Pink Floyd. Why?

[Magnus McGinty]

I love AHM and Ummagumma - also the sublime More and the music for Zabriskie Point (esp the outtakes). I know people who love The Wall and the Final Cut - the former the soundtrack to my teenage depression and the latter a steaming pile of shite. I recall buying it at the time with great expectations only for these to be swiftly dashed as I heard Waters whisper, howl, scream - in fact anything but actually fucking sing. I really thought he’d got his “my dad died in the war” angst sorted out with The Wall but no. His solo stuff was fucking shit and unnecessarily preachy into the bargain. I’m almost glad he wasn’t with them when I saw Floyd at Wembley in 1988 as his sourness and misery would have ruined an excellent evening.

I’m sure I read that he wanted The Pros and Cons of Hitch-hiking to be a Floyd album. It ended up a solo album. It’s not terrible but sounds very different to Floyd.

 

[Magnus McGinty]

I feel quite protective about the studio side of Ummagumma. Some of it is genuinely terrible but I find Sysyphus to be fascinating and majestic and for me an introduction into more avant garde ways of making music. On hearing it it was like possibilities that seemed inconceivable opening up. It isn't just some acid trip music and it can be judged on its own merits. The Grand Vizier's Garden Party is roughly a similar sort of experiment but it's bland and stuttering and just poorly conceived and put together. It's not the case that if something weird is happening musically that it can all be filed under "bizarre shit you might like if you're high or want to be different".

Though to be fair, I think I've said all this already up thread.

I hope you don’t mean “Several Furry Species…” in the terrible bit. That’s the highlight of the album!

 

[Knotted]

I hope you don’t mean “Several Furry Species…” in the terrible bit. That’s the highlight of the album!

I like Several Species... but it's the one that's become a by-word for experimental novelty and that annoys me a bit. And really it's a decent rhythmic track constructed of animal noises. I think it's well constructed and quite enjoyable but it's not especially interesting IMO. I tend to just listen to Sysyphus and sometimes the Narrow Way and Grantchester Meadow when I revisit this album.

 

[Knotted]

Seriously we live a world where Pink Floyd are one of the biggest bands in the world but nobody talks about Sysyphus pt 2. The things going on there. How great was Rick Wright as a composer/improviser.

 

[seeformiles]

I hope you don’t mean “Several Furry Species…” in the terrible bit. That’s the highlight of the album!

Of course not - a great tune. I got it played as a request on Annie Nightingale’s show in 1989 - my claim to fame

 

[seeformiles]

I like Several Species... but it's the one that's become a by-word for experimental novelty and that annoys me a bit. And really it's a decent rhythmic track constructed of animal noises. I think it's well constructed and quite enjoyable but it's not especially interesting IMO. I tend to just listen to Sysyphus and sometimes the Narrow Way and Grantchester Meadow when I revisit this album.

I even love The Grand Vizier’s Garden Party - partly because Mrs SFM hates it

 

[Dystopiary]

Found it. This is just great.



Thanks to Indeliblelink who posted it here last year.

 

[Magnus McGinty]

Seriously we live a world where Pink Floyd are one of the biggest bands in the world but nobody talks about Sysyphus pt 2. The things going on there. How great was Rick Wright as a composer/improviser.

Just had a listen through and Sysyphus pt 4 was the stand out for me. Starts as a 70s sci-fi soundscape then after a horror jump scare turns into a 70s Sinbad soundtrack!

 

[Magnus McGinty]

I’m still unable to revise my view that Animals remains their best album.

 

[Bus Honeygun]

Syd Barrett era and nothing else.

Well, Money is a good tune I suppose...

 

[skyscraper101]

I’m still unable to revise my view that Animals remains their best album.

I'm minded to agree. It's certainly the only one where there's not a single track that I want to skip. Dark Side comes close, and I've a soft spot for The Division Bell too but Animals for me is some sort of other worldly amazing.

 

[Magnus McGinty]

I'm minded to agree. It's certainly the only one where there's not a single track that I want to skip. Dark Side comes close, and I've a soft spot for The Division Bell too but Animals for me is some sort of other worldly amazing.

I’d say my top five are:

1 - Animals
2 - Wish You Were Here
3 - Dark Side of the Moon
4 - Meddle
5 - The Wall

 

[danny la rouge]

This place has changed.

 

[maomao]

This place has changed.

I keep clicking on the thread because it's obviously intended as a thread for slagging them off. In ten years there'll be threads for Oasis and Coldplay.

 

[savoloysam]

A toss up between Animals and Piper for me depending on my mood at the time followed by Meddle I've always been of the opinion that Dark Side and Wish You Were here while decent albums are massively overrated

 

[seeformiles]

This place has changed.

For the better I’d say

 

[starfish]

I saw the Division Bell at Earls Court in the nineties. Not my favourite album by a long shot but in the second half of the show they did Dark Side of the Moon in its entirety which was a nice surprise and ended with the Comfortably Numb shared above.
I don’t much listen to them nowadays.

I saw that one too. Also saw them at Knebworth in 1990 in the most hideous of weathers. It was so bad they had to cut the big circular screen down to stop the stage blowing away.

 

[Magnus McGinty]

This place has changed.

Don’t worry Danny, I still like The Fall. But Smith isn’t even close to Waters in terms of talent.

 

[Magnus McGinty]

A toss up between Animals and Piper for me depending on my mood at the time followed by Meddle I've always been of the opinion that Dark Side and Wish You Were here while decent albums are massively overrated

Why I would place them above the two you suggest, whilst Pipers and Meddle are both good they don’t flow from A to B in the same way that Darkside and Wish You Were Here do. There’s a difference between a great album over a great collection of songs.

 

[Karl Masks]

Why I would place them above the two you suggest, whilst Pipers and Meddle are both good they don’t flow from A to B in the same way that Darkside and Wish You Were Here do. There’s a difference between a great album over a great collection of songs.

Rick Wright was the real star of that band. Gilmour is a fine guitarist, but without those synth parts they'd be nothing. Especially Wish You Were Here and that harshs ynth solo on Dogs.

 

[Magnus McGinty]

Rick Wright was the real star of that band. Gilmour is a fine guitarist, but without those synth parts they'd be nothing. Especially Wish You Were Here and that harshs ynth solo on Dogs.

He’s very much underplayed as a band member but such an important aspect on their sound design I agree.

 

[Magnus McGinty]

Although having said that, it was Roger I saw on some documentary showing off the On The Run synth line. They weren’t necessarily stabled in their gates.

 

[Hollis]

Ignoring the warblings of the elder gentry, nice picture of Syd here from 1964:

 

[Knotted]

I can understand why people like Dark Side of the Moon, Wish You Were Here and The Wall, but I don't get Animals at all. I agree with post above that it's Rick Wright's synth that's the thing to listen for, but it's all so dynamically flat, musically pedestrian and shouty otherwise. Lyrically it's also very Roger Waters and his view on the world and frankly I don't need any more of that. Looking at Spotify it's Pigs (3 different kinds) that's the most popular track but I think it's also the worst with Sheep being the most tolerable. Pink Floyd fans seem to be wrong about everything.

But that's just me. It seems to be the one that gets more and more popular as time goes on.

 

[elbows]

Well one persons 'shouty' is anothers 'music that actually says something interesting and relevant that needed to be said and isnt said often enough'. My own judgements in this respect flip flop around as I age and are also mood dependant.

 

[elbows]

Likewise when it comes to music I flip flop all over the place when it comes to whether I am able to overlook the nauseatingly middle class aspects of some groups.

 

[hash tag]

Well one persons 'shouty' is anothers 'music that actually says something interesting and relevant that needed to be said and isnt said often enough'. My own judgements in this respect flip flop around as I age and are also mood dependant.

I suspect they meant shouty in comparison to the rest of Floyds stuff as opposed to music in general.
On the lighter side of my heavy stuff I have Rammstein, Metallica, System of A Down, Metallica, Disturbed to name but a few.

 

[Magnus McGinty]

I suspect they meant shouty in comparison to the rest of Floyds stuff as opposed to music in general.
On the lighter side of my heavy stuff I have Rammstein, Metallica, System of A Down, Metallica, Disturbed to name but a few.

To name but a few, and Metallica twice!

 

[hash tag]

I like Metallica ( and am trying to cook dinner).

 

[Magnus McGinty]

First album is the best (same as Megadeth).