Pink Floyd

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mudshark
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Re: Pink Floyd

Postby mudshark » 09 May 2022, 20:31

I might give it a go once the family leaves on their European holiday early June, and I have the house to myself.
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Matt Wilson
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Re: Pink Floyd

Postby Matt Wilson » 10 May 2022, 17:45

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Roger Waters - Amused to Death 1992
Many think this is his best album, not sure how I feel about that. It's good, sure, but all four of his non soundtrack, non opera records hit the spot when you're in the mood - so I don't really have a favorite. I'll concede that Amused to Death is as good as anything he ever did as a solo artist though. It also came out during a time when there was no Pink Floyd discs to compare it with, something you can't say about his last two efforts. So, in 1992 we had Roger all to ourselves. It's also his only album mixed to 5.1, so I play it more than the others.

Wiki: "Amused to Death is the third studio album by English musician Roger Waters, released 7 September 1992 on Columbia. Produced by Waters and Patrick Leonard, it is mixed in QSound to enhance its spatial feel. The album features Jeff Beck on lead guitar on several tracks. The album's title was inspired by Neil Postman's 1985 book Amusing Ourselves to Death.

In 2015, the album was remastered and re-released with new artwork and in different formats, including a new 5.1 surround sound mix by original engineer James Guthrie.

Background and production
Roger Waters started working on Amused to Death in 1987 when he first wrote "Perfect Sense." It was several years before the album was released.

Amused to Death was produced by Patrick Leonard, Waters, and was co-produced with Nick Griffiths in London at The Billiard Room, Olympic Studios, CTS Studios, Angel Recording Studios and Abbey Road Studios. The album was engineered by Hayden Bendall, Jerry Jordan, and Stephen McLaughlan and mixed by James Guthrie. The album is mixed in QSound to enhance the spatial feel of the audio, and the many sound effects on the album – rifle range ambience, sleigh-bells, cars, planes, distant horses, chirping crickets, and dogs – all make use of the 3-D facility.

Themes
The album is loosely organized around the idea of an ape randomly switching channels on a television, but explores numerous political and social themes, including critiques of the First Gulf War in "The Bravery of Being Out of Range" and "Perfect Sense."

HAL samples

Waters stated in a Rockline interview on February 8, 1993, that he had wanted to use dialogue samples from 2001: A Space Odyssey on the album, specifically HAL 9000's 'dying' monologue. Stanley Kubrick, the film's director, turned him down on the basis that it would open the door to many other people using the sound sample. Others think that Kubrick refused because Pink Floyd had not allowed him to use music from Atom Heart Mother in his film A Clockwork Orange. Waters did use the samples of HAL describing his mind being taken away when performing live – specifically at the beginning of "Perfect Sense, Part I" during his In the Flesh tour, after Kubrick's death, and it was finally incorporated into the Amused to Death album for the 2015 remaster / remix release."

Roger Waters – vocals (all tracks except 1), bass guitar (tracks 2 and 13), synthesisers (tracks 2 and 4), acoustic guitar (tracks 11 and 14), twelve-string guitar (track 5)
Patrick Leonard – keyboards (all tracks except 6 and 7), percussion programming (track 1), choir arrangement (tracks 2, 9-11 and 13), speech (track 4), acoustic piano (tracks 11 and 13), Hammond organ (track 5), synthesisers (tracks 5 and 13)
Jeff Beck – guitar (tracks 1, 2, 5 (2015 reissue only), 10-14)
Randy Jackson – bass (tracks 2 and 9)
Graham Broad – drums (all tracks except 1, 5, 11 and 13), percussion (tracks 6 and 7)
Luis Conte – percussion (all tracks except 2, 5, 9, 11, 13 and 14)
Geoff Whitehorn – guitar (tracks 2, 8, 10 and 14)
Andy Fairweather Low – guitars (tracks 2, 6-9, 11 and 12) including twelve-string guitar (tracks 8 and 12), acoustic guitar (tracks 2 and 11) & electric guitar (track 2), vocals (tracks 6 and 7)
Tim Pierce – guitar (tracks 2, 5, 9 and 12)
B.J. Cole – pedal steel guitar (tracks 3 and 4)
Steve Lukather – guitar (tracks 3, 4 and 8)
David Paich – Hammond organ (track 5, 2015 reissue only)
Rick DiFonso – guitar (tracks 3 and 4)
Bruce Gaitsch – guitar (tracks 3 and 4)
Jimmy Johnson – bass (all tracks except 1, 2, 5, 9 and 11)
Brian Macleod – snare (tracks 3 and 4), hi-hat (tracks 3 and 4)
John Pierce – bass guitar (track 5)[31]
Denny Fongheiser – drums (track 5)
Steve Sidwell – cornet (tracks 6 and 7)
John Patitucci – bass guitar (track 11)
Guo Yi & the Peking Brothers – dulcimer, lute, zhen, oboe, bass (track 11)
John "Rabbit" Bundrick – Hammond organ (track 12)
Michael Kamen – orchestral arrangement's and conduction (tracks 7 and 8)
Jeff Porcaro – drums (track 13)
Marv Albert – commentary (track 4)
Katie Kissoon – vocals (tracks 2, 8, 9, 12 and 14)
Doreen Chanter – vocals (tracks 2, 8, 9, 12 and 14)
N'Dea Davenport – vocals (track 2)
Natalie Jackson – vocals (tracks 2 and 5)
P.P. Arnold – vocals (tracks 3, 4 and 10) including co-lead vocals (tracks 3 and 4)
Lynn Fiddmont-Linsey – vocals (track 5)
Jessica Leonard – vocals (track 8)
Jordan Leonard – vocals (track 8)
Charles Fleischer - speech (track 9)
Tom Bromley - vocals (track 10)
Don Henley – vocals (track 11)
Jon Joyce – vocals (track 13)
Stan Farber – vocals (track 13) (credited as Stan Laurel)
Jim Haas – vocals (track 13)
Rita Coolidge – vocals (track 14)
Alf Razzell – speech (tracks 1 and 14)

All songs written by Roger Waters.

1. "The Ballad of Bill Hubbard" 4:20
Roger really likes sound effects in his music. Lots of what we used to call 'found sounds' permeate his records. Slow builds with outside noises. Really cool sounds if you play it on your home system. He's got Jeff Beck here just like he had Clapton on Pros and Cons.

"The first track, "The Ballad of Bill Hubbard," features a recording of the voice of World War I veteran Alfred Razzell [de], a member of the Royal Fusiliers who describes his account of finding fellow soldier William "Bill" Hubbard, to whom the album is dedicated, severely wounded on the battlefield. After failed attempts to take him to safety, Razzell is forced to abandon him in no-man's land. The tale is continued at the end of the title track, at the very end of the album, providing a coda to the tragic story, with Razzell describing how he finally found peace. The excerpts are from BBC television's 1991 Everyman documentary, "A Game of Ghosts", made to mark the 75th anniversary of the start of the Battle of the Somme. The opening track also features the sound of several animals." - Wikipedia

2. "What God Wants, Part I" 6:00
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This is Roger's idea of commercial music. You have the girl chorus chanting the title, Beck on guitar again, and a rock beat. It's effective, and all Waters.

Wiki - "What God Wants, Part I" is the first song in a series of songs written and released by former Pink Floyd bassist, Roger Waters on his third solo album, Amused to Death. "What God Wants" is separated into three parts, similar to Pink Floyd's earlier "Another Brick in the Wall". "What God Wants, Part I" was released as a lead single from the album backed with Part III.

Lyrics and music
"What God Wants, Part I" deals with the contradictory duality and hypocrisy perceived by Waters in dogmatic religion and its power over man. The following parts, along with other songs on the album, deal with worship not only in religion but also in regard to materialism and consumption. All together, its viewpoint is on the power of simplistic conformity; how people adhere to something, not entirely by volition, but out of submission.

The song features the guitar playing of Jeff Beck.

Music video
A video was released, featuring gorillas watching TV, CGI and stop motion animation of a frog skeleton picking at a piece of cheese on a mouse trap, only to be subdued by electrical wiring and fused with the cheese to create a small television set. The video was directed by Tony Kaye and produced by Sarah Whistler. Animation for the video was contracted out to several studios, including Pacific Data Images (CG) and Will Vinton Studios (stop-motion). Crew members for Pacific Data Images include Raman Hui, the stop-motion animation artists included Chuck Duke, Scott Nordlund, Webster Colcord and Schell Hickel.

On July 21, 2015, Waters and Rolling Stone premiered a remastered version of the original video, featuring updated computer graphics and an all-new transfer of the original 35mm footage of Waters in the studio with guitarist Jeff Beck. The video is being presented exclusively through Rolling Stone by VEVO and Sony Music.

Release
BBC Radio 1 refused to play the single as it was too much of a "touchy" song to be played with such frequency, which angered Waters."

3. "Perfect Sense, Part I" 4:14
Starts off with more effects, and is a slower piece than the previous track. Waters is laying out his story of the monkey watching TV with his speaking way of singing until Arnold comes in. You can tell she's singing his words when she starts on "Jews and Arabs" though. LOL.

Overview
Part I of the song begins with a loud and unintelligible rant cutting out the noise of the previous track, "What God Wants, Part I". Following this is a backwards spoken message:

Julia, however, in the light and visions of the issues of Stanley, we changed our minds. We have decided to include a backward message. Stanley, for you, and for all the other book burners...

The message climaxes with Waters yelling in the aggressive Scottish voice he used to depict the character of the teacher in The Wall. This is not the first example of Roger Waters using reversed messages in his musical work. In an interview with Rockline on 8 February 1993 Roger Waters stated that he had wanted to use samples of HAL 9000 from 2001: A Space Odyssey on the album. Stanley Kubrick, the director, turned him down on the basis that it would open the door to too many other people using the sound sample. Since this incident Waters has used the audio of HAL describing his mind being taken away during the introduction of "Perfect Sense, Part I" in live performances, such as the In the Flesh tour in 2002, after Kubrick had died.

The opening lines of the song begin with a reference from the film 2001: A Space Odyssey in which "The monkey sat on a pile of stones and stared at the broken bone in his hand". This monkey – the human being – is referred to continuously throughout the album.

In Part II, famed sportscaster Marv Albert commentates a war as if it were a basketball game.

Both parts of the song were performed as part of Waters' In the Flesh tour. In 2000, a recording of this was released as the fifth track of the second disk of the live album, In the Flesh – Live. Both parts were released as one track, titled "Perfect Sense, Pt. 1 & 2", with a length of 7:26.

In the 2015 re-released and remastered edition of the album, the samples of HAL 9000 were finally included, and the backwards message omitted.

"The songs are sung partially by Roger Waters but mainly by PP Arnold on both the original album and live shows." - Wiki

4. "Perfect Sense, Part II" 2:51
Continues from Part one. Roger sounds like an old man with his wheezing delivery.

5. "The Bravery of Being Out of Range" 4:44
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Okay number where Roger describes old men who wage war while being safely out of range of flying bullets. Twas always so, folks. I agree with most everything he says in these songs, but he can be preachy as well.

Wikipedia: "The Bravery of Being Out of Range" includes a reference to a song written by Waters on Pink Floyd's 1977 album Animals, "Sheep", and to "Swing Low, Sweet Chariot". In "Sheep," Waters sings, "I've looked over Jordan and I have seen, things are not what they seem"; in "The Bravery of Being Out of Range," he sings "I looked over Jordan and what did I see? I saw a U.S. Marine in a pile of debris."

6. "Late Home Tonight, Part I" 4:01
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Rog is talking (rather than singing) again, and this time the subject is violence in American culture I assume. The points are all broad and undefined but he's got to be pissed about something otherwise I don't think he'd write at all.

"Late Home Tonight, Part I," which opens with the song of a Eurasian skylark, recalls the 1986 US air strike against Libya from the perspective of two "ordinary wives" and a young American F-111 pilot. The lyrics about "when you take the jeans from the refrigerator" reference a 1985 Levi's 501 commercial."

7. "Late Home Tonight, Part II" 2:12
Like the previous "Perfect Sense" tunes, Part two continues from Part one.

8. "Too Much Rope" 5:47
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All right, I'll own up to getting a bit bored with Roger's shtick. He'd doing his usual speak/sing thing, rising up to shouting like he did on Pros and Cons. There's "Jews" and "Gooks" and the typical subjects which set him off.

Title
The album's title was inspired by Neil Postman's book Amusing Ourselves to Death. In Postman's later book The End of Education, he remarks on the album:

Roger Waters, once the lead singer of Pink Floyd, was sufficiently inspired by a book of mine to produce a CD called Amused to Death. This fact so elevated my prestige among undergraduates that I am hardly in a position to repudiate him or his kind of music. Nor do I have the inclination for any other reason. Nonetheless, the level of sensibility required to appreciate the music of Roger Waters is both different and lower than what is required to appreciate, let us say, a Chopin étude. - Wiki

LOL!

9. "What God Wants, Part II" 3:39
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More of what God wants. I don't know, I'd guess this is the most radio-friendly cut on the album. Not that any station that I know of ever played this of course. Too many people would be offended. This is what I remember though, when I think of the CD.

Wiki: "At the beginning of "What God Wants, Part II," Charles Fleischer (better known as the voice of Roger Rabbit) performs the greedy televangelist's sermon. The lyrics about God wanting silver, gold and "his secret never to be told" reference the nursery rhyme, "One for Sorrow."

10. "What God Wants, Part III" 4:08
Part three doesn't really sound like the other parts. Waters mentions jews again though, so at least we have the familiar to satiate our sense of the expected. Jeff Beck rips it up though, always a good thing.

"What God Wants, Part III" musically references the Pink Floyd songs "Shine On You Crazy Diamond (Part I)," "Echoes" and "Breathe (In the Air)". It ends with an audio clip of Tom Bromley, an elderly WWI veteran, singing "Wait 'Till the Sun Shines, Nellie" a capella. The clip is also from "A Game of Ghosts". - Wiki

11. "Watching TV" 6:06
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No better or worse than the previous number. Don Henley is on board too, so you've got two grouches for the price of one. Bonus!

Wikipedia - "The song "Watching TV" (a duet with Don Henley) explores the influence of mass media on the Chinese protests for democracy in Tiananmen Square."

Ha ha, you couldn't make that up!

12. "Three Wishes" 6:52
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A genie gives Roger three wishes. He wishes his old man hadn't left him, of course. Dylan is alluded to - perhaps for the first time in a RW tune, Jeff is back, and it's more of the same.

Packaging
The album's original artwork features a chimpanzee watching television in reference to Kubrick's film 2001: A Space Odyssey. The image on the TV is a gigantic eyeball staring at the viewer. According to Waters, the ape was "a symbol for anyone who's been sitting with his mouth open in front of the network and cable news for the last 10 years." - Wikipedia

13. "It's a Miracle" 8:30
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As the disc nears its completion, we get the two longest numbers. Waters surely loves dynamics in his tunes because so many of them start out with barely discernible sounds and then build up to shouting. He never really yells in this one though, but we do get some squealing guitar from Jeff at the end.

Wiki - "In "It's a Miracle," Waters makes a scathing reference to Andrew Lloyd Webber (whom he would accuse elsewhere of having plagiarised music from Pink Floyd's "Echoes" for sections of the musical The Phantom of the Opera): The same song features a sample from the 1977 low-budget zombie film Shock Waves in which the film's characters wrestle over a flashlight. The title track begins with the lyric, "Doctor, Doctor." "Take Up Thy Stethoscope and Walk" on The Piper at the Gates of Dawn, the first song written by Waters, opens with the same line."

14. "Amused to Death" 9:06
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And it ends with the lengthiest track. More dynamics, girly choruses, and Roger trying to pass off anger for amusement. Hell, it all sounds great though. This could be his best-recorded album, and this song is one of the better ones too.

Reception
AllMusic described the album as "a masterpiece in the sense that it brings together all of his obsessions in one grand, but not unwieldy, package". Record Collector wrote that the album shows Waters "at his most bleakly inspired since the cautionary parable of The Wall". However, the Los Angeles Times was less favorable, writing "The result is blurred structure (partly improved by the moving old-soldier's tale Waters uses as a framing device), too much repetition and a certain distance and overintellectualization. [...] overall there's a dearth of the good old pop-rock appeal that always lifted the better Pink Floyd records." A negative review came from Chicago Tribune, writing "self-importance doesn't equal profundity, and the world's most mind-blowing engineering couldn`t cover up the deterioration of Waters' singing and melodic sense since his days with Floyd." Ultimate Classic Rock included Amused to Death on their list "Top 100 90's Rock Albums".

Legacy
Waters told Classic Rock: "My view is that I've been involved in two absolutely classic albums – The Dark Side of the Moon and The Wall [...] And if you haven't got Amused to Death, you haven't got the full set. So this album – the live one, which pulls together songs from all three albums – hopefully redresses the balance." On 19 September 2013, Waters told BBC HardTalk that Amused to Death has been completely underrated.

On 15 April 2015, Waters announced that the album would be remastered and reissued on 24 July 2015 featuring a new 5.1 multichannel audio mix, as well as a new stereo mix. It was made available in a number of formats, including CD, SACD, Blu-ray and high-resolution downloads. In a review of the 2015 remastering of the album, journalist J.C. Maçek III of Spectrum Culture wrote that "Not every album can be a masterpiece, but Waters has stated that Amused to Death is an underrated effort that serves as a third part to Dark Side of the Moon and The Wall. But it’s nowhere near those other albums. The 2015 remastering makes it a good sounding album, but it’s just not the kind of infinitely listenable album that Waters is capable of creating." In its review of the 2015 reissue, PopMatters wrote: "not only has Amused to Death aged well musically, it has unfortunately aged well thematically too. [...] Amused to Death was and still is a powerful statement from one of rock music’s most literate misanthropes. As time goes on, it gets harder and harder to believe that it slipped under everyone's radar so thoroughly." Drowned in Sound wrote: "Amused to Death stands up on its own as one of the better, more intriguing post-Floyd records".

In 2016 Amused to Death won the Grammy Award for Best Surround Sound Album at the 58th Annual Grammy Awards. The winners were listed as follows: "James Guthrie, surround mix engineer; James Guthrie & Joel Plante, surround mastering engineers; James Guthrie, surround producer (Roger Waters) Label: Columbia/Legacy"

Commercial performance
Amused to Death reached No. 8 on the UK Albums Chart, Waters' first Top 10 in his homeland, and a career high of No. 21 on the Billboard 200, aided by "What God Wants, Part I", which hit No. 4 on Billboard's Mainstream Rock Tracks chart in 1992. It was also certified Silver by the British Phonographic Industry for sales of over 60,000 in the UK.

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mudshark
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Re: Pink Floyd

Postby mudshark » 10 May 2022, 18:46

Couldn't agree more with the Chicago Tribune journalist you're referring to, with that difference that this has been his problem ever since Animals.
So he mentioned he felt his album was underrated? Is it known why he thought that?
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Re: Pink Floyd

Postby Matt Wilson » 10 May 2022, 19:24

mudshark wrote:Couldn't agree more with the Chicago Tribune journalist you're referring to, with that difference that this has been his problem ever since Animals.
So he mentioned he felt his album was underrated? Is it known why he thought that?


You mean why Roger thinks it's underrated? I have no idea, but you saw how he rates it right up there with Dark Side and The Wall. Those are also Floyd's two biggest-sellers, so he might be peeved that Amused didn't sell in those numbers. But no Waters solo album did.

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Re: Pink Floyd

Postby mudshark » 10 May 2022, 22:35

Yes, that's what I meant. Just played the album in the car (The Clash Live at Shea will have to wait until tomorrow). 72 minutes just about covered the 40 mile drive and the wait at my daughter's school. I can see the comparison with The Wall because both albums are pompous, self-indulgent and downright depressing. There's nothing to like here, for me. Comparing it the DSOTM is an insult to his bandmates who helped make it one of their better albums despite Waters' involvement. His creative peaks came with WYWH and Animals. It's all downhill from their with Amused To Death as the lowpoint. Or is it? I just read there's another album: Is This The Life We Really Want? is the name. 2017. Dunno if Matt's gonna review that one and I certainly don't wanna rain on his parade, but this could be a sneak preview of his review. Wiki says (quoting Roger the dodger):

QUOTE
The concerns I have with that central question – "Why are we killing the children?" – are still there. I'm still deeply concerned that we're killing children all over the world with hardly a second thought because we've become so insensitive to the idea of every time the curtain falls on some forgotten life, it is because we stood by silent and indifferent – it's normal. I'm quoting from the record now. And unfortunately, it has become normal; we have normalized the death of the innocent.

Waters also said the album had been influenced by having fallen in love:
The record is really about love – which is what all of my records have been about, in fact ... It's also the question of how do we take these moments of love – if we are granted any in our lives – and allow that love to shine on the rest of existence, on others.
UNQUOTE

So an album about love and dead kids. Go figure.
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Re: Pink Floyd

Postby Matt Wilson » 10 May 2022, 23:41

LOL. I'm tellin' you Muddy, you should write the review!

Don't know if I want to go all the way to the 2010s (Is This the Life We Really Want? was 2017 if I remember). Only a few die-hards are commenting now on this thread anyway. That album isn't bad, but "pompous, self-indulgent and downright depressing" as you said, pretty much describes all of Roger's work since Animals. Only when he was with Floyd could he bounce ideas off of the others, and have them shape the songs into more commercial fare. If you remember, it was Bob Ezrin who thought to put the kids' choir on "Another Brick in the Wall Part 2," not Waters, and that's PF's biggest hit. He's an ideas/concepts and lyrics guy more than a melodicist.

I still like him though. Kind've like an old friend who kind've grew apart from me, but I try to stay in contact with anyway.

Here's what the Trouser Press has to say about the band from Animals on:

"Another two years passed before the release of Animals. Orwellian by design, the disc follows the same formula as its two immediate predecessors, but with a harsher, metallic sound. The bleak tone is almost too much to take on tracks like “Sheep” and “Dogs,” but Gilmour’s lyrical guitar playing saves the day. In many ways Animals is a Waters solo album, with his bandmates serving as sidemen. Unrelenting despair and bile are the order of the day here, with heavy-handed lyrics dividing all of humanity into dogs, pigs and sheep. Still, it’s a great listen for all the extended instrumental work. And the vocoder work on Waters’ nasty rewrite of the 23rd Psalm is not to be missed.

Then came The Wall. The culmination of everything Waters had to say (again) about isolation, alienation and madness, The Wall is built upon a handful of simple musical motifs, three- and four-note patterns. The playing is excellent as are the (non-Waters) vocals and the production is flawless. But the album has not stood the test of time. Designed as (another) cohesive work, it turns boring on repeated listens. With its disco shuffle, “Another Brick in the Wall (Part Two)” gave the group its second hit single, and “Comfortably Numb” makes the strongest argument for affording Gilmour more space on the album. But tracks like “Empty Spaces” and “The Trial” — though necessary to move the story along — are tough going.

Pink Floyd was inescapably crushed under the weight of The Wall. Wright left before the release of The Final Cut, a dour and aptly-named disc on which Gilmour and Mason did what they were told in the studio by Waters. While the single, “Not Now John,” is best avoided (“f*ck all that” indeed), the oft-overlooked “Two Suns in the Sunset” is perhaps Waters’ strongest moment on record. And his singing isn’t half bad. With the release of The Final Cut, Pink Floyd effectively ceased to exist. At least that’s what Waters believed, and subsequently attempted to assert in various courts of law as the group divided into acrimoniously antagonistic camps.

Gilmour had been growing as a musician and composer (if not lyricist), and still had a lot to offer musically. His two solo albums (1978’s David Gilmour and 1984’s About Face) were strong musically, featuring musical friends and (helpfully) guest lyricists, yet sank virtually without a trace. To most fans, Pink Floyd was relatively faceless (they rarely gave interviews or posed for photos), so Gilmour wasn’t well recognized as one of its main creative forces. He and Mason relaunched Pink Floyd, using a cast of dozens (including Wright as a “guest” member but not Waters), with A Momentary Lapse of Reason, the title a comment on Waters’ decision to dissolve the band. The album was a sonic return to form; that form being Dark Side-era Pink Floyd. Whether it was legitimate without Waters is more of a legal than critical issue, as it certainly sounds like Pink Floyd; “Learning to Fly” and “On the Turning Away” would have fit smoothly on a mid-period album (especially Meddle). The album was a huge commercial success.

As was the (greatly expanded) group’s megatour, documented on the live Delicate Sound of Thunder. The two-disc greatest-hits-live package was meant to make up for the historical lack of a legitimate live Floyd album (excepting the first half of Ummagumma). But there’s something artificial and dubious about a dozen-plus musicians, some of whom were toddlers when The Piper at the Gates of Dawn was recorded, performing these old songs as Pink Floyd.

No matter. Six years later Gilmour, Mason and Wright (now a full member again) returned with The Division Bell. It’s a marked improvement over A Momentary Lapse of Reason, thanks in no small part to Wright’s collaboration on more than half the tunes. Sticking to Meddle-era musical ideas, the band wisely unencumbers the album with any weighty thematic concepts. What they were lacking, however, was Waters’ gravitas. Despite his overbearing dominance and limited musical appeal, Waters did provide the band with incisive, thoughtful lyrical content, the absence of which is obvious. Penned largely by Polly Samson, Gilmour’s then-fiancée, the lyrics on The Division Bell are melancholy yet upbeat. The titles say it all: “A Great Day for Freedom,” “Coming Back to Life,” “High Hopes.”

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Re: Pink Floyd

Postby mudshark » 10 May 2022, 23:58

That Trouser Press guy is pretty much on the ball. but: disco shuffle?? Nothing more that stoner head-bopping, don't you think.
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Re: Pink Floyd

Postby Matt Wilson » 11 May 2022, 00:46

Yeah, even the other guys in the band thought it sounded like disco. It's in my review. I never thought that though.

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Re: Pink Floyd

Postby ConnyOlivetti » 11 May 2022, 06:28

Amused… great album, love it
A wee bit long though
A masterpiece, up there with the best Floyd albums
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Re: Pink Floyd

Postby Matt Wilson » 17 May 2022, 18:25

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The Division Bell 1994
A much more democratic effort than Momentary Lapse, TDB is closer to what a real Pink Floyd album with contributions from all three members should be. While still dominated by David, Rick was responsible for the writing or co-writing of almost half the album, and Nick is the drummer on all tracks. In other words, as it should be. Now I'm not one to say that this disc is a whole lot better than the previous disc as some fans claim, I like them both about the same, but Division is more consistent, and not so front-loaded as Momentary. It's a pity the radio stations in the States didn't pick up on this album, or at least I never heard any songs being played, as it's arguably their best since The Wall. Of course, there are no tracks screaming for the airwaves either, and DJs and program directors were more weary of giving airtime to bands who had been around for decades in the nineties, so the chance of any of these tracks breaking out and becoming hits were nil.

Wiki - "The Division Bell is the fourteenth album by the English progressive rock band Pink Floyd, released on 28 March 1994 by EMI Records in the United Kingdom and on 4 April by Columbia Records in the United States.

The second Pink Floyd album recorded without founding member Roger Waters, The Division Bell was written mostly by guitarist and singer David Gilmour and keyboardist Richard Wright. It features Wright's first lead vocal on a Pink Floyd album since The Dark Side of the Moon (1973). Gilmour's fiancée, novelist Polly Samson, co-wrote many of the lyrics, which deal with themes of communication. It was the last Pink Floyd studio album to be composed of entirely new material and recorded with Wright, who died in 2008.

Recording took place in locations including the band's Britannia Row Studios and Gilmour's houseboat, Astoria. The production team included longtime Pink Floyd collaborators such as producer Bob Ezrin, engineer Andy Jackson, saxophonist Dick Parry and bassist Guy Pratt.

The Division Bell received mixed reviews, but reached number one in more than 10 countries, including the UK and the US. In the US, it was certified double platinum in 1994 and triple platinum in 1999. Pink Floyd promoted it with a tour of the US and Europe; the tour sold more than 5 million tickets and made around $100 million in gross income. A live album and video, Pulse, was released in 1995. Some of the unused material from the Division Bell sessions became part of Pink Floyd's next album, The Endless River (2014).

Recording
In January 1993, guitarist David Gilmour, drummer Nick Mason and keyboardist Richard Wright began improvising new material in sessions at the remodelled Britannia Row Studios. They recruited bassist Guy Pratt, who had joined them on their Momentary Lapse of Reason Tour; according to Mason, Pratt's playing influenced the mood of the music. Without the legal problems that had dogged the production of their 1987 album A Momentary Lapse of Reason, Gilmour was at ease. If he felt the band were making progress, he would record them on a two-track DAT recorder. At one point, Gilmour surreptitiously recorded Wright playing, capturing material that formed the basis for three pieces of music.

After about two weeks, the band had around 65 pieces of music. With engineer Andy Jackson and co-producer Bob Ezrin, production moved to Gilmour's houseboat and recording studio, Astoria. The band voted on each track, and whittled the material down to about 27 pieces. Eliminating some tracks, and merging others, they arrived at about 11 songs. Song selection was based upon a system of points, whereby all three members would award marks out of ten to each candidate song, a system skewed by Wright awarding his songs ten points each and the others none. Wright, having resigned under pressure from bassist Roger Waters in the 1970s, was not contractually a full member of the band, which upset him. Wright reflected: "It came very close to a point where I wasn't going to do the album, because I didn't feel that what we'd agreed was fair." Wright received his first songwriting credits on any Pink Floyd album since 1975's Wish You Were Here.

Gilmour's fiancée, author Polly Samson, also received songwriting credits. Initially, her role was limited to providing encouragement for Gilmour, but she helped him write "High Hopes", a song about Gilmour's childhood in Cambridge. She co-wrote a further six songs, which did not sit well with Ezrin. In an interview for Mojo magazine, Gilmour said that Samson's contributions had "ruffled the management's [feathers]", but Ezrin later reflected that her presence had been inspirational for Gilmour, and that she "pulled the whole album together". She also helped Gilmour, who, following his divorce, had developed a cocaine addiction.

Keyboardist Jon Carin, percussionist Gary Wallis, and backing vocalists including Sam Brown and Momentary Lapse tour singer Durga McBroom were brought in before recording began. The band moved to Olympic Studios and recorded most of the tracks over the space of a week. After a summer break, they returned to Astoria to record more backing tracks. Ezrin worked on the drum sounds, and Pink Floyd collaborator Michael Kamen provided the string arrangements, which were recorded at Abbey Road Studio Two by Steve McLaughlin. Dick Parry played saxophone on his first Pink Floyd album for almost 20 years, on "Wearing the Inside Out", and Chris Thomas created the final mix. Between September and December recording and mixing sessions were held at Metropolis Studios in Chiswick and the Creek Recording Studios in London. In September, Pink Floyd performed at a celebrity charity concert at Cowdray House, in Midhurst. The album was mastered at the Mastering Lab in Los Angeles, by Doug Sax and James Guthrie.

Jackson edited unused material from the Division Bell sessions, described by Mason as ambient music, into an hour-long composition tentatively titled The Big Spliff, but Pink Floyd decided not to release it. Some of The Big Spliff was used to create the band's next album, The Endless River (2014).

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Instrumentation
With the aid of Gilmour's guitar technician, Phil Taylor, Carin located some of Pink Floyd's older keyboards from storage, including a Farfisa organ. Sounds sampled from these instruments were used on "Take It Back" and "Marooned". Additional keyboards were played by Carin, along with Bob Ezrin. Durga McBroom supplied backing vocals alongside Sam Brown, Carol Kenyon, Jackie Sheridan, and Rebecca Leigh-White.

"What Do You Want from Me" is influenced by Chicago blues, and "Poles Apart" contains folksy overtones. Gilmour's improvised guitar solos on "Marooned" used a DigiTech Whammy pedal to pitch-shift the guitar notes over an octave. On "Take It Back", he used a Gibson J-200 guitar through a Zoom effects unit, played with an EBow, an electronic device which produces sounds similar to a bow.

Themes
The Division Bell deals with themes of communication and the idea that talking can solve many problems. In the Studio radio host Redbeard suggested that the album offers "the very real possibility of transcending it all, through shivering moments of grace". Songs such as "Poles Apart" and "Lost for Words" have been interpreted by fans and critics as references to the estrangement between Pink Floyd and former band member Roger Waters, who left in 1985; however, Gilmour denied this, and said: "People can invent and relate to a song in their personal ways, but it's a little late at this point for us to be conjuring Roger up." The title refers to the division bell rung in the British parliament to announce a vote. Drummer Nick Mason said: "It's about people making choices, yeas or nays."

Produced a few years after the collapse of the Eastern Bloc, "A Great Day for Freedom" juxtaposes the general euphoria of the fall of the Berlin Wall, with the subsequent wars and ethnic cleansing, particularly in Yugoslavia. Audio samples of Stephen Hawking, originally recorded for a BT television advertisement, were used in "Keep Talking"; Gilmour was so moved by Hawking's sentiment in the advert that he contacted the advertising company for permission to use the recordings. Mason said it felt "politically incorrect to take ideas from advertising, but it seemed a very relevant piece". At the end of the album Gilmour's stepson Charlie is heard hanging up the telephone receiver on Pink Floyd manager Steve O'Rourke, who had pleaded to be allowed to appear on a Pink Floyd album.

Title and packaging
To avoid competing against other album releases, as had happened with A Momentary Lapse, Pink Floyd set a deadline of April 1994, at which point they would begin a new tour. By January of that year, however, the band still had not decided on an album title. Titles considered included Pow Wow and Down to Earth. At a dinner one night, writer Douglas Adams, spurred by the promise of a payment to his favourite charity, the Environmental Investigation Agency, suggested The Division Bell, a term which appears in "High Hopes".

Longtime Floyd collaborator Storm Thorgerson provided the album artwork. He erected two large metal heads, each the height of a double-decker bus, in a field near Stuntney, Cambridgeshire. The sculptures were positioned together and photographed in profile, and can be seen as two faces talking to each other or as a single, third face. Thorgerson said the "third absent face" was a reference to Syd Barrett. The sculptures were devised by Keith Breeden, and constructed by John Robertson. Ely Cathedral is visible on the horizon. The pictures were shot in February for optimal lighting conditions. In 2001, the sculptures were in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in Cleveland, Ohio. In 2017, they were moved to the London Victoria and Albert Museum for display in a Pink Floyd exhibition. An alternate version of the cover photo, featuring two 7.5-metre (25 ft) stone sculptures by Aden Hynes, was used on the compact cassette release and the tour brochure.

The album feels much more home-made, very much as a band playing together in one space. I think that Rick in particular felt significantly more integrated in the process this time, compared to Momentary Lapse. It was nice to have him back.

Nick Mason (2005)

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Tour
Two days after the album's release, the Division Bell Tour began at Joe Robbie Stadium, in suburban Miami. The set list began with 1967's "Astronomy Domine", before moving to tracks from 1987's A Momentary Lapse of Reason, and The Division Bell. Songs from Wish You Were Here and The Wall were featured, as well as the whole Dark Side of the Moon. Backing musicians included Sam Brown, Jon Carin, Claudia Fontaine, Durga McBroom, Dick Parry, Guy Pratt, Tim Renwick, and Gary Wallis. The tour continued in the US through April, May and mid-June, before moving to Canada, and then returning to the US in July. As the tour reached Europe in late July, Waters declined an invitation to join the band, and later expressed his annoyance that Pink Floyd songs were being performed again in large venues. On the first night of the UK leg of the tour on 12 October, a 1,200-capacity stand collapsed, but with no serious injuries; the performance was rescheduled.

During the tour, an anonymous person using the name Publius posted on an internet newsgroup, inviting fans to solve a riddle supposedly concealed in the album. The message was verified during a show in East Rutherford, where lights in front of the stage spelled out "Enigma Publius". During a televised concert at Earls Court, London, in October 1994, the word "enigma" was projected in large letters on to the backdrop of the stage. Mason later acknowledged that the riddle, known as the Publius engima, was created by the record company. It remains unsolved.

The tour ended at Earls Court on 29 October 1994, and was Pink Floyd's final concert performance until Live 8 in 2005. Estimates placed the total number of tickets sold at over 5.3 million, and gross income at about $100 million."

Pink Floyd

David Gilmour – lead vocals, acoustic, electric, classical & steel guitars, bass guitar ("Poles Apart", "Wearing the Inside Out", "Lost for Words" and "High Hopes"), keyboards, programming, backing vocals, talkbox, production, mixing
Nick Mason – drums, percussion, church bell
Richard Wright – keyboards, organ, synthesizers, lead vocals ("Wearing the Inside Out"), backing vocals ("What Do You Want from Me")

Additional musicians

Jon Carin – programming, all grand piano, Wurlitzer Piano, Solina, Minimoog, B3, loops, Kurzweil, arrangements.
Guy Pratt – bass guitar
Gary Wallis – percussion
Tim Renwick – additional guitars
Dick Parry – tenor saxophone
Bob Ezrin – keyboards, percussion, production
Sam Brown – backing vocals
Durga McBroom – backing vocals
Carol Kenyon – backing vocals
Jackie Sheridan – backing vocals
Rebecca Leigh-White – backing vocals
Stephen Hawking – vocal samples on "Keep Talking"

Side one

1. "Cluster One" (Gilmour, Wright) 5:29
The usual slow, ambient intro tells us we're in audiophile territory and that we're listening to a PF record. I don't know how many of you have opted for surround sound rigs in your systems, but progressive rock and Pink Floyd in general were made for that format. This sounds exquisite coming out of five speakers. Perhaps a bit "Echoes" in this piece, but it's not developed like the earlier composition is. All-in-all, better than "Signs of Life" on Momentary.

"History
It is the first Pink Floyd song credited to just Wright/Gilmour since "Mudmen", from the 1972 album Obscured by Clouds.

Track overture
The noise which opens the track caused some confusion among fans in 1994, who were unsure, on playing the album for the first time, whether or not their copy was faulty, as the noise lasts for just over 1 minute before any music begins. According to an interview with Andy Jackson, recording engineer for the album, this noise is electromagnetic noise from the solar wind. More precisely, this sound is a very low frequency record of dawn chorus and sferics, radio events respectively due to solar wind interference with Earth's magnetosphere, and lightning strikes radio emissions interfering with Ionosphere; this sound has been mistaken for Earth's crust shifting and cracking.

The piece has never been performed live by the band, although portions of it were included in the sound collage tape played before their 1994 concerts." - Wikipedia

2. "What Do You Want from Me" (Gilmour, Wright, Polly Samson) 4:21
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Now we get a feel for how this album is going to sound. A mid-tempo song with Dave engaged vocally, singing words written by his girlfriend, with contributions from Rick and Nick. There's backing vocals, and it certainly sounds like Floyd. The words deal with the relationship between performers and fans. It's all very nice but you're not going to confuse this with prime PF either. Don't get me wrong, I still like it, and this was a minor hit later on (live) in other territories, but I never heard it.

Wiki: "Richard Wright and David Gilmour composed the music, with Gilmour and his then-girlfriend and subsequent wife Polly Samson supplying the lyrics. A live version from Pulse was released as a single in Canada, reaching number 28 in the Canadian Top Singles charts.

Song structure and lyrics
The song is a slow, yet rocking ballad. It has a drum roll introduction, followed by a keyboard solo and then a guitar solo. David Gilmour has agreed with an interviewer that it is a "straight Chicago blues tune", while mentioning he is still a blues fan.

In an interview, David Gilmour was asked if the song returned to the theme of alienation from the audience. He responded by saying that it "actually had more to do with personal relationships but drifted into wider territory".

Reception
In a contemporary negative review for The Division Bell, Tom Graves of Rolling Stone described "What Do You Want from Me" as the only track on which "Gilmour sounds like he cares".

3. "Poles Apart" (Gilmour, Samson, Nick Laird-Clowes) 5:49
It's hard not to think of Syd and Roger when reading these lines, but the weird thing is, Polly wrote them. This is an overall more mellow affair than the last album, so the first half isn't dominated by uptempo numbers like before. Nice Rick bit in the middle too. mad eventually, it picks up steam as well.

"Lyrics
The lyrics speak to ex-bandmate Syd Barrett in the first verse, and Roger Waters in the second, according to co-writer Polly Samson. As such, the second verse begins with the words "Hey you", the title of a Waters-penned song from Pink Floyd's earlier album, The Wall.

Tuning
The song was performed in DADGAD tuning.

[about the D,A,D,G,A,D tuning on "Poles Apart", a new tuning for David Gilmour] (...) the funny thing is that I didn't know it was such an established tuning -- I thought it was something new that I had invented. One day, I was on holiday in Greece and I had an acoustic guitar with me. I just decided to tune the bottom string down to D, and continued to experiment until I arrived at that tuning. Then I mucked around a bit and "Poles Apart" fell out of it a few minutes later.

— David Gilmour, 1994" - Wiki

4. "Marooned" (Gilmour, Wright) 4:08
At first it sounds pretty much like the first cut, but then Gilmour's guitar cuts in and a serene bliss comes over me. I could probably listen to him play like this all day. The song is kind of formless, more like a jam than anything else, but that's okay. They seem like this is what they're comfortable doing at this stage in their careers. Composition isn't at the forefront of their goals anymore. It's quite beautiful actually.

Wikipedia - "Writing and recording
The piece was written by Richard Wright and David Gilmour. It has sounds that describe the setting as an island, such as the sounds of seagulls and waves crashing on the shore. It was composed while jamming aboard the Astoria in early 1993. Gilmour processed the guitar sound with a DigiTech Whammy pedal to pitch-shift notes entire octaves. Also in the background can be heard wailing guitar effects by Gilmour, reminiscent of the song "Echoes". Wright's grand piano parts (originally played and recorded on a Kurzweil) were recorded at Olympic Studios in London.

David Gilmour has mentioned that "pretty much" all of "Marooned" is improvised and that he "probably took three or four passes at it and took the best bits out of each".

Reception
Stereogum opined that the instrumental "stands out primarily as a song that sounds as much like Pink Floyd as anything on their mid-'70s releases. The song roots itself to Gilmour's familiar lonesome melodic guitar descants threading themselves through the trademark mood setting and foundation of Mason's drum work and the invaluable Wright's keyboard deviations." Contrastingly, Vulture wrote that "[m]arooned is how you feel listening to this pallid, five-minute-and-thirty-second guitar solo."

The instrumental won the Grammy Award for Best Rock Instrumental Performance at the 37th Annual Grammy Awards in 1995.

Live and other releases
This song has only been played live three times: On the two dates in Oslo, Norway (one of which is featured in the bonus features on the Pulse DVD) on the 1994 The Division Bell tour and at "The Strat Pack" charity concert, for the 50th anniversary of the Fender Stratocaster guitar, where Gilmour played his "#0001" Stratocaster.

An excerpt of the music is featured on Echoes: The Best of Pink Floyd.

In 2014, for the twentieth anniversary of the original release of The Division Bell, a music video for the song was produced and released on the official Pink Floyd website as well as the anniversary box set of the album. Aubrey Powell of Hipgnosis directed the video, filming some parts in the abandoned city of Pripyat, Ukraine during the first week of April 2014. and on the International Space Station."


5. "A Great Day for Freedom" (Gilmour, Samson) 3:38
I like this one too. Some of Samson's best lyrics and a sterling Gilmour solo. At this point, he really was Pink Floyd.

"Writing
The song, originally titled "In Shades of Grey", addresses the great hopes following the fall of the Berlin Wall and the disappointment that followed. David Gilmour stated:

There was a wonderful moment of optimism when the Wall came down – the release of Eastern Europe from the non-democratic side of the socialist system. But what they have now doesn't seem to be much better. Again, I'm fairly pessimistic about it all. I sort of wish and live in hope, but I tend to think that history moves at a much slower pace than we think it does. I feel that real change takes a long, long time.

Despite Gilmour's statements to the contrary, the lyrics have often been read as a reflection on the bitter and estranged partnership Gilmour had with former bandmate Roger Waters, who was the driving force behind the band's album The Wall. By this interpretation, the "Great Day for Freedom" would be the day Waters left the band, giving the other members freedom to determine the band's future direction. Gilmour commented on this reading: "I'm quite happy for people to interpret The Division Bell any way they like. But maybe a note of caution should be sounded because you can read too much into it. 'A Great Day for Freedom', for example, has got nothing to do with Roger or his 'wall'. It just doesn't. What else can I say?"

According to session player Jon Carin the track was a leftover from the sessions for the band's previous album, A Momentary Lapse of Reason.

Live
The song was performed by the band on selected dates of The Division Bell tour, and is available on the Pulse (1995) live album, but was omitted from the Pulse VHS and DVD. Gilmour performed it at his solo semi-acoustic concerts in 2002 which can be seen on the David Gilmour in Concert (2002) DVD. The song also made just one appearance during Gilmour's 2006 On an Island Tour, at the final show in Gdańsk, Poland; this performance can be found on the live album/DVD Live in Gdańsk (2008)." - Wiki

6. "Wearing the Inside Out" (Anthony Moore, Wright) 6:28
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Not sure I dig the backing vocals. Roger uses girl singers as well. The overall feel is a bit too mellow for a song with a limp melody. You do get some Wright synths, vocals, and musical embellishments, but this might be my least fave piece on the first half. The sax is nice, I'll give it that, and Dave's playing is also up to par.

Wikipedia: "A collaboration between Richard Wright and Anthony Moore, it is the only song on the album for which David Gilmour receives no writing credit.

The song had the working title "Evrika". Two videos of the band working on this demo version can be seen on the DVD/BD included in The Endless River deluxe edition and as part of the iTunes deluxe edition.

It is the first occasion that Richard Wright provided lead vocals on a song since "Time" and "Us and Them" on the band's 1973 album The Dark Side of the Moon.

According to bassist and past touring member, Guy Pratt, the song originated from an idea he came up with: a bass riff involving harmonics.

Later performances
This song was never performed live by Pink Floyd, although it was performed on David Gilmour's 2006 On an Island Tour, and appears on the Remember That Night DVD and on the bonus CD of the deluxe version of Live in Gdańsk. On this version, Guy Pratt begins with the aforementioned bass riff."

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Side two

7. "Take It Back" (Gilmour, Samson, Laird-Clowes, Bob Ezrin) 6:12
The second half starts off with an Edge-type of guitar riff, and is the culmination of no less than four songwriters, which is almost never a good sign. But it's uptempo, and sounds pretty good to me. The words are about a man who has mistreated his woman and fears she might withhold love at some point in the future. I mentioned the Edge earlier, and there's a U2 feel (at least for me) to this endeavor.

"It was also released as a single on 16 May 1994, the first from the album, and Pink Floyd's first for seven years. The music for the song was written by guitarist David Gilmour and album co-producer Bob Ezrin, with lyrics by Gilmour, his wife Polly Samson and Nick Laird-Clowes.

Equipment
Guitarist David Gilmour used an E-bow on a Gibson J-200 acoustic guitar that is processed through a Zoom effects box, then directly injected into the board.

The lyrics include a common British reading of the nursery rhyme "Ring a Ring o' Roses" during its instrumental section." - Wiki

8. "Coming Back to Life" (Gilmour) 4:57
Interesting in that this cut is entirely by David. Another slower, more personal song - the kind Waters would never have allowed on a PF record previously. What this album needs though, is something catchy or more riff-laden. It picks up after about two-and-a-half minutes, but by then it's almost too late. Still, people like it though, so what do I know?

Wiki: "Composition
Gilmour has said (as can be heard on the David Gilmour in Concert DVD) that the song was written about his wife, Polly Samson.[1] The song is in the key of C Major.

9. "Keep Talking" (Gilmour, Wright, Samson) 6:11
All three primary songwriters worked on this one, which is kind of adult, easy-listening Floyd. The theme of communication and talking is especially strong here, and it's probably one of the better tunes to be found here, though there is that backing chorus again.

"Recording
Written by David Gilmour, Richard Wright and Polly Samson, it was sung by Gilmour and also features samples of Stephen Hawking's electronic voice, taken from a BT television advertisement. This same commercial was sampled again in "Talkin' Hawkin'" from Pink Floyd's next and final studio album, The Endless River. Gilmour chose to use the speech after crying to the commercial, which he described as "the most powerful piece of television advertising that I’ve ever seen in my life.” The song also makes some use of the talk box guitar effect.

Release
The song was the first single to be released from the album in the United States in March 1994. It was the group's third #1 hit on the Album Rock Tracks chart (a chart published by Billboard magazine which measures radio play in the United States, and is not a measure of record sales), staying atop for six weeks.

The song was included on the 2001 compilation, Echoes: The Best of Pink Floyd.

Live
The song was performed every night during the 1994 The Division Bell Tour and live versions, taken from different shows, were included in both the album Pulse and the video of the same name.

The song was sampled by Wiz Khalifa on the title track of his 2009 mixtape Burn After Rolling.

Quotes
[Interviewer:] Several songs on the album, like "Keep Talking" suggest that all problems can be solved through discussion. Do you believe that?
[Gilmour:] It's more of a wish than a belief. [laughs]

— David Gilmour, 1994

Well, I guess I experiment more than I think I do. I had a Zoom [effects box] in my control room one day and I was mucking about with something. Suddenly, I thought I should stick the E-bow on the strings and see what would happen. It sounded great, so we started writing a little duet for the E-bowed acoustic guitar [a Gibson J-200] and a keyboard. We never finished the piece, but Jon Carin [keyboardist] decided to sample the E-bowed guitar part. We kept the sample and ended up using it as a loop on "Take It Back", and again on "Keep Talking".

— David Gilmour, 1994"

10. "Lost for Words" (Gilmour, Samson) 5:14
Another slow intro with the same theme of communication (or the lack thereof), but once this picks up - I quite like it. A decent vocal melody for one, the disc seems to be picking up towards the end. Had there been a solid rocker or two, like there was on A Momentary Lapse of Reason, I might wholeheartedly proclaim this to be the better of the two.

Wikipedia: "Lost for Words" is a song recorded by English rock band Pink Floyd, focused on forgiveness, written by guitarist and lead singer David Gilmour and his spouse Polly Samson for the band's 14th studio album, The Division Bell. It appears as the penultimate track on the album. The lyrics, mostly penned by Samson, are a bitterly sarcastic reflection on Gilmour's then-strained relationship with former bandmate Roger Waters. The song was released to US rock radio the week of the album's release, succeeding "Keep Talking", the previous promotional release, released the week before. The song reached #53 in the Canadian singles chart.

11. "High Hopes" (Gilmour, Samson) 6:50
Considered by many to be the highlight of TDB, there's a sense of gravitas here which is absent for most of the other cuts. It has that minimalist piano thing at the beginning Rick does so well, Dave's vocals are spot on, and the whole thing sound very cool to these ears. I have heard this one on the radio, but not often. So to wrap up: I think this to be a more consistent effort than Momentary Lapse, but maybe the highs on that album might be more memorable. But there's certainly nothing on side two of that LP as good as "High Hopes" either.

"High Hopes" is a song by English rock band Pink Floyd, composed by guitarist David Gilmour with lyrics by Gilmour and Polly Samson. It is the closing track on their fourteenth studio album, The Division Bell (1994); it was released as the second single from the album on 17 October 1994. An accompanying music video was made for the song and was directed by Storm Thorgerson.

Douglas Adams, a friend of Gilmour, chose the title for The Division Bell from one verse in this song. Live versions are featured on Pink Floyd's Pulse, as well as Gilmour's In Concert, Remember That Night, Live in Gdańsk and Live at Pompeii releases. On Echoes: The Best of Pink Floyd, a somewhat shortened version of the song segues into Syd Barrett's "Bike". The segue is accomplished by cutting from the church bell at the end of "High Hopes" to a new bicycle bell sound effect before "Bike" begins. A 7-inch vinyl version of the single was released on a transparent record.

A demo recording of the song appeared on the 2018 box set The Later Years and was released as one of the preview tracks. Unlike the album version, this features the final solo played on a regular electric guitar instead of a lapsteel.

This song would be the last original recording of Pink Floyd until 2022's "Hey, Hey, Rise Up!"

Composition
The song is mostly in the key of C minor, and features the sound of a church bell chiming a 'C' throughout, except for a short section in the middle where the song briefly modulates into E minor for a guitar solo. The bell was taken from a sound effects record.

The lyrics refer to the band's early days in Cambridge, specifically before they started making music. It also references ex-bandmate Syd Barrett. Its lyrics speak of the things one may have gained and lost in life, written from Gilmour's autobiographic perspective. Gilmour has said that the song is more about his early days, and leaving his hometown behind, than about the seeds of division supposedly planted in Pink Floyd's early days.

The final couplet from the song ("The endless river/Forever and ever") recalls a line from the band's second single, "See Emily Play", from 1967, ("Float on a river/Forever and ever"); it inspired the name of their final studio album, The Endless River, released in 2014. Shortly after the song ends and the chimes fade out is a hidden track comprising a brief phone call between the band's manager Steve O'Rourke and Gilmour's son Charlie. This concludes The Division Bell.

Music video
The music video, directed by Storm Thorgerson, features a man looking over the Fens at Ely Cathedral, the same building which can be seen between the metal heads on the cover of the album. Also, the video has many references to Cambridge, where Syd Barrett, Roger Waters and David Gilmour grew up, the university scarves, bikes and punts on the river being obvious ones. In particular many scenes are set in St. John's College, including the Bridge of Sighs. Also shown is an oversized bust of Syd Barrett. It would later be used in live performances during Pink Floyd's 1994 Division Bell Tour and seen on the PULSE video.

Cover versions
The song was covered by Shark 'n the Smoke on the 2003 tribute album A Fair Forgery of Pink Floyd.
The song was covered by Nightwish who released two different live versions; one on the compilation album Highest Hopes: The Best of Nightwish and another one on the live DVD End of an Era.
The song was covered by Gregorian for their album Masters of Chant Chapter IV.
The song was covered by the German band Sylvan in 2000 for the album Signs of Life – A Tribute to Pink Floyd.
The song was covered by the French power metal band Karelia in 2005 for the album Raise.
The song was covered by the German Metalcore band Caliban in 2012 for the deluxe version of I Am Nemesis.
The song was covered by the Scottish vocalist Ray Wilson in 2016 for his acoustic album Song for a Friend.
The song was covered by actor, comedian and vocalist Alexander Armstrong in 2016 for his second studio album Upon a Different Shore.

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Release and sales
On 10 January 1994 a press reception to announce The Division Bell and world tour was held at a former US Naval Air Station in North Carolina, in the US. A purpose-built Skyship 600 airship, manufactured in the UK, toured the US until it returned to Weeksville, and was destroyed by a thunderstorm on 27 June. Pieces of the aircraft were sold as souvenirs. The band held another reception, in the UK, on 21 March. This time they used an A60 airship, translucent, and painted to look like a fish, which took journalists on a tour of London. The airship, which was lit internally so it glowed in the night sky, was also flown in northern Europe.

The Division Bell was released in the UK by EMI Records on 28 March 1994, and in the US on 4 April, and went straight to #1 in both countries. The Division Bell was certified silver and gold in the UK on 1 April 1994, platinum a month later and 2× platinum on 1 October. In the US, it was certified gold and double platinum on 6 June 1994, and triple platinum on 29 January 1999.

In the United States the album debuted at number one in the Billboard 200 during the week of 23 April 1994 selling more than 460,000 units, at the time it was the 12th largest single-week total since Billboard began using SoundScan data in May 1991 and also became the fifth-largest first-week sales sum back then. The next week it stayed at the top of the chart selling a little less than half its first-week total, it moved 226,000 units during its second week on chart. The next week sales slid by 30% from last week's sum selling 157,000 units, despite this sales decrease the album stayed at number one. The following week, on 14 May 1994 The Division Bell remained at number one on the Billboard 200 and sales declined by 17%. In its fifth week, it fell off to the fourth place on the chart. It was present on the Billboard 200 for 53 weeks. It was certified three times platinum by the RIAA on 29 January 1999 for shipments of three million units.

Critical Reception
The Division Bell received mixed reviews on release. Tom Sinclair of Entertainment Weekly wrote that "avarice is the only conceivable explanation for this glib, vacuous cipher of an album, which is notable primarily for its stomach-turning merger of progressive-rock pomposity and New Age noodling". Rolling Stone's Tom Graves criticized Gilmour's performance, stating that his guitar solos had "settled into rambling, indistinct asides that are as forgettable as they used to be indelible ... only on 'What Do You Want from Me' does Gilmour sound like he cares". Roger Waters, who left Pink Floyd in 1985, dismissed The Division Bell as "Just rubbish ... nonsense from beginning to end."

The album won the Grammy for Best Rock Instrumental Performance on "Marooned". The Division Bell was nominated for the 1995 Brit Award for Best Album by a British Artist, but lost to Blur's Parklife.

In Uncut's 2011 Pink Floyd: The Ultimate Music Guide, Graeme Thomson wrote that The Division Bell "might just be the dark horse of the Floyd canon. The opening triptych of songs is a hugely impressive return to something very close to the eternal essence of Pink Floyd, and much of the rest retains a quiet power and a meditative quality that betrays a genuine sense of unity." In 2014, Uncut reviewed the album again for its 20th-anniversary reissue, and praised its production, writing that it sounded much "more like a classic Pink Floyd album" than The Final Cut (1983) and that the connection between Wright and Gilmour was "the album's musical heart". - Wiki

Reissues
The Division Bell was reissued on the 2011 Why Pink Floyd...? campaign which saw it remastered by Andy Jackson and released as a standalone CD and as part of the Discovery box set which collects all of the 14 studio albums together for the first time.[61] It was reissued again on 30 June 2014, as a "20th anniversary deluxe edition" box set[62] and a 20th anniversary double-LP vinyl reissue.[63] The box set contains the 2011 remaster of the album; a 5.1 surround sound remix by Andy Jackson; 2-LP record on 180g vinyl; a red 7" "Take It Back" single; a clear 7" "High Hopes/Keep Talking" single; a blue, laser-etched 12" "High Hopes" single; book and assorted art cards.[62] The 2014 reissues saw the first release of the full album on vinyl as the 1994 vinyl release saw only edited versions of the songs to keep it to a single LP. The Division Bell was reissued again with the Pink Floyd Records label on 26 August 2016.[64][65]

A limited-edition 25th anniversary double-LP was announced on 11 April 2019, with a release date set for 7 June.[66] The reissue is on blue vinyl and uses the two-LP master created for the 20th anniversary vinyl release.[

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Re: Pink Floyd

Postby Matt Wilson » 17 May 2022, 18:26

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Pulse 1995
Well, we all remember this one with the pulsing red light, right? I think fans probably prefer this to Delicate Sound of Thunder in much the same way that a lot of people like Division Bell over Momentary Lapse. While I can kind of see the point with the studio LPs, I'm not so sure about these two live ones. The whole of Dark Side is here, if that's your thing, and the film is wide screen, so it's more engaging and closer to the theatrical experience than the film for Delicate, but other than that, we have the same issue of live music being made to sound as close to the records as possible. A lot of the appeal of Pink Floyd in concert is the visuals, and since they're all timed to happen at the same point in the show every night, the execution of the songs needs to be exact. No room for improvisation, in other words.

Exactly like my review of Delicate Sound of Thunder, I'm not going to go into detail about these songs since I've done that before in my reviews of the songs on their studio albums. I'll cut and paste the relevant wiki info and consider this to be a mini-review.

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Wikipedia - "Pulse (stylised as P·U·L·S·E) is the third live album by the English rock band Pink Floyd. It was released on 29 May 1995 by EMI in the United Kingdom and on 6 June 1995 by Columbia in the United States. The album was recorded during the European leg of Pink Floyd's Division Bell Tour in 1994.


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Content and recording

The album is notable for including a complete live version of The Dark Side of the Moon. It also features "Astronomy Domine", a Syd Barrett song not performed since the early 1970s. The track "Another Brick in the Wall, Part II" features small portions of the songs "Another Brick in the Wall, Part I", "The Happiest Days of Our Lives" and "Another Brick in the Wall, Part III".

Unlike the previous live album Delicate Sound of Thunder, no parts of the songs were re-recorded in the studio. However, the band and Guthrie fixed songs that had bad notes (as heard on some bootlegs) by lifting solos and corrected vocal lines from other performances as the band recorded most of the European leg. The album was mixed in QSound, which produces a 3D audio effect even on a two channel stereo system.

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Release history
In the United States, despite a price of $34.99 (which included flashing spine light and two AA batteries) Pulse debuted at number one on the Billboard 200 during the week of 24 June 1995 with 198,000 copies sold, it became the first multidisc album to top the Billboard 200 since the chart started using SoundScan data in May 1991. The next week it fell off to number three on the chart. It remained on the chart for twenty two weeks. It was certified two times platinum by the RIAA on 31 July 1995 for shipments of one million units.

On 1 July 1995 the video version of Pulse debuted at number one on the Billboard's Top Music Videos chart with 16,500 units sold. The video was certified eight times platinum by the RIAA on 31 July 2006 for shipments of 800,000 units.

The video version (on VHS and Laserdisc) also featured the song "Take It Back," and an almost complete performance from their 20 October show at Earl's Court, London. The Pulse DVD was released on 10 July 2006. On 16 December 2021, the band announced on social media platforms that a re-release of Pulse on DVD and a first-time release on Blu-ray format will be on 18 February 2022. The packaging will re-introduce the blinking LED featured with the original CD release from 1995.

The vinyl version was released as a four-LP box set and included "One of These Days" (also heard on the cassette release) as well as a large version of the photo booklet.

The original CD cover features an "eye-like" machine that has clock pieces inside, there is a planet in its center, and on the outside it shows evolution as it moves backwards. It starts in the sea, moves to the bacteria which evolve into fishes, then into egg type creatures, then into eggs that hatch birds, and birds follow the trail of an aeroplane. There are six pyramids in the desert, and in the bottom of the sea, one can observe a city in the shore.

The debut of the album was highlighted by a light show from the top of the Empire State Building in New York City with music simulcasted on a New York City radio station.

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LED packaging
Early CD versions came with a flashing red LED on the side of the case. This was designed by EMI contractor Jon Kempner, who was awarded the platinum disc, using the now discontinued LM3909 LED flasher IC. The circuit was powered by a single AA battery; the battery life was stated to be over six months. Some versions were also made with two AA batteries and later editions of the CD set did not feature the blinking LED.

Essentially, it's a device which we thought was entertaining. It's an idea of Storm Thorgerson's which related to Dark Side and the pulse, and it's a live album so the box is "alive". After that, in terms of seriously deep meanings, one might be struggling a bit.

— Nick Mason"

Just like last time, I'm going to recommend watching rather than listening to the show. Here ya go:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HriYRoxWo1I

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Pink Floyd
David Gilmour – lead vocals, lead guitar and lap steel guitar (on "One of These Days", "High Hopes" and "The Great Gig In the Sky")
Nick Mason – drums, percussion (on "Time")
Richard Wright – keyboards, backing vocals, lead vocals on "Astronomy Domine", co-lead vocals on "Time", "Us and Them" and "Comfortably Numb"

Additional personnel
Guy Pratt – bass, backing vocals, co-lead vocals on "Run Like Hell"
Jon Carin – keyboards, backing vocals, co-lead vocals on "Hey You"
Sam Brown – backing vocals, first vocalist on "The Great Gig in the Sky"
Durga McBroom – backing vocals, second vocalist on "The Great Gig in the Sky"
Claudia Fontaine – backing vocals, third vocalist on "The Great Gig in the Sky"
Tim Renwick – guitar, backing vocals
Dick Parry – saxophone
Gary Wallis – percussion

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Disc one

1. "Shine On You Crazy Diamond, Parts I–V, VII" (20 October 1994, Earls Court, London) David Gilmour, Roger Waters, Richard Wright) 13:35
2. "Astronomy Domine" (15 October 1994, Earls Court, London) (Syd Barrett) 4:20
3. "What Do You Want From Me" (21 September 1994, Cinecittà, Rome) (Gilmour, Wright, Polly Samson) 4:10
4. "Learning to Fly" (14 October 1994, Earls Court, London) (Gilmour, Anthony Moore, Bob Ezrin, Jon Carin) 5:16
5. "Keep Talking" (17 August 1994, Niedersachsenstadion, Hanover) (Gilmour, Wright, Samson) 6:52
6. "Coming Back to Life" (20 October 1994, Earls Court, London) (Gilmour) 6:56
7. "Hey You" (13, 15 October 1994, Earls Court, London) (Waters) 4:40
8. "A Great Day for Freedom" (19 October 1994, Earls Court, London) (Gilmour, Samson) 4:30
9. "Sorrow" (20 September 1994, Cinecittà, Rome) (Gilmour) 10:49
10. "High Hopes" (20, October 1994, Earls Court, London) (Gilmour, Samson) 7:52
11. "Another Brick in the Wall, Part II" (20 October 1994, Earls Court, London) (Waters) 7:08

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Disc two

1. "Speak to Me" (20 October 1994, Earls Court, London) (Nick Mason) 1:53
2. "Breathe (In the Air)" (20 October 1994, Earls Court, London) (Gilmour, Waters, Wright) 2:33
3. "On the Run" (20, October 1994, Earls Court, London) (Gilmour,Waters) 3:48
4. "Time / Breathe (Reprise)" (20 October 1994, Earls Court, London) (Gilmour, Waters, Wright, Mason) 6:47
5. "The Great Gig in the Sky" (20 October 1994, Earls Court, London) (Wright, Clare Torry) 5:52
6. "Money" (17 September 1994, Modena) (Waters) 8:54
7. "Us and Them" (20 October 1994, Earls Court, London) (Waters, Wright) 6:58
8. "Any Colour You Like" (19, 23 October 1994, Earls Court, London) (Gilmour, Wright, Mason) 3:21
9. "Brain Damage" (19 October 1994, Earls Court, London) (Waters) 3:46
10. "Eclipse" (19 October 1994, Earls Court, London) (Waters) 2:38
11. "Wish You Were Here" (20 September 1994, Cinecittà, Rome) (Gilmour, Waters) 6:35
12. "Comfortably Numb" (20 October 1994, Earls Court, London) (Gilmour, Waters) 9:29
13. "Run Like Hell" (15 October 1994, Earls Court, London) (Gilmour, Waters) 8:36

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Re: Pink Floyd

Postby robertff » 17 May 2022, 19:19

Nice post as usual Matt. I know that DB isn't everyone’s favourite Floyd album and that many don’t even like it at all but I like it and find it genuinely preferable to some of their more highly feted work.


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Re: Pink Floyd

Postby ConnyOlivetti » 17 May 2022, 20:31

Wearing the Inside Out" Is the best song on the album.
Its got that magic Floyd feeling about it.
Really like it. Not so much the rest of the album
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Re: Pink Floyd

Postby robertff » 17 May 2022, 22:29

.

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Re: Pink Floyd

Postby Mike Boom » 17 May 2022, 23:15

Ive given the Division Bell a few listens the last few days.
Better than anything Waters produced but missing a bit of his bite as his albums miss Gilmour's musicality. Still its not bad, enjoyable to listen to if a bit bland. Gilmours playing, and his tone and overall sound is always a joy to listen to and I really like "Poles Apart", "High Hopes" and "Marooned".

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Re: Pink Floyd

Postby trans-chigley express » 18 May 2022, 05:41

ConnyOlivetti wrote:Wearing the Inside Out" Is the best song on the album.
Its got that magic Floyd feeling about it.
Really like it. Not so much the rest of the album


I agree. Keep Talking and High Hopes are two others I like but overall I'm not crazy about the album though it is an an improvement on Momentary Lapse

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Re: Pink Floyd

Postby Matt Wilson » 23 May 2022, 18:12

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David Gilmour On an Island 2006
The Floyd camp was rather docile in the early years of the twenty first century, with no PF albums and only this Dave effort to satiate fans' desires for new product. Lacking the ambition of a Waters project, Gilmour discs tend to satisfy through fulfilling nostalgic expectations rather than challenging with new ideas or concepts. Overall, I'd say his debut is still the best, with this one possibly coming in second. David is not going to push himself when Roger isn't around, and his ambitions don't seem to outweigh his financial comfort when deciding to record music. That said, this is a perfectly listenable affair for the most part, released at a time when Waters was involving himself with an opera. Gilmour has everybody under the sun helping him on the record (check out the credits below), and there's nothing here to irritate. The 2000s was the least productive decade for new solo Pink Floyd music thus far, and absolutely no new actual Floyd album. It was what it was, folks.

Wiki - "On an Island is the third solo studio album by Pink Floyd member David Gilmour. It was released in the UK on 6 March 2006, Gilmour's 60th birthday, and in the US the following day. It was his first solo album in 22 years since About Face in 1984 and 12 years since Pink Floyd's 1994 album The Division Bell.

History
The album features Robert Wyatt, Jools Holland, Georgie Fame, David Crosby, Graham Nash, Pink Floyd keyboardist Richard Wright, early Pink Floyd member Bob Klose and Pink Floyd session and touring musician Guy Pratt. Chris Thomas and Roxy Music's Phil Manzanera assisted with production. Engineering duties were undertaken by long time collaborator Andy Jackson. The lyrics were principally written by Gilmour's wife, writer Polly Samson.

Recording
Much of the album was recorded in Gilmour's private studio aboard his houseboat Astoria. The track "Smile" was heard briefly in an unmastered form on the BBC2 show Three Men in a Boat which retraced a trip on the River Thames that passed the houseboat. Other sections were recorded at David's farm in Sussex and Mark Knopfler's British Grove Studios.

Orchestrations on the album were arranged by noted Polish film composer Zbigniew Preisner and conducted by Robert Ziegler. The orchestra was recorded at Abbey Road Studios by Simon Rhodes.

Singles
The album also produced two singles; the title track "On an Island" and "Smile", the latter peaking at #72 on the UK Singles Chart. "On an Island" also peaked at #27 on the Billboard Mainstream Rock Tracks chart.

Promo Single edits of "Take a Breath" and "This Heaven" were issued to coincide with the US leg of the tour, while "Smile" was the second single in the UK.

Other releases
Copies of the album initially purchased from Best Buy in the US contained an exclusive bonus audio CD with the instrumental track "Island Jam" which was subsequently released on the CD single for "Smile" in Europe.

The album was re-released in November 2006 with a bonus DVD of live tracks and other material.

A 5.1 mix of the album was released as part of the deluxe edition of Live In Gdansk"

Personnel
David Gilmour – guitars (all), lead vocals (all except 1, 5, 7,), lap steel guitars, electric piano (2), percussion (2, 3, 8, 9, 10), bass guitar (3, 8, 9, 10), piano (3, 8, 9), alto saxophone (5), cümbüş (7), bass harmonica (7), Hammond organ (7, 8, 9, 10), harmonica (2)
Guy Pratt – bass guitar (2, 4,)
Richard Wright – Hammond organ (2), co-lead vocals (3)
David Crosby – vocals (2)
Graham Nash – vocals (2)
Rado Klose – guitar (2, 3)
Chris Stainton – Hammond organ (3)
Andy Newmark – drums (2, 3, 6, 10), percussion (7)
Jools Holland – piano (3)
Polly Samson – piano (3), backing vocals (8)
Phil Manzanera – guitar (4, 6, 7)
Leszek Możdżer – piano (4, 9)

Ged Lynch – drums (4,)
Caroline Dale – cello (4, 5, 7)
Chris Laurence – double bass (5, 9)
Ilan Eshkeri – programming (5, 9)
Georgie Fame – Hammond organ (6)
BJ Cole – Weissenborn guitar (7)
Robert Wyatt – cornet (7), percussion (7), vocals (7)
Willie Wilson – drums (8)
Alasdair Malloy – glass harmonica (7, 9)
Lucy Wakeford – harp (9)
Chris Thomas – keyboards (9)
Zbigniew Preisner – orchestration (1, 2, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10)

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All music written by David Gilmour.

1. "Castellorizon" 3:54
We begin with a nice instrumental which sets the tone for the disc. Nothing which will push the envelope in any way. Well-recorded audiophile music which functions as background sounds for you hifi system. Sound effects, Dave's bluesy guitar soloing in that soulful manner we've come to expect from him. He's giving the people what they want and there's no complaints from me. The fact that he could do this in his sleep notwithstanding...

""Castellorizon" is the opening track on David Gilmour's third solo album, On an Island. It is an instrumental guitar solo, which starts off with an overture of various sounds from other tracks of the album before the guitar is introduced. The song is based on a night Gilmour spent on the Greek island of Kastellorizo. It segues into "On an Island", the title track. The song received a nomination for Best Rock Instrumental Performance at the 49th Grammy Awards. The song was nominated for the same Grammy Award again at the 51st Grammy Awards for a performance from Gilmour's Live in Gdańsk album." - Wikipedia

2. "On an Island" (Lyrics - Gilmour, Polly Samson) 6:47
One of the highlights here, with his wife helping with the words. The phrase "Remember the Night" was used as the title for an excellent live set with accompanying visuals which I highly recommend. In fact - I'll give little mini reviews later on if I think about it for some of the various in-concert David and Roger discs one can acquire. Since Floyd never played after The Division Bell tour, we have to make do with live solo efforts.

This idyllic examination of life on an island has a perhaps too-slow tempo, but Dave is built for comfort, and a speedy delivery was never in his arsenal.

3. "The Blue" (Lyrics - Samson) 5:26
Polly writes in a poetic manner with sensory details enveloping the listener instead of any kind of linear narrative. Most unlike Waters in fact. Languid, with the rhythms of the the blue sea ever present. Don't fall asleep!

4. "Take a Breath" (Lyrics - Samson) 5:46
The first one with anything other than a slow tempo. Not to say that this is rocking, mind, it's just not as somnambulist as what came before. Despite its quickened pace, my least fave on side one.

Wiki: "Gilmour co-wrote the track with his wife, Polly Samson. As he revealed during a promotional interview for the album with Matthew Evans, the lyrics for the song exploit the theme of water (which runs through the whole album) and, in this case, being pulled underwater and drowning - both intended as symbols of man's mortality.

Along with "This Heaven", also on On an Island, it was released in the US as a promotional CD-R in October 2006. The song was performed live during Gilmour's 2006 On an Island tour, although it was performed in a different order to the album, played as the eighth song in the album set instead of fourth.

In 2007, the song was released in special promotional 7" singles, along with selected songs from On an Island, such as "Smile", "This Heaven", "A Pocketful of Stones", and "On an Island"

5. "Red Sky at Night" 2:51
And the first half ends like it began - with an instrumental, with what appears to be Gilmour on sax, an instrument I didn't even know he played.

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6. "This Heaven" (Lyrics - Gilmour, Samson) 4:24
Bluesy, with a simplistic riff and words about heaven on earth. I wonder how much of the sentiment is Polly rather than David? Still one of the more memorable cuts here though. "So drink the bread and pour the wine..." indeed.

"This Heaven" is a song written and recorded by former Pink Floyd lead singer and guitarist, David Gilmour. It is included as the sixth track from his third studio album, and his first post-Pink Floyd solo album, On an Island. It was one of two songs released in the US as promotional CD-Rs in October 2006. The song, along with the entire album, was performed live during Gilmour's 2006 On an Island tour." - Wiki

7. "Then I Close My Eyes" 5:26
Dave's penchant for instrumentals (just like on his first LP) extends to this slight little number with various studio trickery as background for his guitar, harmonica, and "cümbüş" (whatever that is). Mellow, as is the entire album. I guess he wasn't in a rock mode at this stage in his life.

8. "Smile" (Lyrics - Samson) 4:03
The most famous track on this disc (Is it? It's hard to tell), with a nice vocal melody, and Samson's romantic lyrics which certainly don't sound like something Dave would write. At sixty, he was clearly becoming domesticated. Good for him I guess.

Wikipedia - "Smile" is a single by guitarist and vocalist David Gilmour, released on 13 June 2006. The song was on the UK charts for 1 week and peaked at 72.

Live
The song was first performed at Gilmour's 2001 and 2002 live shows (and also on the accompanying DVD) where Gilmour introduced it as: "This is a new one so if you are bootlegging, start your machines now." It was eventually recorded at his houseboat studio, the Astoria, for the 2006 album On an Island. The song is in 3/4 time.

During the three nights at the Royal Albert Hall during his On an Island Tour in 2006, empty CD wallets bearing the "Smile" single cover, and a CD-sticker were left on seats of audience members who would discover them on arrival, each one bearing a unique number. The idea was to download the single from iTunes, burn it to a CD-R, place the CD-shaped sticker onto the burnt CD and keep it in the wallet.

"Island Jam" was initially available via Gilmour's website before being made more widely available.

An unmastered form of "Smile" can be heard briefly on the BBC2 show Three Men in a Boat which retraced a trip on the River Thames, and visited the houseboat."

9. "A Pocketful of Stones" (Lyrics - Samson) 6:17
An even slower intro than usual before the song opens up to a blistering, speed-metal six string attack. Just kidding, My eyes are drooping listening to this though and I must amuse myself. Her lyrics seem to be about a man drifting through life not comprehending things, but I could be wrong as it's difficult to pay attention with your eyes closed. David sings it nicely though. The longest cut since the title track. The next one is even lengthier though...

10. "Where We Start" (Lyrics - Gilmour) 6:45
And we finish with another ballad, but this time with Gilmour-written lyrics. The couple is walking home from a day spent together. The darkness is behind them you see, but there's still a ways to go.

So again, nothing earth-shattering, but then we don't expect that from David Gilmour at this point in his narrative. I'd pick up the pace some in these songs, but then I'm not him, right?

Chart performance
On an Island entered the UK charts at #1, giving Gilmour his first ever chart-topping album outside of Pink Floyd. It reached #1 on the European Chart, and #2 in Canada, Portugal and Iceland. It has also provided Gilmour with his first US Top 10 album, reaching #6." - Wiki

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Re: Pink Floyd

Postby trans-chigley express » 24 May 2022, 05:31

I've never heard On An Island but just reading about has me falling asleep so I guess it's not the most exciting of listens.

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Re: Pink Floyd

Postby robertff » 24 May 2022, 11:03

As you said Matt, nothing earth shattering, but still a very pleasant album and a beautiful cover to boot. At one time original copies of the vinyl were selling for lots of money.



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Re: Pink Floyd

Postby Matt Wilson » 24 May 2022, 16:59

Okay, thought I'd list some of the live Dave & Roger discs I own before I forget about it. This thread is all but done. Next week I'll finish up. As with the previous live discs, I'm not going to review these releases on a song-by-song basis as I've already done that with the studio versions. I'll just post a picture of the cover and mention the quality. Actually, they're all pretty good, so distinguishing between them is something I'm not overly interested in. I bought every single one of these because they have 5.1 mixes.

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David Gilmour Live at Pompeii 2017
This is a good one. Reminiscent of Floyd's classic Pompeii concert in the early seventies, Dave pulls out all the stops with a show promoting the recent Rattle that Lock album, along with the usual PF songs he trots out every time he tours.

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Live In Gdańsk 2008
Another one Wiki has referenced in the reviews on this thread, and virtually as good as the Pompeii show. On an Island songs, the usual Floyd classics (with "Astronomy Domine"!), and great sound.

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Remember that Night 2006
The picture quality is a tad fuzzy, but the show might even be the best of the three that I'm recommending here. The show is almost the same as the one on the Gdańsk disc, but the bonus tracks are something else entirely. "Wot's... Uh The Deal," "Dominoes,""Dark Globe," and "Arnold Layne!" Hell, maybe I should've listed this first.

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Roger Waters Us + Them 2020
As good as any of the Gilmour discs, with outstanding picture and sound quality. I'm not posting pictures of the blu rays for any of these releases but if you have a blu ray player, then obviously, that's the way to experience these offerings. The usual Dark Side songs and other assorted Floyd tunes, with some Is This the Life We Really Want? cuts as well.

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The Wall 2015
Ever wonder why Roger has more money than David when he wasn't part of those latter-day Floyd tours? It's because of his touring of The Wall. This film is excellent. Waters is firing on all cylinders in his effort to bring the fans more bang for their bucks. The entire album is performed with interviews and footage of Rog off stage intercut into the film. Hopefully, we'll get video of Floyd doing The Wall during their '80-'81 tour one day.

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In the Flesh 2000
No blu ray, only a DVD, and the surround sound is only middling. Still a good show though with the usual blend of Floyd and solo cuts for the punters to think they're getting a complete look at his career. Roger doesn't do any sixties numbers though in any of these discs.

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Nick Mason's Saucerful Of Secrets – Live At The Roundhouse 2020
This might be the first purchase for those of us inclined to view early Floyd as the best Floyd. Mason's Saucerful band does PF material pre-Dark Side, with plenty of Syd-era stuff. Filling the niche caused by Dave and Roger's emphasis on Floyd songs from '73 on. Lots of fun and Waters even shows up for a cameo.


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