POINT ME AT THE SKY

This single is incredible. Then again, it's just a single, so it has little room for fault.

Point me At the Sky is a rare Pink Floyd song, you can hardly find it anywhere. There's an album called the Early Singles with it on there, but it's never been released on any official album. Even though it's a great song! It's not very progressive... the other side is way more progressive. Point me at the sky is more of a psychedelic rock song which talks about flying and fat people.

The song is very memorable, and optimisitic, and any fans of their early psychedelic stuff, like Piper and Saucer would like this song. It has that psychedelic feel, but it's not by Syd Barrett, so it's closer to something like Remember a Day or Paintbox than Piper at the Gates of Dawn.

The other side is an incredible song... 10 times better than the first.

Careful With that Axe Eugene was amazing, I don't even know why it was never released on any album! It's only on the Relics album. It's very underappreciated in my opinion, never released in a studio album, not included on their best of, etc. The song is very progressive, it has a haunting keyboard in it, that is very slow and mellow, but not necessarily comforting. It become a jam of some sort... getting louder and louder until the climax of the song, in which the title is whispered menacingly followed by Roger Waters' signature piercing scream. This song really is amazing, but there are better versions of it out there than the studio versions, like the one from Pompeii, the one from UmmaGumma's live album, and several from rare bootlegs.

5, essential... but then again, there's only 2 songs. No room for faults here. =)

'Point Me At The Sky' - Pink Floyd (Single)

Now with Syd Barrett gone, enter David Gilmour, who would lead the band to far greater commercial and critical success. However, while Gilmour's entry into the band opened plenty of new doors for Pink Floyd, it certainly does not show in this single. 'Point Me At The Sky' is a fairly obscure Floyd track, appearing only here on any non-compilation release. Although the spacey ambiance of the band is still here, the songwriting has taken a dive from the early Barrett-led singles. But without divulging into favouritism towards Barrett or Gilmour, 'Point Me At The Sky' is a fairly underwhelming track. Although there is some nice futuristic potential here, the track does not feel as if it goes anywhere, save for a rather lame chorus that feels wholly out of place in the scheme of the track. However, the lyrics are somewhat interesting, offering an apparently bleak vision of the near future (read: our present day). But especially in the context of being a single, 'Point Me At The Sky' is fairly lackluster.

The highlight of this single is the psychedelic b-side 'Careful With That Axe, Eugene', which is a classic track of the band's early career. It doesn't seem to fit well on a singles release, but even only being five minutes in length, it really works well as a jam, building up gradually before letting all hell loose. Listening to this track, one can really see where more modern bands like The Mars Volta got their sound from. However, while 'Careful With That Axe, Eugene' is very good, it doesn't change the fact that the main point of this single (being the title track) is quite weak and not worthy of being a single.

Probably the best out of all the early Pink Floyd singles, 'Point Me At the Sky' is an obscure and hard-to-find gem. One of it's main factors is the large input by Gilmour, which many fans of the Floyd seemed to dislike.

While Barrett's songs retained qualities of free-flowing and sometimes jaunty acid ditties, David Gilmour and Roger Waters' work always had more depth into lyrics, also while removing most of the silly, inane crypticness that Barrett had clouded his songs as an attempt to make them more meaningful. 'Point Me' is in no way an exception. It has some great vocals from both Waters and Gilmour, while making them actually sound like they're having fun. Gilmours guitar-work is fantastic, with hard rocking riffs that were very unlike the early Floyd. A decent climax with double vocals and bouncy drumming from Mason makea this song great.

One large reason why this track didn't do so well was it's B-side, 'Careful With That Axe, Eugene'. It was an instant crowd pleaser, with cool spacey riffs and some unique rhythm-work. Still a great song and even better live on Ummagumma, but I would not go so far as to say it's in any way better than 'Point Me'. Remember, mainstream qualities should NOT turn you off from the music. Especially when it comes to the Floyd.

So, in conclusion, I highly suggest this single. Both songs are great and worth your time.