C/D : Pink Floyd "The Division Bell"

coming up on the 20th anniversary of the time me and my friends saw the floyd at the rose bowl during the division bell tour. DSOTM laser show at griffith park was more fun tbh.

Hah - I was at that show too!

was ths referenced in true detective or something played from it?

http://pbs.twimg.com/media/BgLsAWSCMAEVYZ-.jpg

I would bet that's woody's shirt in real life

Hah - I was at that show too!
i think they actually opened with "astronomy domine" which would've been cool if we weren't still in the parking lot...

I was lucky enough to see two shows in London, one with all of DSOTM and the other straighter set with Astronomy, they were great, yeah..

Yah, "Astronomy Domine" was first. Possibly the best moment of the show as it was just the three of them recreating the UFO club as best they could. As much as I love how Gilmour constructs his guitar bits, he needs to free-form freakout more.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0siszbObCcw

One great obscure track from this era is "Soundscape" - a 22 minute long ambient piece that was played as the opening of all the Division Bell shows. It later turned up on the PULSE cassette tape.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KwNYq-c0lBw

my drummer that smokes mad weed but is in great physical shape loves this album

― charleston charge (chaki), Saturday, 16 April 2005 01:04 (8 years ago) Permalink

^^haunts my thoughts

also I was wrong, maybe it is terrible. I thought a defense could be mounted, like it sounds like a surprisingly decent album by a generic '80s band that you'd be happy to find in a $1 vinyl bin. but as a mid-1990s Floyd record yeah it's just a bit of a slog to put it mildly.

my drummer that smokes mad weed but is in great physical shape loves this album

i'm trying to understand what insights I am supposed to derive from this comment.

I haven't really bothered with post-Animals Pink Floyd albums (I think this is largely justified), but something about the the Division Bell, really catches my interest... probably the mysterious album art has something to do with it. I've only heard two songs off the album. The last track, "High Hopes," is very haunting, and I like it quite a bit. How's the rest of the album?
― Vestigial Appendages, Esq. (King Kobra), Thursday, April 14, 2005 5:40 PM (8 years ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Pink Fraud.
― shookout (shookout), Thursday, April 14, 2005 5:45 PM (8 years ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Stink Floyd.
― Gear! (can Jung shill it, Mu?) (Gear!), Thursday, April 14, 2005 5:46 PM (8 years ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

so much ownage

http://data.motor-talk.de/data/galleries/299768/20535/bild-37910.JPG
I drove a 2nd hand VW Gold Pink Floyd for a couple of years (a red one). It did survive my first accident, but the second crash totalled the car...

The soundscape referenced upthread was cool as hell in the live setting--it probably was the best and perhaps only good use of a giant arena- 360 degree sound at a moment when people were still filing in and no one was really paying close attention, so you could really hear it clearly. I remember the show being pretty damn cool overall, having come around at probably my Peak Floyd period.

I love The Final Cut.
overall I prefer A Momentary Lapse to Division Bell, but from the latter I really dig three songs: Cluster One, Poles Apart, and High Hopes. also, I like Rick Wright's track.
I thought Take It Back sounded more like Simple Minds circa Street Fighting Years (another album I love) than U2.

http://www.divisionbell20.com/

Publius Enigma

still have never come around on this record

just gave it another listen though and enjoyed it for what it is.

Can't remember who said it, but one of the funniest things I've ever heard was that review/tweet/whatever that said of that stupid James Franco Wizard of Oz prequel, "This movie sucks so bad it probably syncs up with The Division Bell."

Correction: it was an ILX post!

This movie is gonna suck so bad that it will sync up with The Division Bell

― Your spectacular host (Viceroy), Friday, March 15, 2013 7:12 PM (3 years ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

amazing

would have also accepted Momentary Lapse of Reason but Division Bell rings funnier

**long sigh**

I like the Division Bell.

Loud lol at that post

my drummer that smokes mad weed but is in great physical shape loves this album

― charleston charge (chaki), Friday, April 15, 2005 6:04 PM (fifteen years ago) bookmarkflaglink

i think i've become the kind of person who smokes mad weed and loves this album

"take it back" -> "coming back to life," that's the good shit

also "poles apart"! "marooned"! i can't/can believe this thread is full of people saying everything but "high hopes" sucks

pink floyd rules

If A Momentary Lapse of Reason is Pink Floyd at their most dad rock, The Division Bell feels like some kind of post-dad rock stage. I think that the tour for this album and the subsequent release of Pulse did rehabilitate the band for a new generation of listeners.

revisiting momentary was really depressing, i might be alone in this but i think it sounds even less like pink floyd than the final cut. "sorrow," "terminal frost," "one slip" all great though. "learning to fly" never did much for me

also feels like it goes on forever. which tbf so does the division bell but i like it in that case

If you sync up The Division Bell to the Tom Hanks-Meg Ryan movie "You've Got Mail," the many coincidences that arise are amazing.

― blonry, Friday, April 15, 2005 2:57 PM (fifteen years ago)

that extended slide guitar solo that runs the second half of High Hopes is really epic & tastefully done. that whole song is nice, actually.

otherwise, this album sucks.

this album rules, it’s sooooo beautiful

I really like the idea of it being beautiful, and if I could just get past the stigma of well... Pink Floyd in the 90's (which really shouldn't preclude my embracing it, especially in my older and more impartial stage of life), I daresay I could come round.

i hated it for many years so i get it! but i have embraced the corn

Is there a name for the kind of melody you get in the chorus of 'A Great Day For Freedom', where you get the general 'Just One Cornetto' / 'When Girls Get Together' vibe?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=22z03ZQtpe8

The only thing I hear in common between those three melodies is maybe starting on a chord suspension?

The best thing about The Division Bell is that Gilmour and co. have their confidence back, there isn't the paralyzing fear that departing six inches from the Floyd template is going to lose them their audience. So they can do something as sunny as "Coming Back to Life", which unfortunately also sounds like a lifeless bedroom recording with fake drums that goes on for 6 minutes.
The worst thing is all these tiresome quarrelsome lyrics playing with the audience: "is it about Roger? Maybe it could be...!" Also it's twenty minutes longer than A Momentary Lapse of Reason and probably even slower. My pick from this era is the Pulse version of "A Great Day For Freedom", it gets the epic feel without running it into the ground.

I stan mildly for this album and Reason mostly because they're... as good as Pink Floyd ever were imo? Which is fine

this is one of those records I really want to like better than I do, and I keep coming back to it, and saying, it's fine, but I keep hoping it will seem super great

mighty challops. i appreciate the take.

xp

It's not really a champ, Pink Floyd are this band of many phases and eras that have periods that are over-romanticized (Syd), overlooked (soundtracks), overpraised (Dark Side), inexplicably popular (The Wall), vilified (Dave-era). It all sounds of the same level of quality to me with the exception of The Final Cut which is possibly the worst album I've ever heard

*challop ha

xpost have you not heard Pros & Cons Of Hitchhiking then?

while it's true that people flog the romance of the Syd era, Piper remains one of the most astonishing displays of genuine songwriting -- virtuosity, I want to say, but the very thing that makes it so appealing is its evident ease, the fluidity of it. it's easy for people to talk the wrong way about Syd, but of Piper one can only say -- what an unparalleled collection of tunes, very hard to overrate

i like it but i really got into pink floyd with momentary lapse of reason then the wall then everything before and finally the final cut which i did not like or any of roger waters solo stuff!

Pink Floyd are this band of many phases and eras

There's a continuity that goes undetected all too often, though, especially between the Syd stuff and everything after. "Oh, it was a completely different band with Syd" - Nonsense! Many different styles and approaches, sure, and they previewed almost all of them on or before their second album. PatGoD is the template.

virtuosity, I want to say, but the very thing that makes it so appealing is its evident ease, the fluidity of it.

For me the Syd era is characterized by the jarring stiffness of the ensemble and their trepidatious and tentative approach to improvisation and musical exploration, which they retain afterwards to an extent. Mason's approach on Nick's Boogie/Saucerful of Secrets' is intuitive to the point that it almost sounds like he's never played the drums before. Fluidity is something I feel Gilmour introduces, at least in a musical sense.

I think it's Syd's internal rhyming that creates the jolly quality of his songs, or the lightness, and his words tend to dictate the meter of the music. I agree that this material does not lay bare the effort involved the way the post-Syd, pre-Dark Side material does.

Piper one can only say -- what an unparalleled collection of tunes, very hard to overrate

hard agree there