Pink Floyd Discography Review

[BiteUrLip]

I listened to their albums a few days ago. Great discography, but I don't generally like the albums before Meddle.

Piper At The Gates Of Dawn *** Highlights: "The Scarecrow" NOD: 1
A Saucerful Of Secrets ***½ Highlights: "Remember A Day", "Set The Controls For The Heart Of The Sun" NOD: 1
More *** Highlights: "Green Is The Color" NOD: 1
Ummagumma (Studio) *½ NOD: 4
Atom Heart Mother ***
Meddle ****½ Highlights: "A Pillow Of Winds", "Echoes"
Obscured By Clouds **** Highlights: "Wot's... Uh The Deal?", "Stay"
The Dark Side Of The Moon ***** Highlights: "Time", "The Great Gig In The Sky", "Money", "Us And Them", "Brain Damage"
Wish You Were Here ***** Highlights: "Shine On You Crazy Diamond (Part One)", "Wish You Were Here", "Shine On You Crazy Diamond (Part Two)"
Animals ****½ Super highlights: "Sheep" NOD: 2
The Wall ***½ Highlights: "In The Flesh?", "Another Brick In The Wall, Pt. 2", "Hey You", "Comfortably Numb", "In The Flesh"
The Final Cut ***** Highlights: "The Gunner's Dream", "Southampton Dock", "The Final Cut" Super highlights: "The Fletcher Memorial Home"
A Momentary Lapse Of Reason *** Highlights: "Learning To Fly", "On The Turning Away", "Sorrow" NOD: 2
The Division Bell ***** Highlights: "Poles Apart", "A Great Day For Freedom", "Take It Back", "Coming Back To Life" Super highlights: "High Hopes"
The Endless River **½ Highlights: "Anisinia"

I kinda feel guilty for giving only 3½ for The Wall... but it seems like there are too many low points that I can't tolerate. Also, the theme (the story) is making me feel a little anxious.

Other highlights: "Reaching For The Rail", "Raise My Rent", "When The Wind Blows", "Love On The Air", "Atom Heart Mother [Edit]", "See Emily Play", "Julia Dream", "When The Tigers Broke Free"

Total NOD: 11 (The results of experimentalism and psychedelia, eh?)

[dougs]

BiteUrLip:

Thanks for continuing to do these discographies.  I have become a Pink Floyd fan more and more over the years.  I bought DARK SIDE OF THE MOON (1973) in the late-70s and then THE WALL (1979) on the day it came out.  I am a fan of the Waters-Gilmour-Wright-Mason line-up.  They were greater than the mere sum of their parts.  That chemistry, often accompanied by debate and discord, managed to create their most original and powerful work.  The original band with Syd Barrett laid the important ground work but the band later became much more interesting with the experimentation that led them to masterpieces such as "Echoes" - taking up an entire side of vinyl on MEDDLE (1971).  David Gilmour has commented on how he felt that the band's experimentation had finally paid off with "Echoes."  To me DARK SIDE OF THE MOON remains one of my all-time favourite albums (top 2).  It is cohesive, powerful, colourful, with purpose and meaning, and musically varied and rich.  The engineering (Alan Parsons) and final production (Chris Thomas) elevated the work to a special and unique place in rock music history.  This album still sells and has passed the 40 million mark.  It is funny, but I missed WISH YOU WERE HERE (1975) when it first came out.  It took the band awhile to figure out how to follow-up their monster successful DARK SIDE OF THE MOON.  They did.  WISH YOU WERE HERE includes an ode to Syd Barrett who they may have had regrets about how he left the band and slipped away from them and how they certainly wished that his life had worked out better for him after leaving the band.  This album continues to hold up quite well over time as well.  ANIMALS (1977) was an album that I bought "after" THE WALL.  I hadn't liked what I had heard from it on radio.  When I bought it I felt the same.  I tried going back to it years later.  No change.  I did this again with no success about 10 years ago.  Then finally about 5 years ago I tried it again and fell in love with the record.  More aggressive than most of their records, it has 3 long epic songs ("Dogs" and "Pigs" and "Sheep") which have been on my playlist for 5 years! Two of these songs were used by Roger Waters as the centrepieces on his current massive "Us+Them" tour.  Brilliant.  THE WALL is another classic album.  Its themes make it worth standing up and taking note.  It is epic.  It may lack the consistency over its double album length that other albums may have but there are so many peaks that it manages to emerge as a superior work.  The only disappointment was that the band was beginning to fracture.  Roger Waters, who had become the driving force for the band in terms of lyrical ideas, was now dominating the band - at the expense of songwriter-keyboardist Richard Wright who was pushed to the sidelines on THE WALL.  Despite this, THE WALL became a monster selling double album which is considered by many as an ultimate classic from the rock era. 

In recent years I have gone back to purchase Pink Floyd's pre MEDDLE albums.  Many have interesting or even classic experimental songs.  "Set the Controls for the Heart of the Sun" is one of my all-time favourite songs of theirs. A SAUCER FULL OF SECRETS (1968) would be my favourite album from this early Pink Floyd period; certainly not as consistent as their later great works but an album where the band is progressing and feeling out their place as songwriters and live performers.  ATOM HEART MOTHER (1970) was another experimental album and the title track (24 minutes long) with its 6 parts and orchestra was an interesting effort to merge their experimental instrumental style with an orchestra.  To some, it was pure genius and to others a waste of time.  Somewhere in between probably lies the truth;  ATOM HEART MOTHER roared to #1 in the UK while the US wouldn't let it into the top 50.  Regardless, an interesting if not always successful record.  The band's first album THE PIPER AT THE GATES OF DAWN (1967), driven by lead vocalist and songwriter Syd Barrett (David Gilmour had not joined the band yet), was a mid-60s psychedelic era effort.  Each side of the album serves up a little of that spacey/trippy music the band would become famous for while many of the remaining songs features short psychedelic tunes which excelled live partly because of Barrett's onstage presence.  It is amazing how far the band travelled to get to DARK SIDE OF THE MOON from THE PIPER AT THE GATES OF DAWN; a journey worth checking out.

MEDDLE: 4 stars
OBSCURRED BY CLOUDS:  3 1/2 stars
DARK SIDE OF THE MOON: 5+ stars
WISH YOU WERE HERE: 5 stars
ANIMALS: 5 stars
THE WALL:  4 1/2 stars

Doug