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Pink Floyd ....

I have to say, I think Tony is mostly wrong. First two albums, very good, everything between saucerful of secrets and Meddle (a great record), was pretty much practice and not very good. Meddle through to Wish You Were Here they are at the top of their game including the much neglected Obscured by Clouds which rewards with repeated listening (always the problem with Floyd Albums). I'd think of Animals, The Wall and the Final Cut as Waters solo projects backed by Floyd. Not my favoruite stuff but certainly has its moments - especially the Final Cut, which definitely brings a lump to my throat at times. By the time Waters went into Pros and Cons, I just thought ... Christ Roger, Just get OVER it will you?

Dark Side is the geat divider I guess. Its a very good record, only spoiled by over familiarity. I hardly ever listen to it I must admit.

But then I also have a yen for Hot August Night .... :)
 
I like Joy Division and Pink Floyd, for a long while I thought I had to choose between them
 
When they were great - 1967 to 1975, they were the best band in the world, and to me they probably still are.[/QUOTE]

I dont think I can add to that.
 
In defence of Animals: it's my favourite Floyd album; dark, restless and aggressive. Gilmour at his best, which means it isn't a Waters solo album, and it's not got the laid back nostalgic vibe of WYWH. I remember John Peel had it is his top ten of 1977.
 
PInk floyd were never the best band int he world, and the can hardly be called the best band in the world now being as they are mostly fat lazy bastards that have done nothing fro 10 years.

(Skipping over the Island one which is so utterly appauling it should never be mentioned)
 
PF do seem awfully popular with the French.

I think bits of their LP's up to Animals are great, after that I tune out. Although, the studio LP's post Waters do sound, amusingly once I'd noticed, rather like early 70's Moody Blues records.

I did go and see RW at 02 last week (someone else pulled out and I was offered a ticket) and he was much more voluble than I'd expected. DSOTM did sound impressive through the o2 sound system. The Beirut song, and the excellent graphic novel backdrop, was also very good. 'Set the controls for the heart of the sun' did go a bit Ozrics towards the end, though.
 
garyi said:
PInk floyd were never the best band int he world, and the can hardly be called the best band in the world now being as they are mostly fat lazy bastards that have done nothing fro 10 years.
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I don't mean they are now, but that at their best they haven't been surpassed.

Don't you think it's a good thing they haven't done anything for 10 years? I do. And I wish they'd stop RW from playing the same stuff live endlessly, and the talk of another reunion should be put to bed too.
There has to be a limit to how many times you can go over the same old material, and sadly, it's become really really boring.
 
d m butcher said:
Now another other point I would disagree with is the status of Atom Heart Mother, saw them perform this live and maybe that has distorted my feelings but I think this has stood the test of time well. I know its popular to dislike this album but it fits in with what they were doing and they managed to merge pop, orchestral and choral music into a twenty minute piece in a way that worked and preserved the 'Floyd' sound. To me as a Floyd fan when this came out, keeping the 'Floyd' sound was very important. Not many bands achieved that.

Lastly the 'Film' albums. I think More is one of the best and purest albums they made but I also rate Obscured by Clouds. See it as a warm up to the 'Meddle' era Floyd and it might make more sense. These two albums are probably my most played Floyd albums.
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I actually played both Atom Heart Mother and Obscured By Clouds last night. That’s an hour and a half I’ll never get back.

My view hasn’t changed. In fact I felt Atom Heart Mother was far, far worse even than I remembered it. I managed to sit through it, but it made me cringe / giggle / stare in disbelief, and not in a good way – the ‘light music’ parts sounding all the world like a piss-poor amateur Gilbert & Sullivan / Andrew Lloyd Webber Society meeting with typically awful vocal ‘ahh, ahh, ahh’ and ‘pom, pom, pom’ type nonsense. That kind of crap is why mixing desks have channel mutes FFS! The bits that actually sounded like Floyd surprised me in just how much they were a pre-echo of ideas they’d develop further / nail down for Echoes and DSOTM, i.e. it is only really of interest from a developmental / historical perspective as they took everything that was worth having and later recycled it into something better.

As a work struck me as utterly directionless and pretentious in the extreme, it kind of flits around without purpose, kind of like aimlessly tuning around a radio dial but failing to find anything of interest. The B side fairs no better, If sounding like The Moon from Mighty Boosh singing some thing typically retarded, Summer 68 was perhaps a bit better, as was Fat Old Sun, and then any ideas exited stage left for the side-closing filler that is Alan’s Psychedelic Breakfast. Place Atom Heart mother in the context of it’s peers such as Amon Düül II’s Yeti, Can’s Monster Movie or Hawkwind’s debut and it is frankly pathetic IMO. I can’t understand why I liked this one at all. It may find it’s way into the sale list soon.

Obscured By Clouds still struck me as just being filler. It is neither bad nor good. Just a rather aimless collection of gentle blues based / song-form pop-rock, many with embarrassingly poor lyrics. Nothing had anything like the charm of say Cirrus Minor, Green Is The Colour or Cymbaline (all from More) to my ears. I guess the point of interest from the Floyd fan’s perspective is it seems to be the entry of the VCS3, though they hadn't learnt to do much of interest with it IMO. The only track I actually liked was the first half of the very last one, i.e. the bit that sounds like it could have been on the live sides of Ummagumma. Again place it in context of it’s peers it is spectacularly weak IMO: if you want gentle blues rock then the Grateful Dead spank this, if you want proper blues rock then the Groundhogs spank it even harder, if you want Pink Floyd then any previous album bar Atom Heart Mother does it much better. There was much truly great music around in 1972, this was, at best, an also-ran IMO.

Sorry.

Tony.
 
Tony L said:
The bits that actually sounded like Floyd surprised me in just how much they were a pre-echo of ideas they’d develop further / nail down for Echoes and DSOTM, i.e. it is only really of interest from a developmental / historical perspective as they took everything that was worth having and later recycled it into something better. :rolleyes:
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Not wanting to sound like a PF apologist, but I seem to remember Dave Gilmour freely admiting that around this time they had precisely no idea what they were doing. I have a (probably boot) video that includes a 1971 Japanese tour version of AHM and it is already substantially more like Echoes. Very tight, about 5 monutes shorter, all the choir-ey parts done on Mellotron and DG really leaning on the Binson echo box. The record sounds completely half - arsed though.
 
'though I'd revive this thread after listening to Piper....in stereo for the first time.
This is from the recent-reissue with mono CD and stereo CD on two separate discs(con!)

This is easily the best version of the album I've heard, the complexity of the music makes more sense in stereo. The mono has more punch and balls but the stereo give the music the space pyschedelia needs. Love it! gawd bless 'im.
 
Sid and Coke said:
I love watching/listening to the Pulse DVD, especially 'One of the days'. Easy Star All Stars do a great Reggae cover of DSOTM called Dub Star of the Moon, it has humour too..

I only ever liked The Wall and it was the album i had until about 3 or 4 years ago, I've bough more since even my missus likes Floyd now ( she also likes Abba & Rod Stewart though.... )
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How's tricks mate?? Long time no see.;)
I need to give you a copy of VOCOMOTION acappella version of DSOTM , an 8 piece choir and a human beatbox , tis bloody good. :D

chz
 
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