs rather than Gilmour's, as I prefer dark themed songs. Even though I like some songs released after 1984, to me they are all very similar. It's basically always the same song structure, the same way to build momentum for solos, etc. Most of them are awesome, but aren't as creative as what they have done with Waters, just that.

[Axver]

I'm pretty sure the moment I realised I wasn't cut out to be a proghead is when I realised every concept album ever made is really fucking lame.

[liamcool]

Originally Posted by Axver

I'm pretty sure the moment I realised I wasn't cut out to be a proghead is when I realised every concept album ever made is really fucking lame.

That's not true!

Selling England By The Pound is really good.

I mean, aside from, that you're mostly right.

[Axver]

Genesis were a terrible fucking band.

[LemonMelon]

Is Selling England By the Pound a concept album? I never even noticed. But I was going to counter with Lamb Lies Down on Broadway, so I guess they were just good at those.

Quadrophenia, SF Sorrow, Ziggy Stardust and Animals are also not lame.