― blonry, Friday, 15 April 2005 21:57 (nineteen years ago) link
"Human beings, who are almost unique in having the ability to learn from the experience of others, are also remarkable for their apparent disinclination to do so." -Douglas Adams, Last Chance to See
"It is for those of you who now believe,..."
"To validate the trust of those who believe,..." -Publius
"A bureaucracy and a factory are automated machines in Wiener's view. The whole world -- even the universe -- could be seen as one big feedback system subject to the relentless advance of entropy, which subverts the exchange of messages that is essential to continued existence" -M. McAdams, Wiener: Ideas
Check out the cover of Norbert Wiener's "The Human Use of Human Beings":
http://images.google.com/images?q=tbn:kHMcyAGNQlQJ:www.angelfire.com/co/1x137/images/humanuse.gif
http://www.angelfire.com/co/1x137/wiener.html
― Lemonade Salesman (Eleventy-Twelve), Friday, 15 April 2005 22:06 (nineteen years ago) link
Gilmour himself had the best answer to this at one of his solo shows a couple years back. Someone in the audience shouted "when's the next Floyd album?" at him and he replied back "aw who gives a shit."
― Elvis Telecom (Chris Barrus), Saturday, 16 April 2005 01:01 (nineteen years ago) link
― Alex in NYC (vassifer), Saturday, 16 April 2005 01:02 (nineteen years ago) link
― charleston charge (chaki), Saturday, 16 April 2005 01:04 (nineteen years ago) link
― davidsim (davidsim), Saturday, 16 April 2005 01:36 (nineteen years ago) link
― Lemonade Salesman (Eleventy-Twelve), Saturday, 16 April 2005 04:50 (nineteen years ago) link
― Geir Hongro (GeirHong), Saturday, 16 April 2005 16:04 (nineteen years ago) link
I haven't heard "Take It Back" or "What Do You Want From Me" in probably 9 or 10 years, but my memory wants to tell me that I would enjoy them if I heard them again. They very well could be incredibly boring songs though. Sometimes my memory tricks me. The other 2 that got radio airplay I believe were both on Echoes - "High Hopes" and the one that's like "I can't seem to think straight." I still think "High Hopes" is really good, and it has one of my friends favorite guitar solos ever. The other one is sort of catchy, but also boring.
I also don't think Pink Floyd is quite as huge with the kids these days as it was in the 90's. I see far less kids wearing Floyd t-shirts.
― billstevejim, Saturday, 16 April 2005 16:38 (nineteen years ago) link
― Lemonade Salesman (Eleventy-Twelve), Saturday, 16 April 2005 17:09 (nineteen years ago) link
I don't know why I'm the only one who likes this album...
― Colin_C., Thursday, 3 January 2008 03:51 (sixteen years ago) link
Have you listened to it??
― novaheat, Thursday, 3 January 2008 05:16 (sixteen years ago) link
Yeah, but not in a few years.
Although, I was just listening to "Coming Back to Life" and kinda digging it.
― Colin_C., Thursday, 3 January 2008 05:22 (sixteen years ago) link
I seem to remember each of the 2 post-Waters studio albums having one or two reasonably pleasant tracks on them. The live albums are disasters, of course.
― novaheat, Thursday, 3 January 2008 05:34 (sixteen years ago) link
This one and "A Momentary Lapse" of reason are both way better than "The Final Cut".
― Geir Hongro, Thursday, 3 January 2008 10:42 (sixteen years ago) link
No wonder considering they haven't released new material since 1994.
In the 90s, you had a generation of kids who discovered them through "The Division Bell" and then started exploring their back catalogues from their dads' old record collection. Today's kids are more likely to find "Saturday Night Fever", "Never Mind The Bollocks", "Dare" or "Thriller" in their parents' record collections.
― Geir Hongro, Thursday, 3 January 2008 10:45 (sixteen years ago) link
Geir having read this thread I'm not clear as to how you feel about "The Final Cut," please elucidate - all I can glean of your position is
Nice background music. Not at all up there with their best work in any way at all, but still better than "The Final Cut"
"The Final Cut" was crap
This one and "A Momentary Lapse" of reason are both way better than "The Final Cut"
― J0hn D., Thursday, 3 January 2008 10:51 (sixteen years ago) link
I don't know why I'm the only one who likes this album... tons of my jr high stoner buds love this album
― chaki, Thursday, 3 January 2008 10:52 (sixteen years ago) link
Every post-Waters Pink Floyd album, (along with Gilmour's latest solo album) taps into this supposed idea of what Pink Floyd "should sound like" -- which is evidently "blissful washes of sound, pseudo-poetic, sometimes obscure lyrics, and the guitar solo from 'Comfortably Numb.'
The turgid "Not Now John" notwithstanding, "The Final Cut" is a far more interesting and bold statement, even if its political message has necessarily aged since 1983. In a sense, though, I find that preferable to the imagined "timelessness" of everything Gilmour's done since 1984.
― novaheat, Thursday, 3 January 2008 20:31 (sixteen years ago) link
"Comfortably Numb" + "Echoes," I guess.
― novaheat, Thursday, 3 January 2008 20:34 (sixteen years ago) link
a momentary lapse of reason is one of the 3 worst albums i've ever heard
― Just got offed, Thursday, 3 January 2008 20:37 (sixteen years ago) link
I still stand by what I said upthread
― Elvis Telecom, Thursday, 3 January 2008 21:51 (sixteen years ago) link
You big-up "Lost For Words", conveniently forgetting that it is almost a note-for-note rewrite of "Wish You Were Here".
― Just got offed, Thursday, 3 January 2008 21:54 (sixteen years ago) link
They sound roughly like "Dark Side Of The Moon", which is fine enough for me because I like the way "Dark Side Of The Moon" sounds. "The Final Cut" sounds like the tracks from "The Wall" that I don't like (that is, not "Comfortably Numb", which is by far the best thing on that double)
― Geir Hongro, Thursday, 3 January 2008 22:46 (sixteen years ago) link
I've always loved the Final Cut. But I seem to like it for the same reasons I DON'T like the Pros and Cons of Hitch-hiking. There's a tuneless monotony to both, but for some reason TFC resonates and I remember every song, whereas TPACOH-H I can't recall anything other than the title cut. For the record, I do like Animals, Meddle, Wish You Were Here, Gilmour's first solo album, parts of The Wall, and the Syd-era...but Division Bell is something I can't even contemplate. Though maybe like the Stones' Undercover, I will one day find joy in the perversity.
If this should happen, I will probably also be found raving about the new Chad Kroeger solo album and talking to buildings. Do NOT try and help me at that point. Let me stay at rock bottom and learn my lesson.
― smurfherder, Thursday, 3 January 2008 22:59 (sixteen years ago) link
Is there a pink floyd albums poll?
― Herman G. Neuname, Thursday, 3 January 2008 23:02 (sixteen years ago) link
this isn't really terrible
― omar little, Thursday, 3 January 2008 23:05 (sixteen years ago) link
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
^^^^^
i haven't listened to pink floyd in years but i remember "high hopes" off this album being decent.
― Jordan, Thursday, 3 January 2008 23:07 (sixteen years ago) link
that song is good, the rest of the album is terrible. the new gilmore album is much better.
― akm, Thursday, 3 January 2008 23:31 (sixteen years ago) link
"High Hopes" stands among Pink Floyd's best, in my opinion-- though it doesn't really sound like much else in their catalog. Or anyone else's for that matter (as far as I know).
― res, Thursday, 10 July 2008 22:51 (fifteen years ago) link
huh
― Surmounter, Thursday, 10 July 2008 22:56 (fifteen years ago) link
Next time you're found with your chin on the ground There's a lot to be learned so look around Just what makes that little ol' ant Think he'll move that rubber tree plant Anyone knows an ant can't Move a rubber tree plant
But he's got high hopes... he's got high hopes He's got high apple pie in the sky hopes So any time you're getting low 'Stead of letting go, Just remember that ant. Oops there goes another rubber tree plant. Oops there goes another rubber tree plant. Oops there goes another rubber tree plant.
When troubles call and your back's to the wall There's a lot to be learned, that wall could fall. Once there was a silly ol' ram, Thought he'd punch a hole in a dam; No one could make that ram scram, He kept buttin' that dam
But he's got high hopes... he's got high hopes He's got high apple pie in the sky hopes So any time you're feeling bad 'Stead of feeling sad Just remember that ram. Oops there goes a billion kilowatt Oops there goes a billion kilowatt Oops there goes a billion kilowatt dam!
So keep your high hopes, keep your high hopes. Keep your high apple pie in the sky hopes. A problem's just a toy balloon They'll be bursting soon They're just bound to go POP! Oops there goes another problem kerplop. Oops there goes another problem kerplop. Oops there goes another problem kerplop. Kerplop!
― thirdalternative, Friday, 11 July 2008 02:08 (fifteen years ago) link
is that the song that the flanders kids sing?
― res, Friday, 11 July 2008 02:16 (fifteen years ago) link
*kerplop*
― haitch, Friday, 11 July 2008 02:36 (fifteen years ago) link
listening to this because of true detective
goddamn this is the most boring record ever made
― sXe & the banshees (upper mississippi sh@kedown), Monday, 17 February 2014 23:20 (ten years ago) link
but publius enigma!!
― joe perry has been dead for years (underrated aerosmith bootlegs I have owned), Monday, 17 February 2014 23:21 (ten years ago) link
"High Hopes" is very good!
― Poliopolice, Monday, 17 February 2014 23:22 (ten years ago) link
maybe even more epic than "Bohemian Rhapsody"!
― Poliopolice, Monday, 17 February 2014 23:23 (ten years ago) link
full disclosure: i am only at Take It Back because this album's running time is THE REST OF MY FUCKING SAD PATHETIC LIFE
― sXe & the banshees (upper mississippi sh@kedown), Monday, 17 February 2014 23:27 (ten years ago) link
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.
― tylerw, Monday, 17 February 2014 23:29 (ten years ago) link
I remember Take It Back sounding dangerously like U2. Maybe I should go back and listen to reconfirm that.
― Poliopolice, Monday, 17 February 2014 23:30 (ten years ago) link
here's some audio from that show! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1p-ewakMup0this might've been the best part iirc.
― tylerw, Monday, 17 February 2014 23:30 (ten years ago) link
ok holy shjt i didn't know about publius enigma
― sXe & the banshees (upper mississippi sh@kedown), Monday, 17 February 2014 23:32 (ten years ago) link
i had forgotten about "keep talking" that was kind of a minor-ish hit
― sXe & the banshees (upper mississippi sh@kedown), Monday, 17 February 2014 23:42 (ten years ago) link
why did this have to come out at the ignorant-ass age (of me) where you don't know any better and you just listen to everything by bands that you like, c'est la vie
― j., Monday, 17 February 2014 23:44 (ten years ago) link
yeah i really think division bell was a turning point for me in that regard. it took a little while, but at some point (probably about halfway through that rose bowl show) i was like wait this sucks!
― tylerw, Monday, 17 February 2014 23:46 (ten years ago) link
[i typed that while totally rocking out to that "comfortably numb" btw]
― tylerw, Monday, 17 February 2014 23:49 (ten years ago) link
yeah i really think division bell was a turning point for me in that regard. it took a little while, but at some point (probably about halfway through that rose bowl show) i was like wait this sucks doesn't rule!― tylerw, Monday, February 17, 2014 5:46 PM (1 minute ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink
― tylerw, Monday, February 17, 2014 5:46 PM (1 minute ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink
Fixed
― ...out of that weakness, out of that envy, out of that fear.. (C. Grisso/McCain), Monday, 17 February 2014 23:50 (ten years ago) link
even when they suck pink floyd rules
― sXe & the banshees (upper mississippi sh@kedown), Monday, 17 February 2014 23:51 (ten years ago) link
also "poles apart"! "marooned"! i can't/can believe this thread is full of people saying everything but "high hopes" sucks
― mellon collie and the infinite bradness (BradNelson), Saturday, 9 May 2020 15:43 (three years ago) link
pink floyd rules
― mellon collie and the infinite bradness (BradNelson), Saturday, 9 May 2020 16:12 (three years ago) link
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.
― Melomane, Saturday, 9 May 2020 16:37 (three years ago) link
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
― mellon collie and the infinite bradness (BradNelson), Saturday, 9 May 2020 17:27 (three years ago) link
also feels like it goes on forever. which tbf so does the division bell but i like it in that case
― mellon collie and the infinite bradness (BradNelson), Saturday, 9 May 2020 17:28 (three years ago) link
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)
― blonry, Friday, April 15, 2005 2:57 PM (fifteen years ago)
― Jersey Al (Albert R. Broccoli), Saturday, 9 May 2020 19:10 (three years ago) link
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.
― charlie rex, Thursday, 23 December 2021 13:01 (two years ago) link
this album rules, it’s sooooo beautiful
― STOCK FIST-PUMPER BRAD (BradNelson), Thursday, 23 December 2021 14:54 (two years ago) link
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.
― charlie rex, Thursday, 23 December 2021 15:38 (two years ago) link
i hated it for many years so i get it! but i have embraced the corn
― STOCK FIST-PUMPER BRAD (BradNelson), Thursday, 23 December 2021 15:39 (two years ago) link
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
― PaulTMA, Thursday, 23 December 2021 16:52 (two years ago) link
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.
― Halfway there but for you, Thursday, 23 December 2021 23:49 (two years ago) link
I stan mildly for this album and Reason mostly because they're... as good as Pink Floyd ever were imo? Which is fine
― flamboyant goon tie included, Friday, 24 December 2021 00:34 (two years ago) link
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
― J Edgar Noothgrush (Joan Crawford Loves Chachi), Friday, 24 December 2021 00:39 (two years ago) link
mighty challops. i appreciate the take.
― sknybrg, Friday, 24 December 2021 00:39 (two years ago) link
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
― flamboyant goon tie included, Friday, 24 December 2021 00:42 (two years ago) link
*challop ha
xpost have you not heard Pros & Cons Of Hitchhiking then?
― PaulTMA, Friday, 24 December 2021 00:53 (two years ago) link
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
― J Edgar Noothgrush (Joan Crawford Loves Chachi), Friday, 24 December 2021 01:22 (two years ago) link
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!
― xzanfar, Friday, 24 December 2021 02:07 (two years ago) link
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.
― The 25 Best Songs Ever Ranked In Order (Deflatormouse), Friday, 24 December 2021 05:01 (two years ago) link
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.
― The 25 Best Songs Ever Ranked In Order (Deflatormouse), Friday, 24 December 2021 05:40 (two years ago) link
Piper one can only say -- what an unparalleled collection of tunes, very hard to overrate
hard agree there
― The 25 Best Songs Ever Ranked In Order (Deflatormouse), Friday, 24 December 2021 05:42 (two years ago) link
PUBLIUS
― hopefully this review helped someone (Neanderthal), Friday, 24 December 2021 05:48 (two years ago) link
With Syd's songs, where the music is set to borrowed words instead of his own lyrics, like 'Chapter 24' or 'Golden Hair', the songwriting doesn't have that same sprightly feel.
― The 25 Best Songs Ever Ranked In Order (Deflatormouse), Friday, 24 December 2021 05:59 (two years ago) link
I think for some, you might be able to dig this one more if you forget about the pedigree of the brand name and just think of it as a Gilmour record. Really even including the Wall - I kinda think Floyd as a working band ended sometime after the tour for Animals.
I do think they got a bit more of the Floyd feel on this one compared to any of the other post Animals records, probably helping that they pretty much jammed it out together as a trio.
"Wearing the Inside Out" I think has a twinkle of ye' old 60s twee in that 90s production myself.
― earlnash, Friday, 24 December 2021 13:17 (two years ago) link
I have to revisit the Syd era, I think. I haven’t listened to Saucerful since I was a teenager. It was when I was a teenager too that I realized that the songs on The Wall I liked (loved, even) were the two Gilmour singles.
Meddle is my favourite album by these guys and Echoes my favourite song— “San Tropez” is a rare instant of their novelty songs working for me
It’s interesting that Deflatormouse feels this band had a template… I can’t think of any other band that I view more as “five different bands” depending on what era and what songwriter was at work. Gilmour records are to me like Peter Gabriel records. I need to check out the most recent one too I think
― flamboyant goon tie included, Friday, 24 December 2021 14:26 (two years ago) link
Right, the only way the view of "five different Floyds" makes sense to me is through a lens of songwriting, which is possibly the wrong approach (at least in my view).
Maybe the 2nd album is the template, rather than the first. For one thing, Saucerful is the first time there's some underlying question of 'how are we going to fill a whole album?' at the core of a Pink Floyd LP, and that continues through everything up to Atom Heart Mother at the very least, probably later- Wish You Were Here for example still has a sense of that. Songwriting doesn't seem to have come easily or naturally to any of them except Barrett and *maybe* Wright (to whom it doesn't seem to have come frequently).
I agree with everything earlnash says pretty much, and again i think it's largely the lyrics by Polly Samson that give it the feel of a Gilmour album to the extent that it feels like a Gilmour album.
― The 25 Best Songs Ever Ranked In Order (Deflatormouse), Friday, 24 December 2021 21:34 (two years ago) link