What does it sound like?:
When Sony paid an eye watering sum for Pink Floyd’s back catalogue, it was obvious they would look to begin recouping that huge investment sooner rather than later, either in the form of deluxe editions of the classic albums aimed at die hard fans, such as last years Wish You Were Here 50 set, or through compilations such as this to hopefully introduce a whole new, younger, generation to the band’s music. So we have this set of, surprise surprise, eight tracks covering the period 1971 to 1979, linked by a soundscape created from the original master tapes by who else but Steven Wilson. Six of the eight songs are fairly obvious choices really, songs that a newcomer will perhaps be familiar with from the radio or from their parents record collection. There are two outliers though. The first is Wot’s…Uh The Deal, a pretty unremarkable piece from Obscured By Clouds – I’m not sure what warranted its inclusion here other than maybe a desire to have at least one song from each record in the chosen period. The other is the selling point for completists here, the ‘joined up’ version of Pigs on the Wing, with Snowy White doing his best Gilmour impression. This was originally only available on the 8 track (see what they did there) cartridge of Animals, although the band subsequently allowed White to use the song on his Goldtop ‘best of’ album. Obviously any serious Floyd fan will already have these songs in their collection, but if you’re a newbie just getting into the band then this is a reasonable. if by no means comprehensive, entry point into accessing their music.
What does it all *mean*?
Whoever created the shoddy cut and paste artwork needs a stiff talking to – Storm must be turning in his grave!
Goes well with…
There’s no shortage of Floyd collections around besides this of course, A Collection of Great Dance Songs, Echoes (the best one for me), and Foot in the Door, so you pays yer money and makes yer choice.
Release Date:
out now
Might suit people who like…
Tries to capture two markets, the must have everything, completist dyed in the wool Floyd fan, and a potential new young audience who weren’t even born when the band finished.
What next, a 1980’s retro-comp called Massed Gadgets?
Wot’s…Uh The Deal a pretty unremarkable pice? Can’t agree with you there, Bargey. It’s a gorgeous track, one of my favourites. Rick Wright’s piano on it is wonderful.
Totally agree with you Gary. Check out the live version from David Gilmour’s Albert Hall DVD. Rick really shines on this one:
“Music is the space between the notes.”
Another vote in favour – in fact, Obscured by Clouds is one of my favourite Floyd LPs…
Also one of my favourites. The years in between Syd and before Dark Side are massively underrated.
Does nothing for me I’m afraid but then again I’m more of a Waters man myself.
I was curious to know what the 8 tracks track listing is which is omitted, so:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/8-Tracks
Reminds me a bit of those mostly crap and shoddy Decca compilations of Stones tracks that they put out when the band moved on. OK one track is more interesting.
Why 2 tracks from The Wall?
I think it’s my favourite Floyd album, but not sure it warrants both tracks.
Comfortably Numb, yes. Another Brick In The Wall maybe not
Because it’s a double album and those are the 2 most popular tracks on it?
Because the American market is their top priority?
Presumably because ABITW reached number one and Comfortably Numb is probably the song best known to the casual listener.
Points taken … just not convinced both are worthy of inclusion. Numb only would work for me
(but who am I to question Sony)
FWIW, I’d have left them both off. But I guess I’m not actually their target market.
The Wall was an album for teenagers: the angst, the melodrama. I enjoyed it when it came out – but its charms have receded more with each passing year.
And, oddly enough, The Final Cut has taken precisely the opposite trajectory.
Oh tish, The Wall is brilliant played end to end. I need it less now I’m retired but stuck in the relentless work grind for decades I loved it. Neurosis. Paranoia. Insecurity. Fucked up back story. Brilliant.
I don’t think I’ve ever listened to all of TFC. What I’ve heard sounds like what it is, Wall left overs and scraps. OOAA.
To me, The Wall is the greatest album ever made.
The Final Cut has a lot going for it (the atmosphere and space on One of the Few; all of The Fletcher Memorial Home, particularly Rog’s vocals; the venom in Not Now John, etc.), but the tone is so consistently bleak that as an album it can be a bit of a slog.
I like the bleakness.
“Oh tish”, Twang?
I suppose The Wall is the ultimate look into Waters’ brain, if that’s what turns you on. I’d agree that it’s brilliantly played (albeit not all played by the mighty Floyd) – but there’s more to a Floyd album than just the playing: the playing on The Wall might be objectively better than the playing on Meddle, but I know which one I’d take to the desert island. However, as you pointed out – OOAA?
TFC has the misfortune of being labelled as a Floyd album – if it had actually been marketed as a Waters solo album, it would be hailed as his best, IMHO. I like its chilly atmosphere. But it took me ages to get over what Waters had done to the Floyd and listen to it without that baggage.
@Twang, I seem to remember that, during one of our previous exchanges on this topic, I admitted that it had been years since I listened to The Wall, end to end in a single sitting. I planned to go off, dig out the original LP, and do that very thing. Needless to say, I didn’t get around to it.
However, the weather is grim today, and the prospects for tomorrow are not much better: maybe the time has come to see whether I can hear what you clearly hear in this album – and, indeed, what I also heard in it when I was…(consults notes)…eighteen. Yikes!
Enjoy and report back! Headphones recommended.
I don’t see any competition with Meddle or whatever. They represent different stages of the evolution of the band. I think Atom Heart Mother, for all its faults, is brilliant too and is different again.
Quite…
I’ve been listening to the 2CD compilation “Cre/ation: Pink Floyd The Early Years 1967-1972” quite a bit recently.
There’s a really good live version of “Atom Heart Mother” from Montreux 1970 on that.
I believe Kaisfatdad went to see the Floyd at the Bath Festival in June 1970. The band came on stage at, like, 3 in the morning or something.
I just recently bought the colossal Early Years set which even has film of them playing Atom Heart Mother. It’s astonishing to see how they used to be, which is essentially and avant garde band… and then to watch them gradually evolve into something else entirely. I was struck by the fact that they played Dark Side on stage many times before it was recorded… which they also did with the next two albums (although Animals was rewritten quite a bit from the stuff they played.)
Basically, this band were allowed to experiment in public and only stopped doing this for The Wall – the first time they played new music in front of an audience from an album that had been recorded. Before that, everything was road-tested.
Incredible, really. Hence the change of tone, I think.
@Twang
Well…that was interesting. It was fun to listen to it properly after a good, long while – but the experience just reinforced what I thought: big RAWK guitar; sex and drugs; Stukas bombing the audience; rock star neuroses and paranoia; and a big lump of Gilbert and Sullivan to finish. Uncle Rog unscrews the top of his head and lets us see the worms…
I can see exactly why I liked it at age 18, but it doesn’t do it for me anymore. I can see that it was tailored for teenage boys and the American market. They were in financial trouble due to poor investments and needed a Big Hit Album double quick – so they wrote one for the market who would be most likely to buy it by the million. Success! They call it “riding the gravy train”, as someone once wrote…
The Final Cut is their best album
Oh dear.
If this is designed to capture a new, young audience, it doesn’t say much for the record company’s respect for said young audience.
Mind you, I absolutely guarantee you that that respect it is significantly higher than the respect I hold for the young audience… and I hate their parents even more!
I cannot remember (OK, ‘Love’ excepted) a more utterly pointless release.
You hate parents of youngsters because of their musical taste or is there another reason? Have you ever posted here in a purely positive way or do you always want to get a dig in every time at things that don’t live up to your lofty ideals?
Pot kettle alert
I love the Floyd in all incarnations but I couldn’t be less interested. Who will buy this beyond hopeless completists?
Hard to imagine…American teenagers, perhaps?
Echoes is the best compilation – brilliantly sequenced and an excellent way in. Confession – I owned very little PF until I got Echoes – I had Relics, DSOTM and Pulse possibly, and I think that was about it – which feels a bit weird now. Since Echoes I have rectified that and now have everything . I had friends who had pre DSOTM albums and I always had a fondness for that period, and that is the period I play most – Saucerful being my favourite probably. But I often return to Echoes – I always had a theory it was essentially sequenced to be about Syd…probably just me!
I know that Steven Wilson was involved in this and so wondered whether he had done anything more than the linking sections – i.e. had he done any Atmos mixing on The Wall tracks etc, etc..
My presumption is that now Sony owns the material, they can get whoever they want to do the surround mixes and hence they are not subject to the arguments between Roger Waters and David Gilmour on James Guthrie vs Andy Jackson for the surround mix.
However, a quick check on Apple Music and it’s not listed as being in Atmos and so I guess no additional surround mixing has been done (yet) on albums that were previously not in surround.
Steve Wilson did a brilliant job on WYWH in Atmos.
He only did the linking soundscape, no remixing.