MEDDLE

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MEDDLE is one of my favourite Pink Floyd albums, but it's very different from my other three faves, DARK SIDE OF THE MOON, WISH YOU WERE HERE and ANIMALS.

This fabulous disc is much more diverse in direction than those that would follow. Roger Waters' anger and paranoia don't yet rule the day; there is profound beauty here, on great, shorter songs like "A Pillow of winds" and "San Tropez," while the whimsical track "Seamus," with its barking dog, actually reveals a sense of fun! Such emotional variety would be notably absent on later releases; not that those albums are any less indispensable for that! I whole-heartedly agree with earlier reviewers who enjoy the power and psychedelia of "One of These Days" and the epic "Echoes." Those ARE essential examples of the sound fans normally associate with Floyd. Yet "Fearless" is not only one of my favourite Pink Floyd songs, it's also uplifting: "I will climb that hill in my own way, and every day's the right day...."

In closing, fellow Floydians, after blasting "Sheep," "Money" or "Welcome to the Machine" you can kick back and relax to the oft-overlooked gems on MEDDLE. Don't just program in "One of These Days" and "Echoes" -- enjoy MEDDLE in its glorious, multi-faceted entirety!

One can not accuse Floyd to have formula and repeat it. This is another completely different album, quite distinct from every other ones. Very few bands managed to rework their sound so thoroughly with each passing album and still maintain their personality and distinctive edge!! Just with that feat, Floyd is incredibly progressive.

Echoes is a masterpiece on which everything has been said (read the other reviews for it, I cannot up the ante) but the first three tracks on side 1 are also gems. One Of These Days is one hell of an innovative track and Mason kicks butts in it and Gilmour just flies over the booming Waters bass lines. I am more reserved for the last two tracks which can be considered as fillers.

Clearly for me FLOYD's early catalogue is one of my most enduring and beloved albums from my collection... Like so many of you I grew up with albums like "Meddle" and "Dark Side Of The Moon" which to this day still hold up as superior albums in every way. Without a question "Echoes" would be one of my all time favourite FLOYD tracks with its sheer brilliance in perfect combination of Blues and psychedelia genres. Another one of my favourite FLOYD numbers is also "A Pillow Of Winds" with its melancholy Dobro guitar and hammond organ backdrop. "Meddle" also houses some humorous moments with "San Tropez" and "Seamus" taking some very unusual shapes and twists. "Fearless" is another magical FLOYD moment with its allusion to "Obscured By Clouds".

Another must-have, their second "progressive number", whose jewels are represented by "Echoes" and "One of these Days", simple but stunning pieces of art music... but also the rest is not bad and, for sure, it's another example of their versatility (despite of being not any virtuosities within at the instrumental section)

Recommended anyway!!

This is the first FLOYD album in chronological order that I really like. The epic "Echoes" is a progressive song of over 20 minutes long, full of smooth high notes electric guitar, background organ, acoustic guitar and mellow vocals. There are psychedelic parts in it, rather experimental and scary, and it should not leave the listener indifferent. For bass amateurs, there is "One Of These Days", a solid bass-keyboards oriented track. The remaining track are relaxing folky-bluesy songs with mellow lead vocals.

One of PINK FLOYD's most exquisite piece of work. "Meddle" is a six track melodic yet psychedelic record, that from the opening Nick MASON's distorted voice in "One of These Days" till the 2:13 minutes of "Seamus", drive all the way home to listen to the "Echoes", one of the most significant PF's songs and of the most enigmatic too; over 23 minutes of euphoria and synchrony, "Echoes" overdrives the whole meaning of this album. In 1971, "meddle" created a prelude to PF's next masterful album and that's without a doubt, "Dark Side of the Moon". I think this album opened PF's fans minds up to caught their attention to what was next of their career, and "Meddle" is that, the previous step to what I think is this master prog band best album, or at least one of them. To understand, to question, to magnify PF's creation to an upper level, "Meddle" is the key that will open up the lock to meaningful prog ways. If you must have it, have it then.

"Meddle" includes "Echoes", my all-time fave by Pink Floyd, I think it's the most progressive, epic and best work they ever made, it's outstanding! Look to the stars at night and listen to "Echoes", you'll think you fly in strange galaxy-spheres. Self-testet!

Your head'll appreciate "Meddle". It's here that PINK FLOYD nearly perfects their soporific soundscapes, aptly described in "A Pillow of Winds." What makes "Meddle" different from its predecessors is the distilling of a signature sound. "One of These Days" could pass for "Dogs", "A Pillow of Winds" for "Pigs On The Wing", "Fearless" would be revisited on "One of These Turns." However, by the time Animals and The Wall were released, the band had hermetically sealed themselves off from everything but an idiosyncratic sound. "Meddle" by contrast is still experimental, finding time for a delightfully Kinksian turn through "San Tropez", an ill-conceived throwaway like "Seamus" or the side-long electronic voyage of "Echoes." It's this last track that often captures the most attention on "Meddle", though it had more of an influence on TANGERINE DREAM than PINK FLOYD, who never wrote another song like it. Unfortunately, "Meddle" doesn't feature a lot of technical flash; Richard Wright's keyboards and David Gilmour's guitars are relatively understated (in fact, GILMOUR and Wright seem to challenge one another on "San Tropez" to see who can come up with the most restrained solo). It would be tempting to call "Meddle" a transitional album between their more experimental past and the sonically rich future, but it's not that simple. Better to think of this as the band's first epic recording. As much as I enjoy some of the band's early psychedelic triumphs, it's the occasionally lean and muscular attack of "Meddle" that allows WATERS' cynical wisdom and GIMOUR's biting guitar to shine.

If you're looking to get into the pre-"Dark" days, definitely buy this album before meddling with "Umma Gumma" or "Atom Heart Mother".

"Walk on, walk on, with hope in your heart"

In retrospect, Pink Floyd's transition towards the band which made "Dark side of the moon" was largely completed with the release of this album. The attention to detail which made that album so extraordinary is missing here, but the music is generally more tight and focused that previous releases.

"Echoes" is the feature track on "Meddle" occupying the whole of the second side of the LP. The track takes the instrumental finesse of "Atom Heart Mother", and combines it with the lyrical and vocal beauty of (the subsequent) "Shine on you crazy diamond", creating a charmingly understated piece which glows brighter with each listen.

I hesitate to compare "Meddle" to ELP's "Tarkus", but there are similarities. The side numbers are reversed, with the feature track in this case appearing on side two, and side one containing "all the rest". Of the tracks on side one, only "One of these days." really impresses. It has an inspired riff, which pulsates and morphs until interrupted by the only lyric, i.e. "One of these days I'm going to cut you into little pieces". From there, the main riff crashes back in accompanied by Gilmour's soaring guitar. It's downhill really for the rest of the side, with "Fearless" even including a rendition of "You'll never walk alone" by the Liverpool Kop (football/soccer fans). The tracks are OK, but not up to the standards we expect of the band.

The album is well worth getting for "Echoes" and "One of these days" alone but don't expect too much of the rest.

Another step in PINK FLOYD's evolution towards "Dark Side Of The Moon". If you like the latter album you'll probably like much of the music on "Meddle", as four of the six tracks are in a similar vein, albeit not as polished as the music on "Dark Side Of The Moon". "Meddle" saves the best for last: the atmospheric 'Echoes', a superb 23-minute track demonstrating PINK FLOYD's well-known early 1970s style. The album is probably worth having for 'Echoes' alone.

The instrumental 'One Of These Days' has a hard edge to it that I like. The bass riff at the start introduces the track's head-banging beat, with the FLOYD's characteristic keyboards and guitar over the top. 'A Pillow Of Winds' is mellow - it's a pleasant song but nothing special in my opinion. 'Fearless' is a sedate song, again pleasant, and I like the soft vocals. In true FLOYD fashion, 'Fearless' has unusual backing: the supporters of Liverpool Football Club chanting and singing their anthem 'You'll Never Walk Alone' (from the Rogers & Hammerstein musical Carousel). Strange as this may sound, it does not spoil the song. The song 'San Tropez' bobs along in an English tea dance sort of way, and in my opinion is mediocre. 'Seamus' is a short, laid-back blues number, presumably done just for a bit of fun, with a dog barking and howling on top of the singing, acoustic guitar, bass and piano. As with 'San Tropez' this is a throwaway track, but I quite like it as it brings back memories of my teens when I and a guitar-playing friend used to perform it for a laugh. And then comes 'Echoes', the pièce de résistance, which manages to push this album from a 3-star effort to 4 stars in my opinion. However, if I had to choose between "Meddle" and "Obscured By Clouds", it would be the latter.

Meddle is divided into three levels. Classic songs, decent songs and terrible songs. The classics are the opener "One Of These Days", an incredible, energetic instrumental with great drum work from Nick Mason, and the closer "Echoes", a brilliant 23 minute epic, featuring some incredible Guitar work from David Gilmour, some equally incredible keyboard work from Rick Wright, and a great vocal duet from Wright and Roger Waters. "Echoes" is quite possibly the collaborative height of Pink Floyd, and one of their best songs. The decent songs are "A Pillow Of Winds", a soothing acoustic number that failes to really be anything more than soothing, and "Fearless", a more guitar driven song, with a bizzare guitar tuning. It's not a bad song, but no features from it really jump out and blow you away. The bad songs are "San Tropez", a ridiculously poppy Roger Waters song written just so that the album would be released in time for christmas, and "Seamus", a ridiculous joke done by the band while they were very stoned. It's essencially a blues jam with a dog yelping throughout it, and is one of the worst songs to be released under the Pink Floyd name. As a whole however, the album is worth buying just for One Of These Days and Echoes, which keep in mind, combine to take up almost half the album. The album is good, but not a classic (as some will tell you).

Meddle saw pink floyd excelling themselves musically and evolving their musical abilities and putting a more than perfect effort into this album. Meddle uses a similar concept to the previous "Atom Heart Mother" by having a side-long epic, although Echoes is not a suite. but Echoes is the last and best track so we shall save it till last.

The album kicks off with a funky, progressive instrumental called "One of These Days" which shows off their skills and abilities to play in unicen and is almost just a jam to kick off the album. This has every member playing at their best and clearly shows the grasp of starting quietly and building up to an explosion of music. It's also nice to see nick masons vocal debut with the classic line "one of these days i'm going to cut you into little pieces", even if it does seem a little out of place as this is quite a serious piece of music.

The trippy psychadelia is still present with the recording of liverpool fans singing "you'll never walk alone" at the end of fearless, which adds a great british feel to the album, and the questionable use of a howling dog in bluesy nonsense "seamus". These are brilliant pieces whether or not they are terribly progressive but they do show off the excellence of the band.

Of course none of this can compare to the epic "Echoes", which could well be the best pink floyd song ever, and is definetly one of the best prog rock pieces ever. Echoes has it all, churning sound effects of the sea, wind and a submarine siren echoing through the ripples of the water. The lyrics build up an adventure with albatrosses and submarines in the listeners head. This song will probably also be favourable amongst the crazy or stoned fans of the floyd. Each band member contributes 110% on this track. The best moment of the album has to be the epic build up to the glorious solo before the third verse. This keeps you captivated and wondering where the build up is leading to and once it explodes into the epic piece followed by the third verse, you know you are in prog rock heaven. If you have a collection of pink floyd albums and Meddle is not in it then there is something very wrong!

"Meddle" can be seen as a transitional album, but I think of it as a climax; a final statement for PINK FLOYD "vers. 2.0" before changing the way they present ideas on an album. In the same way that "Red" completes KING CRIMSON's second cycle, "Meddle" wraps up the loose ends of the post- "Piper", pre- DSOTM period- with refinement of past ideas and a glimpse of things to come.

On "One of These Days" we hear the final expression of PINK FLOYD's trademark creepy crescendo song ("Careful With that Axe, Eugene", "Set the Controls for the Heart of the Sun", "Saucerful of Secrets"). One of the classic heavy PF songs, it features the classic Gilmour slide guitar and Waters proves you don't have to be a bass virtuoso to play a memorable riff. It also foreshadows the upcoming side-long track "Echoes" in miniature.

"A Pillow of Winds" continues the mellower acoustic trend from side two of AHM, slipping from vaguely comforting to eerie and back again with liquid ease. I appreciate that some of Gilmour's more fumbling slide moments were left on- it gives a bit of friendly immediacy to an otherwise ethereal track. "Fearless" brightens this loose acoustic feel with a simple, memorable riff and chorus- despite the laidback mood, once you hear this song you won't forget it. I've never quite figured out the point of the crowd sample at the end, though.

"San Tropez" is my least favorite track on the album, a light jazzy vocal piece that (though written by Waters) could have fit on Wright's "Wet Dream" album. "Seamus" is kind of fun, the same sort of throwaway blues that we heard briefly on the "More" soundtrack...but with a dog solo this time. Neither are likely to head many fans favorites list, but at least they're not embarassing (unlike some of ELP's 'comic relief' songs, for instance).

However, the entire first side could have been twenty minutes of snoring and it wouldn't take anything away from the majesty of "Echoes". Many of their previous long- form compositions had uneven pacing, pointless jamming, or experimental indulgence separating the great moments. "Echoes" is their first seamless masterpiece; from the melancholy opening to the dramatic chorus of the first movement we might deduce that the mellow feel of the previous side (well, minus the first track) was going to dominate; not so, as the following passage goes from funky (AHM's "Funky Dung" refined) to freaky with the screaming smooth lead guitar providing the magic carpet. There's also some exceptional organ work here by Wright, but it's a little buried in the mix (curse you, Alan Parsons...well, to give him credit, the production is comparatively more crisp detailed than we've yet heard, maybe even more so than DSOTM). Once full-on weirdness sets in, it's both soul-wrenching and otherworldly to an extent that the band had not shown thus far- and that's really saying something after "Ummagumma". This is the perfection of the pure aural insanity that was introduced all the way back in "Pow R. Toch" and developed through "Saucerful", "Narrow Way", and many others. Just when you want to pull the covers over your head, the organ gives us a mournful lifeline and we are slowly brought back to song territory. The gradual crescendo of this movement is based around the staccato pulse that opened the album (and reappeared in force throughout "The Wall"). The tension builds with some rolling percussion and a heraldic burst of echoing guitar; powerful bassy slides and crashing cymbals segue into a reprise of the opening theme, including a final climax which ascends into a spacey, bluesy fade-out...not far off from the opening to "Shine On You Crazy Diamond".

Okay, I have to drop a star for the occasional loss of excellence on the first side, but "Meddle" definitely deserves to hang with the more obvious achievers in the FLOYD discography. This album puts a cap on their post- Barrett meanderings, and if they'd stopped here, it would have been a very respectable closer. Luckily they had more ideas brewing...

This is the WATERS-era PINK FLOYD's first album. It only hints of the four massive hit albums to come, however, with the 20 minute epic Echoes. But we'll get to that later.

The album begins with the haunting sound of wind blowing, through which a single bass note echoes in high delay. Then another bass note, and another, and then we have a full bass riff going. Then a second bass joins in, double tracked. What happens is an axe-grinding madness underscored by WRIGHT's synth skills. It builds and builds until it goes into a very sharp, distorted single bass which broods for a while. Then you hear someone pounding on a door as the climax comes, and a monstrous voice says "ONE OF THESE DAYS I'M GOING TO CHOP YOU INTO 'LIL PIECES!"

Then the song continues with a guitar added, and eventually fades into the wind. This wind continues until the first acoustic riff of "Pillow of Winds" begins. It is a nice little song, and the transition between the two songs hints at the FLOYD's later obsession with connecting the songs together.

Following the relaxing number "Pillow of Winds" is "Fearless," another great song. Then there's the lazy "San Tropez," which is slightly less interesting, followed by what is possibly the FLOYD's worst song ever: "Seamus." It's a mediocre blues number made much worse by a dog barking (literally) in the foreground. It was meant to be a joke by the band, but come on! Fortunately it is very short. This album seems to begin wonderfully, then steadily get worse, then spring back up with "Echoes."

Ah, "Echoes." Very high-quality stuff. It starts with the "ping" of a submarine and then becomes an underwater, slow rock masterpiece. The lyrics are the first sympathetic lyrics from WATERS, and prove to not be his last. After some beautiful music, the band goes into a sort of jam which lasts just a little too long in my opinion. Then the band is silenced as GILMOUR's guitar screeches out eerie, piercing notes and seagull caws. It is here that we are pulled from the comfort of the watery beginning into the freezing air above. Not the best part of the song, but it is thankfully short. The pings of the submarine are agains heard, and we are slowly pulled back to earth with some progressing guitar riffs. Then the original theme is reprised in a drier setting, and the whole thing is eventually sucked into a pinging wormhole of sound. Excellent.

Now, with the great reviews I gave "Echoes" and "One of these Days," you might be wondering why I gave this an average 3 stars. If this album were the only way to obtain these wonderful songs, I'd definitely have raised the rating. But the album "Best of Pink Floyd" also has these two songs as well as some other great material. The only difference is that "Echoes" was edited a little bit, but the parts cut out aren't that great anyway. But if you really like "Echoes," you may want to get this album. "Pillow of Winds" and "Fearless" are worth a few listens as well, but not necessarily essential. Good for fans of PINK FLOYD or people wanting to start into their earlier material.

The beginning of all the epic studio albums from PF. Meddle is without doubt an absolute masterpiece. From the opening ageless ' One of these days', the dreamy ' Pillow of winds', the fearless ' Fearless' ( no other way to describe the song really) to the epic ' Echoes' which takes up the entire side 2 of Meddle. Echoes is special, there is nothing outthere quite like it not even other PF pieces, it transcends dimensions which is what Floyd were beginning to do from 1970 onwards right thru to 1994 with varying degrees of success. Meddle is pure genius.

Before The Wall, before Dark Side of the Moon, PINK FLOYD created a very different kind of masterpiece. While their later albums were a triumph of concept, it is on Meddle where one can hear the musical peak of PINK FLOYD's career. This is not a concept album--it is a musical journey showing off a variety of musical styles. The lyrics do not demand--they suggest, and allow the music to do the rest of the talking. Perhaps the most wonderful thing about Meddle is the fact that the band was truly functioning as a band here. Everyone's talents can be clearly heard, and no one shouts anybody else down.

There is no such thing as filler, on Meddle--this album is absolutely, completely perfect. Not a single note should be changed...not even the canine soloist of "Seamus". Bookended by the mindblowing tracks "One of These Days" and "Echoes", the four "interior" tracks are severely underrated by some. "A Pillow of Winds" and "Fearless" are both pleasant, leisurely guitar-driven songs, and seem fairly well appreciated by fans. However, I believe that the much-maligned "San Tropez" and "Seamus" are also deserving of appreciation. "San Tropez" is particularly notable for some very unique ROGER WATERS vocals--rather optimistic and even a touch bluesy...a style he unfortunately never pursued after that point. "Seamus" gives a rare glimpse of the fun side of PINK FLOYD, as well as a flashback to the band's origins as a blues cover band. This was never a song meant to be taken so seriously as some do. "One of These Days" is an explosive, energetic instrumental that perhaps foreshadows the angry, driven rock of Animals, but with only one lyric--a rare appearance by NICK MASON, whose electronically-processed vocals growl menacingly, "One of these days, I'm going to cut you into little pieces!"

The album's final piece, "Echoes", may be PINK FLOYD's greatest work ever. From first to last "ping", this brilliant quasi-symphony is fantastic. Each bandsman's talents are clearly audible, even the simple-yet-effective contributions of NICK MASON and ROGER WATERS. The vocal harmony of DAVID GILMOUR and RICK WRIGHT is mesmerising. Without question, this song contains the best verse WATERS ever wrote: "Strangers passing in the street, by chance two separate glances meet, and I am you and what I see is me. And do I take you by the hand, and lead you through the land, and help me understand the best I can?"

Unfortunately, this reminder to walk a mile in the other man's shoes was a lesson WATERS forgot in later years, at the price of devastating consequences to the band's output and to the members themselves. This moment in PINK FLOYD's history is therefore one-of-a-kind, completely irreplaceable. The entire album can be summed up by the "jam" sequence in "Echoes". Never before, never again do the pieces fit together so seamlessly, each a joy on its own and in combination.

This was the second Floyd album I bought, after buying "Dark Side Of The Moon". I have always liked this one and would put it in the top five Floyd albums, probably at number three, behind "Dark Side" & "The Wall". It is a tribute to their talent that it sounds very different to "Dark Side", which was the next release after this. This is very laid back, in typical Floyd fashion, and is excellent to sit and relax to. The opener, "One Of These Days", is the most aggressive track on the album, starting off with the sound of the wind, and then building up nicely. An instrumental, the pedal steel played by Dave Gilmour is used very effectively and in a totally different way to the usual insipid and predictable doodlings it is forced to produce for the standard, bland country music scene. Here it is a powerful tool! Second track, "A Pillow Of Winds" is a very laid back track, with good singing, interesting lyrics, and effective guitar. One notes here, and throughout most of the album, the subtle and effective use of acoustic guitar, sometimes to the fore, other times filling out the background to the songs. Nice slide work here too. Then comes "Fearless", probably my least favourite on the album, but nevertheless a good track. The way the - again acoustic - guitar is played, brings to mind a person, ascending a hill, or stairs. This ties in nicely with the lyrics. Well thought out this one. "San Tropez" is the fourth track, and instantly brings to mind sipping cocktails around the pool when on holiday in some exotic clime. Again, this is the effect it is meant to produce. Nice - yes, you guessed it! - acoustic guitar again! Ending what was the first side of the old vinyl record is the shortest track, a bluesy little number about a dog called Seamus, basic and funny this one, bringing to mind an old farmyard, in which sits an old man in dungarees, musing on an incident from his past. Finally comes the well known high point of the album, the much celebrated, "Echoes". Not much I can say that hasn't been said before. Nice lyrics, almost Coleridge like in their poetic form. Beautiful, distant, electric - yes, electric! - guitar filling out the background, whilst Richard Wright's keyboards have full reign here, dominating the song with interesting soundscapes. Indeed, to my mind, there instantly comes a vision of shorelines and solitary, soaring birds; a seascape of barren beauty, complimenting the aural splendour of the piece. A classic track from one of the three 'classic' bands of the 70's. The three most influencial prog bands of the decade - Floyd, Yes and, of course, my personal faves, Genesis! Any fans of Floyd, and ambient, partly acoustic music, will love this, but then again, they will probably have it. For those who haven't heard this yet, trust me and buy it! You won't be disappointed.

"Meddle" is not quite a masterpiece of Progressive rock music. But is as close to a masterpiece as you can get without actually getting the 5 star rating, if for no other reason than 'Echoes'. When 'One of These Days' and 'Fearless' are added, well it just makes this album even more essential. The one mistep on the album, 'Seamus' brings this album down from its pedestal.

'One of These Days' is as dark as 'Fearless' is uplifting (and not just for Liverpool fans). Both these songs are absolute gems in their own right. 'A Pillow of Winds' is only decent, and 'San Tropez' is slightly too poppy and upbeat, but not a complete waste. Even 'Seamus' has some comedic moments in it and thankfully doesn't last long.

But the real reason you own this FLOYDIAN marvel is found on Side Two. Whether you envision 'Echoes' as the underwater exploration that it is, or the space-rock number it originally was meant to be, both settings work real well with this album. With musical allusions to Stanley Kubrick's "2001: A Space Odyssey" or Jules Verne's "20,000 Leagues Under The Sea" prepared to be transported to another world.

Like when Pavlov rang his little bell, and his subject dogs started salivating; so do we, when we hear that short, sharp, single reverberating sound...

'PING!'

Say no more...

A Masterpiece, to me, is an album that goes above and beyond - that provides something more than its component parts - a complete work of art that is as near perfection for what it is as it can be.

And here, in Meddle, we have near-perfection.

I don't believe that a historical understanding is necessary - and if you've never heard Pink Floyd before, then this is not a bad place to start at all. In fact, the icy winds will draw you in and encourage you to crank up the volume until that opening bass hits you. Simple. Powerful. Effective.

One Of These Days continues to build, and there is something besides the music here - something almost tangible, as the double-tracked bass rings out in each speaker, and the synth hits punctuate the ever more wildly whistling wind. Subtle percussion by means of reverse cymbals imitates and intensifies the windy feel, and then the guitar! Oh yes! The guitar! Snarling, winding, turning upside down, intensifying - the whole texture building to that famous delayed bass riff, until the song proper kicks in around 3:40 into the piece. And yet the intro never feels too long, as Pink Floyd are masters of using space. The rest of the body of music pulses along, with Gilmour's trademark multitracked dive-bombing - and seems to end all too quickly.

A Pillow of Winds is the perfect light to the shade of the former, and we get sung vocals for the first time, in a very organic and pastoral mode, with acoustic and electric guitars and bottle neck decorations. There is an underlying dark tone that pre-empts the tone of The Wall, which suddenly moves to a major key, as if the sun has come out on the rainy meadow. This is also pre-emptive, of Brain Damage on DSOTM, but Floyd maintain the major key feel for this latter part of the song, to provide a kind of Yin- Yang balance.

From the opening chord of Fearless, we know we are in for something more powerful - Floyd showing here their mastery of form for the album as a whole. But the music is pulled back, to develop a kind of ebb and flow - with wafts of chanting that we can't quite make out. The attention to detail here as everywhere else on the album is utterly masterful - the more you listen, the more you hear, as tiny details in the music make themselves apparent. Gilmour pulls some really neat tricks, and Wright puts in some superb understaded piano details to make this one of the most incredibly textured pieces on the album. The chanting is brought back - but to the fore this time, and we hear that it is the anthem of the Liverpool Football Club - "You'll Never Walk Alone", whose lyrics tie in nicely with the Floyds and create a slightly surreal texture.

As with a classical suite, Floyd choose a piece with a completely different feel to follow Fearless; San Tropez is a lazy Sunday Afternoon encapsulated - a dream of the life of the idle rich. Beautiful lounge-jazz elements - especially from Wright on the piano - and bluesy bottle neck guitar create a unique, laid-back feel which is a real treat.

This side (I'm reviewing from a vinyl LP - the best way to hear the Floyd, IMO!) closes with the quirky Seamus. Almost unprecendented and never repeated in the Floyd catalogue, this is a tempting one to skip - but, as usual, PF give plenty to enjoy in the detail and texture with careful and laid back blues piano, bottleneck guitar and plucked guitar, with just a shade of bass. This maintains consistency with "A Pllow...", and the dog howling just reflects Floyd's humour.

Echoes is what this album is all about, however, and is worth buying Meddle for alone. From the opening ping to the closing ping, this is a 23-minute organic unfolding of events almost unprecedented in rock history, and a flawless journey of expermimentation that hints at later Floyd music; e.g. the sublime little guitar runs hint at "Shine on You Crazy Diamond". As with One Of These Days, Floyd grow the texture organically, the scene-painting lyrics entering around 3:00, and a newer, darker texture is hinted at around 3:40.

The song-writing abilities of Floyd are showcased to the max here, as the instruments show incredible restraint around the vocal passages, and only unleash a little at a time - feeding the listener little bit by little bit, and leading gently on through a nautical atmosphere that can be lived simply by closing the eyes. But there's more than just song-writing abilities showcased in Echoes - how does one keep a piece interesting for over 20 minutes?

Around 7:00, Floyd drop us into the darker chasms that have been hinted at earlier. Waters, Gilmour and Wright maintain a groove that is utterly grin-inducing, while Gilmour sends seagulls soaring, demonic denizens of the deep diving, and creates pictures of all manner of sea-related stuff, from sunlight glinting on the waves to waving forests of seaweed, to schools of whales. These can all be heard - if you listen for them! I particularly like the icy cavernous depths of around 11:15, where the accompaniment is dropped away, and only texture remains. This whole section is reminiscent of the experimentation on Ummagumma - but this time with a greater purpose. We float for a while in this new world, marvelling at the scenery, but the seascape changes beneath us all too soon, and we continue on our journey, once the familiar ping is heard again.

The heavy guitar and crystalline cymbals announce the imminence of another growing and intensifying passage, through dark caverns, but gradually approaching the surface - as light appears, breaking through the waters in columns - and when the vocals re-emerge, it's like we don't even know where the time has gone - it feels like seconds since the last verse.

Utterly magnificent - no collection is complete without it! There's not a single note to change on this album, no filler, nothing out of order - an album to revisit as often as you like and never get tired of hearing.

At last, Floyd got it right. Not all the tracks are 5 star; indeed Seamus is pretty throwaway, despite some excellent dog noises. However, what remains and the overall feel of the album elevate it into the hallowed ranks of genius. One of These Days is a frenetic, bass guitar led instrumental with a short, mindlessly violent vocal insert. Pillow of Winds, Fearless and San Tropez are much more gentle, soothing songs. But it is Echoes that leaves the lasting memory: a full side of music, flawlessly constucted and played with great keyboard and guitar solos. It creates a sense of the underwater, starting with pinging of a sonar, later dying away into synthesised waves, seagulls and ship noises before a gently building reemergence through the bass and keyboards. The short vocal sections are well done and the lyrics are great. This track was Floyd's finest moment ever, by far. Worth buying the album for this one track alone.

Probably their best in their early period (1967-1972), "Meddle" is more polished than 'Atom Heart Mother' and features all from ballads to long epic tracks that really blows you away!

"One of These Days", is a great opener and is the creepiest track on the album. The music is well-played and great and the vocal that says; "One of these days, i'm gonna' cut you into little pieces", is almost worth the price of the CD alone.

The following tracks is also good (except "Seamus") but "Echoes" is the REAL apex of the album. It's one of the best songs in the whole PF discography and makes the other songs on the album sound weak!

Overall; this is a must in your PF collection! It's not perfect (because some of the songs in the middle of the album) but i still recommend it strongly.

My rating: 4 stars.

OK, this is the second album review I need to rewrite.

This is a fantatsic Floyd album, showing the truly evolving yet still slightly immature (a.k.a., pre-Dark Side Floyd). As far as I'm concerned, it is the best album besides the main 4, Dark Side thru The Wall. It shows Floyd still searching for their sound, the sound that became legendary one they found it. I believe it was on this album that they hit on who they were.

It partrays a range of different genres for the band. From the crazy opener to the mellowness of some other tracks, as well as the blues and upbeat stuff, and of course, Echoes. Echoes is a five-star song, with no doubt. The first side hovers between a 3 and a 4. I believe 4 stars is good for this great album.

One of These Days: Fantastic opener. The second best song on the album for. The driving bass combined with Wright's tasteful keyboard additions set the stage for the song. It was one of those songs that's great on first listen, but still gets better as time goes on, and also works well when followed by the rest of the album, especially because of the slow-down in:

A Pillow of Winds: Nice acoustic song here. Fairly nostalgic and does a nice job of calming down the atmosphere of Meddle. Although it isn't anything like the song Wish You Were Here, it succeeds in its own simple purpose. Not too much can be said about it.

Fearless: Fantastic song. Gilmour's work here is my favorite on Side 1. Also, the verses/lyrics strike a note with me. They seem, dare I say it, positive. The reason this strikes me so is that... well, go listen to or watch The Wall. Nothing positive exists there.

San Tropez: Floyd still experimenting. A short little happy upbeat ditty thinger. That is actually how to describe it. It is so obviously un-Pink Floyd, but hey, the band was still searching for themselves in a way. They were transferring themselves from the entire psychedelia scene from their underground and early recording days. Evolving for a band is indeed tough.

Seamus: Floyd looking for themselves again, this one being even more off than San Tropez. It's a short little blues song with some of the most absurd lyrics I've ever heard. The most un-Floyd thing Floyd has ever done. Sharp, sharp contrast to:

Echoes: Floyd finds themselves. This is the band that would appear 2 years later. Echoes is a complete masterwork. The song is able, right from the opening keyboards, to whisk you into another world. You forget this land, this planet, this world. You are somewhere else, somewhere far far away, and nothing matters. Words cannot express this feeling. There are only a few songs/albums that do this for me, but Echoes, I must say, is at the top of that list, and for that, you must give it it's due.

Do not start your Floyd venture here. A better idea would be to start with 73 and on Floyd, then go back to their roots, in a way. If you are already a fan of the Floyd, this should already be in your collection, and if not, it should be very soon. It does constitute an excellent addition to your collection. 4/5 stars.

Meddle was the first pink Floyd album I listened to in totality for myself after being subjected to constant plays of Dark Side Of The Moon over and over at strange and dirty apartments and flats that had a party raging on into the very small hours. Of course this would only come on when everybody was completely zoned out and would annoy the [%*!#] out of me no end. Watching the sun come up while my eyes are several shades of purple and my mouth feels like an ashtray is no comfort when "Money" is thrown in the equation and my wallet seems to be lost and my liver has abandoned me due to neglect. Now, I have never been to keen on DSOTM (you don't say?) and it's commercial leanings, mainly because over time I have noticed that the majority people who own DSOTM have little else by Pink Floyd except for perhaps The Wall or The New York Philharmonic does DSOTM or something to that effect in the most extreme of cases. You know the people who might have Harvest, Hysteria, Thriller, Celine Dion's Greatest Hits and what ever mullet man Michael Bolton did in their collections. Basically the safe multi platinum options. I spoke to a guy about Meddle one time and claiming to a HUGE Pink Floyd album had never ever heard Meddle! And gave me an odd look. I dared not mention Syd Barrett's name.

I do enjoy the Meddle album even though it's inconsistent and the sound mix is actually very low, which is a pity as this lessens the sonic blast of "One Of These Days" which should have been ripping. Floyd have never attempted to recreate a song with the ambition and creative yet stoned quality of a song like "One Of These Days", but remember, this is coming from a Dark Side.. and The Wall hater so please forgive me. "Pillow Of Winds" is decidedly dreamy with a very flowing rhythm and though "Seamus" sounds barking mad , it's worth it's place but the highlight and obvious center piece of the whole affair has to be the schizoid mood of "Echoes", which starts out melancholic and emotive which for a second threatens to be sweet but builds big walls (ahem) of brooding darkness and freakiness that only druggies could come up with but is a song of epic proportions. I have a friend who works as a mortician and he tells me that there is nothing he likes better than to have a spliff, go in to work, play "Echoes" and [%*!#] around with a few corpses for the day. Needless to say, I don't envy him.

While this album is flawed, it is a very good addition to a prog collection. The album is not a masterpiece, but Echoes is for me their best song and ranks up there with Tarkus, and Close to the Edge. This album combines folk, rock, and psycheledic music. In fact, this album is similar to Tarkus by the fact that there is a masterpiece long epic, and the rest is mostly filler.

One of these days 9/10 : what a perfect song! dark, scary, sinister. The best part of it is its middle section with a bass using an echo pedal.

Pillow of Winds 6/10 : Follows with a pretty acoustic guitar driven song. Nothing essential, but it helps the flow of the album.

Fearless 6/10 : A good soft rocker with a memorable ascending riff. Nothing to blow you away though, and the ending has a stadium like cheering that annoys me a lot.

San Tropez 4/10 : A silly poppy roger waters song that doesn't do anything for me. Very weak.

Seamus : 1/10 : This is HORRIBLE! it is a bad uninspired common blues piece with a dog barking all over it. What were they thinking? this is the worst Pink Floyd song (even worse than the worst songs of the first 2 albums)

Echoes : 10/10 this song for me ranks up there with the best psychedelic songs. An obscure psychedelic masterpiece from the band's Pre-Dark Side of the Moon history. Lasting about 23 minutes, starts with a highly vibrating piano note, continues mellow with a slow and brilliant buildup, then it gets denser and stronger with loud descending/crescending guitar riffs and incredibly good vocal harmonies until a long slow guitar solo comes, and it transports you into a trippy section of sound effects until it builds up again into the main theme and ends.

So if you want to buy this album, do it only for the opener and closer tracks. The rest is mediocre.

My Grade : B

With the winds introducing the chaotic intro of "One Of These Days" we are led to one of the most wonderful FLOYDIAN journeys through four tracks of full brilliance and two other underrated ones that aren't bad but clearly weaker.

Meddle is the kind of album that has to be listened with an open mind. "San Tropez" and "Seamus" aren't among the best songs on PF's catalogue, but they also don't ruin the album at the point of making it be less than a masterpiece, though they do seem out of place here. In my opinion, the other four are so impressive that i really don't care for the pop side of "San Tropez" and the joke done on "Seamus" - this one being taken too seriously as another reviewer has pointed. I have learned to enjoy those two songs, they sure break the dreamy atmosphere which is the album's main characteristic, but they also give more variety in terms of musical content to the album. "San Tropez" can be a delightful song if you follow the rhythm of Waters' words and forget that this is just a pop number. It IS a poppy song, but it is at least well done. "Seamus" is just the band having some fun. This song adds nothing to the album, but it also doesn't ruin it. What really matters here are the other four ones, "One Of These Days" is one of the best intros ever made, it has a double bass work done by Dave and Roger and a scary modified vocal line by Nick Mason saying "one of these days i'm going to cut into little pieces!" leading to the rocking second part of the track. I love the "shwah!" done by Rick's synths through the song, which adds a lot to the chaotic feel. After this great number we have "A Pillow Of Winds", which is very different from the album's opening. It is actually one of the FLOYD's more mellow and moving works, and it has a hypnotizing feel that's built through the Dave's amazing guitar chords and sweet vocals, especially at the short instrumental section at the middle. I'll describe the exact image that comes to my mind when i listen to this song: i feel like i am in a forest in the middle ages, and a cloudy sky cover all the land. It works much better than BLACKMORE'S NIGHT music in my opinion. "Fearless" is not so good as the previous two songs, and also brings the hypnotizing feeling. It's still very dreamy but i don't like the "You'll Never Walk Alone" anthem too much. The last one is the mighty "Echoes". PING! Welcome to the ocean and let its waves lead you through PINK FLOYD's most trippy song ever done. The opening notes by Dave and Rick show that this is something really special...! This epic contains both wonderful music and lyrics. It originally had a space theme, but then the FLOYD decided to make an oceanic one. The embryo lyrics mentioning something that would be a "planets' dance" were also quite good, but these new ones of the released song are simply amazing. It also features the funky part done on the Atom Heart Mother suite, and when its second part arrives with the return of the "pings" and the guitar notes borning from Dave's fingers leading to that short semi-chaotic and touching at the same time guitar work (definitely the album's climax) you'll feel that those were some of the best moments your ears ever had the honor to be pleased of. After more awesome lines "...and call to you across the sky" and the windy ending, you sure will realise that even a pop song and a joke one can't drop an album containing an epic of this level from its pedestal.

Would the album be better without "San Tropez" and "Seamuz"? Even though i said before that those two songs don't bother me anymore and i am discovering a new pleasure on hearing them, i still have to admit that without those two the album would maintain its dreamy feel from begining to end, and would sure be worthy of being on my "6-star FLOYD albums" special category, which has as "members" Wish You Were Here and Dark Side of the Moon. But Meddle can be considered a masterpiece and does deserve the 5 star ranting due to the level it lets me reach. I feel mesmerized by this album, and it touches me deeply emotionally, so i consider this a very special album for me.

The first Floyd masterpiece!

"Meddle" is arguably the first fully developed and perfectly produced PINK FLOYD album, following the unsuccessful experimentation of "Atom Heart Mother". Everything works fine here, even the unusual combination of several easy mostly acoustic songs flavoured with folk and some bluesy touches, surrounded by two premier space rock anthems, the opening "One of These Days" and the epic "Echoes", makes much sense and offers more than a pleasant and adventurous listening. Without excessive psychedelic sound effects (the "ping" from "Echoes" is more than just an effect...) and orchestral arrangements, the foursome delivered a strong sonic texture that ranks among their finest achievements and is a refreshing and interesting listen every time you put the disc on, equally in 1971 as today. Truly remarkable piece of music and a must for any prog collection.

I wasn't very convinced by this album. I guess it has signs of their imaginative 60's era changing towards to the more calculated 70's sounds. But there are great moments on this period of the band too, like the long "Echoes" song on this one. The starter "One of These Days" is also a good song, but otherwise I found this album a bit boring. Actually "Seamus" even annoyed me. I first liked the covers of this album lots, but as I realized what's actually in the picture it didn't please me anymore (I probably had an association of earwax with it). The band portrait within the inner sleeve is quite cool though!

Echoes! pays for the entire album..being a gem within a gem!!! Things have started to glue together!! Outstanding stuff in this one... With the passing years, I have learned to love this album, and have become one of my favorites over all.

Another amazing album by floyd! This is almost perfect except for the annoying song Seamus. It seems like a few of floyds classics have some irritating filler. I just wasn't digging the dog groanings, unsettling to the nerves. Still One of these days (one of the best opening tracks) and echoes alone bring this album to 4 star rating. They are two largely instrumental and find floyd fine tuning there sound, showing everyone whats to come in the future. The other songs together squeeze out another quarter star for a 4.25 star album!

Well, I went to the shop to buy the album "Atom Heart Mother" and I saw this one - I didn't ever know that this work existed... and like I had some money still with me I bought "Meddle" too - a complete blind date (the year: 1972; my age: 15).

Going home I started to regret thinking that money could be better applied... but wow, when I listened it for the first time all my doubts disappeared almost instantly. This is an album for ever, forever!

The tracks: 1) One of these days - amazing, attractive; that moment when everything runs edging perfection. 2) Fearless - nice and pleasant; good guitar and singing with some original effects. 3) San Tropez - hearing it first I felt myself lying in some Mediterranean beach (and look, in terms of beaches I haven't to complain here in Brazil). If a song can transport you to a distant place then it shall be exceptional. 4) A pillow of winds - the most beautiful ballad of Pink Floyd's stock; no more comments since they are not necessary. 5) Seamus - for me, only a filler, but not sufficient to disturb the majesty of the album. 6) Echoes - another EPIC in the same level of 'Atom heart mother', maybe better. Well, it is great indeed and shows a much more continuous display than the last. Also a piece to fill my pantheon of great songs.

I could remove 0.5 star due to the weak 'Seamus' but it would be unfair with the complete album, so the final rating is 5.

Everyone knows and recognizes that the Dark Side of The Moon is Pink Floyd's masterpiece and an album that characterized the glory days of prog rock. For me personally, it's interesting to notice the albums that precede Dark Side of The Moon. Why? Well, this is probably very personal and you might disagree with me, but it's fine. To me, the period before Dark Side of the Moon was when the band tried to shape the kind of music they intended to have for the true Pink Floyd music. There was period when they're really a psychedelic band with the like of The Beatles - i.e the period with Syd Barrett. Post Syd Barrett era remarked the band movement to another shape that they might not know at that time. But if I observe in deep, there has been a tagline that underlined "the sort of sounds" they want to craft the future. Take a look on the title track of "Atom Heart Mother", for example. If you notice quite in deep, you might find that the track has key ingredients of Pink Floyd sounds, in this case that the bed where the music lays has evolved into "Us and Them" of the Dark Side of The Moon. You might find also how "Obscured By Clouds" has also evolved into another forms of Pink Floyd music. That's just an example, and the list would grow later with other tracks as well.

"Meddle", by no exception, has contributed significantly to the solid music of Pink Floyd in their music career. Take "Echoes" which obviously defines the music of Pink Floyd in terms of structure, composition, as well as style. Yes, it's heavily influenced by blues but the band has repackaged the track into music textures where the blues influence is not the main characteristics of the song but it enriches the song in its overall appearance. Another track worth observing is "One of These days" which mostly comes from the dual bass lines with Roger Waters playing on one channel, while David Gilmour on the other. What come next are two tracks which show the unplugged, folksy side of Floyd. These two tracks are possibly the band's best performance with this kind of style - which unfortunately do not favor me.

Overall, this album isn't the best album by Pink Floyd albums, but is well worth the effort to collect. Keep on proggin' ..!

Peace on earth and mercy mild - GW

Pink Floyd in 1971 had changed drastically from it's psychedelic/pop roots with Syd Barrett and soon after his departure they became a highly experimental band who took no prisoners with their sonic bombardments. Meddle is the realization of all the experimentation they had done at that time and perfects it. The group had not yet become the mega-famous group they are now, at the time, they were rapidly growing a fan base and becoming increasingly popular. The musicianship on this album is phenomenal, with each member really shining on essentially all tracks. And if that weren't enough, the lyrics provided on this album are top notch, with Waters really coming a long way after his contributions from The Piper at the Gates of Dawn.

The album opens with an ethereal instrumental known as One of These Days. The pounding bass rhythms and the spacey slide guitar are augmented by wavy keyboard lines and pounding drums. The moment when all hell breaks loose is when Mason utters his famous phrase, "One of these days I'm going to cut you into little pieces"... and then all goes into madness, and the song ends with a real bang. A Pillow of Winds is a dreamier piece, with some spacey Rick Wright vocals and some nice keyboard work from Wright as well. It's not the best song on the album, but a strong one to say the least. Fearless is another astoundingly strong piece. Great ascending guitar riffs and vocal/lyrical work are highlights. Gilmour's guitar work is astounding on this track. San Tropez is more of a joke track than anything else, in the vein of The Nile Song off of More. It's a strong joke track, to say the least. The vocals are well done and the jazzy music that accompanies it is very strong as well. Seamus is a considerably weak tune, and the only thing that really keeps me from rating this album as a masterpiece. Nick Mason's dogs are featured on this track, and that's the only thing really worth noting.

Echoes in the finale of the album, and the 24 minute epic really shows that Pink Floyd were all about taking everything to the next level. This atmospheric and moody piece is a total realization of everything that Pink Floyd had done up to that period and gives it a respective twist. The spacey aquatic themed tune is begun with some great keyboard work from Wright and some great solo work from Gilmour. The main theme to the song is astoundingly strong and the lyrics and vocals are also incredibly strong. The breakdown between the vocals is a great descending riff and one of the strongest riffs Pink Floyd had come up with at the time. The breakdown section in the middle features some strong rhythmic overtones from Waters and Mason, who provide the groove for Gilmour and Wright to solo over. Add more spacey and ethereal sections, and you have yourself a masterpiece of an epic.

Overall, this was Pink Floyd's strongest album to date. The work on this album is astounding, and the only reason I can't rate it as a masterpiece is because of the weak track Seamus. Otherwise, you must get this album and listen to some truly revolutionary music. 4.5/5.

This is a very interesting album and one of their best albums, IMO. It still has some experiments and some arrangements inluenced a bit by Psychedelia. It also has one of the best long musical pieces, called "Echoes".

The album starts with "One of These Days", which has a bass guitar played with a delay sound effect. It is a simple instrumental piece of music with added sound effects and David Gilmour playing a pedal steel guitar. "A Pillow of Winds" and "Fearless" are songs played with acoustic and electric guitars, mainly sung by Gilmour. "Fearless" includes a "choir" at the end of the song which it seems liket it was recorded during a soccer match, with the public singing "You`ll Never Walk Alone"! "San Tropez" is a Jazz influenced song with acoustic guitar and a piano solo, and sung and composed by Waters. "Seamus" is a blues song without drums which has the funny sound (at least for me) of a dog barking along with the song in the background, seeming like the dog was singing the song too!

"Echoes" is the best song in this album. It has several untitled parts which are played with energy by the band, and it also includes a part played with synthesizers on which they sound like noises produced by "prehistoric birds", giving a very good effect to the listener like being transported to "old ages"! Great arrangement! The song is finished with energy by the band, and then the song gradually fades with the same synths playing strange noises. "Echoes", IMO, is similar in several ways to YES ` "Close to the Ege" and ELP`s "Tarkus", and all these musical pieces are very important in Progressive Rock music.

In conclusion, this is a very good album, next to their "Dark Side of the Moon" album in quality.

When one of my class mates introduced me to MEDDLE, back in 1975, we were fascinated by the 'funny sounds' as well as the music. Pink Floyd was well-known for being a real 'underground band' specialising as much in 'funny sounds' as in anything else. The mysterious opening of 'Echoes' took our breath away, the spooky middle section gave us the creeps, and the spoken bit in 'One of these days' had us in stitches. In the course of time, of course, I started enjoying 'Echoes' for its beautifully sung main melody, its guitar solos and its exciting organ-led climax. Compared to other 1970s epics it's flawed, of course, (those creepy sounds in the middle really should have been curtailed), but it's no exaggeration to state that 'Echoes' was the Floyd's first "symphonic prog" classic.

Most of MEDDLE's shorter tunes are eminently forgettable, but I happen to like 'San Tropez', with its cool, jazzy piano solo splendidly played by Rick Wright.

This is the album in which Pink Floyd began to deliver a more focused sound and their writing skills became more refined, although there are still unmistakable traces of their early psychedelic era floating in the majestic atmospheres created for 'Echoes', arguably their most accomplished composition ever. But let's not get ahead of ourselves. "Meddle" is an album in which Pink Floyd decided to explore their rockier and bucolic aspects in a clearer frame of mind, giving distinct rooms for each attitude throughout the fisrt half. The recording kicks off with their anthemic rocker 'One of These Days', a catchy yet somewhat scary exhibition of minimal textures that gradually sets a room for emotional darkness until the infamous recitation, from which the band turns on full swing, with the drums setting a solid pace and the steel guitar exploding like a diamond in the sky that scatters its splinters across the cosmos. The sound of the wind connects the opener's end with the beginning and development of 'A Pillow of Winds', an extremely reflective piece in which the steel guitar reappears, this time as a painting instrument instead of a summoner of storms. But it is the acoustic guitar arpeggios that take center stage now, softly displaying their cadences over the dreamy organ layers. This is classic acoustic Pink Floyd. Portraying a more optimistic mood although keeping things quite constrained, 'Fearless' gives a candid message of self- confidence within the confines of a pleasant motif. 'Saint Tropez' and 'Seamus' continue the acoustic vein with disparate results. The former is a joyful, ironically-absorbed song in an old jazz mood, while the latter is a failed attempt at easy-going fun on an acoustic blues set. Perhaps a longer expansion of the 'Saint Tropez' song could have taken more advantage of the last two minutes of the vinyl's A-side, but well, things are as they are. And ultimately, it is good that things are as they are, since the second half of the album is occupied by the monumental suite 'Echoes', which is to many prog fand and PF heads, the ultimate PF song. And deservedly so. Everything in and about it is a definitive prog (and art rock) classic, and now comes a list that hopefully will be extensive enough. The dripping effects played on a distorted piano, the guitar leads that set the mood for the jams, the best vocal duet performance by Gilmour and Wright ever, the disturbing interlude played on mellotron overdubs and bizarre guitar effects, the reflective lyrics that portray the mystery of the ego's encounter with itself in the others, the ascending climax toward the last sung section, the hypnotic closure of mellotron choirs going in circles toward the higher notes while the final drips go fading away. These 23 ½ minutes are pure prog brilliance. "Meddle", while not totally filling the masterpiece's shoes, it almost does: one of Pink Flyd's absolute gems for the prog genre.

Meddle is the next Pink Floyd album after the successful Atom Heart Mother and the formula is almost the same, a side-long track and another bunch of songs in the other side of the original vinyl.

What prevents this album of being as good as its predecessor is that the other songs rather than the side-long suite are not so good as the songs contained in Atom Heart Mother. One of These days is an excellent instrumental with great bass and guitar riffs and soloing, but the other songs, A Pillow of Winds, Fearless, San Tropez and Seamus are ok but not great, just a collection of regular songs by Pink Floyd.

The side-long suite Echoes is a fantastic song with many different parts, great bass, guitar and keyboards. The organ sounds are very good and the slow guitar solos are excellent, one of the best Gilmour participation in a Pink Floyd song. The guitar and organ interplay in the middle of the song is long and very good. The wind echo sounds generated by synthesizers are impressive.

The album is very good and just Echoes and One of These Days justify a purchase. The other songs are good and don´t spoil the quality of the album, so it is a good aquisition for space rock/prog fans.

No beating about the bush - Echoes is damn near the best piece of music ever created by anyone at any time .... even all these years later it holds a power that few others can get close to. The psychedelic instrumental section, especially the pounding 'marching' theme [my head has built up a story to this that is quite independant of the lyrics, though they do seem to gel somehow] never fails to send shivers down the spine. This is also my preferred version of this song - everything about it is perfect. Simpler, but barely less powerful, is the Echorec endowed One Of These Days with Nick Mason's barely discernable vocal. Anything else really is a bonus. The remaining tracks are in a freeer style with lots of jangly acoustic guitars, bluesy licks, chanting football crowd and singing dog - in themselves pleasant enough but nothing outstanding, at least in a Prog sense. They are, however, a perfect foil for the two major tracks. Overall - masterpiece.

This was my entry album to the Floyd. Back in December 1971 (I was aged 12, almost thirteen). From the very begining I had a quite mixed feeling about it. A first quite boring side which I (almost) never spin as such and a fabulous second one.

Side one opens with "One Of These Days" which is, of course, a fantastic song. Quite "windy" for about a minute, the bass work is gorgeous throuthout the remaining part.The whole band then enters in such an unknown frenesy : almost hard rocking ! One of my all time fave from the Floyd that I frequently listen to, even thirty-five years after having bought it.

We enter then into a less memorable part of the album. "A Pillow of Winds" is a rather poor acoustic track. Boring all the way long. Useless.

"Fearless" is somewhat better. It ends with the famous anthem "We'll Never Walk Alone" sung by the Liverpool fans. Altough I prefer to hear it while attending a football game featuring the Reds (I had twice this experience in my life), it is quite interesting to mix it with a Floyd song (it is already noticeable earlier on in this song as well).

"San Tropez" is a jazzy little tune of no interest at all.

Altough some might find "Seamus" a great song, I can tell you : it is on par with the crappy studio work from "Ummagumma" and the B-side from AHM. To be in exctasy with the barking dog denotes some perception of music I hardly can understand. Very, very poor.

I really did an effort to listen to those ones for this review. I promise : for the next thity-five years, I will not listen to this crap again, for sure !

To confirm my feeling, I quote Roger : "Atom Heart Mother and Meddle are half good. I like "Atom Heart Mother" and "Echoes" themselves, but we made a right mess of it on the other sides."

The whole of side two is covered by the wonderful "Echoes" : another fave of mine. Over 23 minutes of great music. The sonar-like sound to start was an accident. I quote Rick : "I was playing around on the piano in the studio but it was actually Roger who said, would it be possible to put that note through a microphone and then through the Leslie? That's what started it. That's how all the best Floyd tracks start, I believe.".

After the intro, the Floyd offers a very nice & harmonious vocal section, a great guitar & keys break, an interstellar trip to the boundaries of the solar system (or underwater) and an incredible crescendo finale that last for about eight minutes. This is one of the most fabulous moment of prog music and the essence of our driving forces (well, maybe I'm too lyrical). Really this piece of music is fabulous.

So, for once, let's depict how I worked to get the rating for this work. I worked as follows : instead of considering the amount of good numbers (two out of six, almost two stars out of five) I will rather take into account the minutes of music (which is more favourable for this album). Almost thirty minutes of a masterpiece level ("One Of These Days" and "Echoes" ). Six minutes of two stars stuff "Fearless" and eleven crappy ones. The average rating reaches 3,69. I will rounded up to four stars. Really because this album has a special meaning to me (otherwise, with such poor numbers, a three stars rating would be more appropriate).

As usual I would say, the Floyd delivered a rather controvertial album. Masterpieces combined with absolute crap : it is not the first time. Unfortunately, it won't be the last time.

Interesting to mention that one of the left overs form the "Meddle" sessions was a track called "Brain Damage"... at that time it was called "The Dark Side Of The Moon"... Meddle will peak at Nr. 3 in the UK (only Nr. 70 in the US). Four stars.

By 1971 Pink Floyd had done a good job of distancing itself from the considerable influence of Syd Barrett and started recording albums that better reflected their true identity. England loved them but here in the USA they were still being unfairly lumped into the dubious and suspect category of "acid music" and not being taken seriously yet. However, with this album they finally became more accessible to the masses and the tide began to slowly (but surely) turn in their favor.

The fact that the very first cut, "One of these Days," lent itself well to the still eclectic FM radio stations and, therefore, smoothly migrated into their much-desired heavy rotation was one of the big reasons. Even though it's an instrumental, it has that signature "Pink" sound that invariably draws even the most casual of listeners in. David Gilmore's slide guitar work is all over this album but here it's especially striking. The overriding pulsating guitar effect also sets it apart from the herd, as well. "A Pillow of Winds" meanders a bit here and there but it's still a nice, pleasant tune with more of Gilmore's interesting slide guitar. "Fearless" is an outstanding song with an easy, loping pace that I've always liked. The crowd singing "You'll Never Walk Alone" is so amazing as it drifts in and out along the way, giving the tune a unique quality. Next is an unexpected left turn, "San Tropez," by bassist Roger Waters. It's a little like the Lovin' Spoonful's "Daydream" in texture but it's the tasteful guitar and Richard Wright's cheery piano that really stand out. It's a delightful change of pace. "Seamus" is a hike off the beaten trail, as well. The dogs (literally) sing quite well over the country Dobro and honky-tonk piano and the whole thing has a nonchalant Stones-ish aura to it. The sidelong "Echoes" definitely shows where the band was headed in the future. Starting with what sounds like sonar pings, the guitar and organ take over before long and then the harmony singing begins. There's a definite "Time" (from Dark Side of the Moon) element at work here but not as well defined as in that great song. There's an intriguing lead guitar being played by Gilmore but you have to listen intently as it's buried in the mix. A funkier rhythm propelled by drummer Nick Mason enters and takes us to some cool guitar feedback layered over Wright's tactful organ work. A spacey section follows where it sounds like wind blowing through a huge cavern and tiny creatures screaming. Next is a segment that is reminiscent of "One of these Days" but with the throbbing effect much more subdued. At one point Gilmore constructs a layered, echoing guitar passage that is brief but excellent. The long epic comes full circle with a reprise of the original melody before the whole thing fades away. The clearest way to describe this 23-minute composition is "genuinely psychedelic."

Overall it's a good effort but as a group they weren't quite "there" just yet. However, it's obvious that they were headed for the Promised Land. I'd rate this one a 3.4 on the five-star scale and say all Floyd fans should definitely have it in their collection. "Meddle" reveals a work in progress that would eventually take over the world and find the band becoming a household name.

This is such a charming record,with lots of variety.I always thought the album cover looked like it had a nose on it,but that was looking at it upside down.Although the title "Meddle" can mean nosey. "One Of These Days" is an instrumental with Waters' bass being played through an echo machine,and it sounds amazing!Wright adds his expertise on the synths as Gilmour lays down some good guitar melodies,including a scorching solo later on while the drums pound away.What an opener!"A Pillow Of Winds" is my favourite on this record.I just love the way it opens with the wind blowing as acoustic guitar and reserved vocals come in.This song is to me a dreamy song that would be perfect to listen to on a warm,lazy summers day."Fearless" features some wonderful guitar and fantastic lyrics.The subject of mental illness would be addressed further on the "Dark Side Of the Moon"."San Tropez" is a fun,upbeat song,with a nice piano melody to end the song."Seamus" is a bluesy number that is both short and silly."Echoes" is a side long suite that is truly an epic.Richard Wright really shines on this song with his synth work as well as his organ play.Mason pounds away methodically, while Gilmour is prominant especially in the jam section. This has to be in the top five of PINK FLOYD's best albums.

"fearlessly the idiot faced the crowd, smiling"

I love that line! Meddle was the soundtrack of a few hazy summer days for me and my pals in our youth. It has much nostalgia value to me but I set that aside for an objective rating.

I find Meddle to be a bit over-rated here and I believe the average star rating would be a full star less were this album the work of a lesser known psych band of the era rather than everyone's favorite, Pink Floyd. While "Pillow of Winds," "Fearless," and half of "Echoes" are very good, and "San Tropez" is nice, I think that "One of these Days" and "Seamus" are both less than classic and frankly a bit juvenile. And a good hunk of Echoes is not exactly up there with Dogs or SOYCD. The mid section is just allowed to drift a bit too long for fans not into the chemical experience. That's not necessarily a bad thing but I would simply question whether making the piece more concise and perhaps using some of those drifting mid moments elsewhere else might not have been even better. I can't put the album on the same level as their masterpieces but do think it is very good overall and a solid piece of their legacy. I think that "A Pillow of Winds" is the standout track on this album and wish they had expanded that piece more. The textures here are just incredible and Gilmour's vocal and guitar are exquisite.

I really enjoy Meddle and see it as a step on the way to albums like Dark Side through Animals. But it lacks the musical maturity and the complete conceptual visions of those other releases. I'm at about 3.5 stars for Meddle. Floyd fans will want to have this but it's not the best place to start a Floyd collection in my opinion.

Meddle is one of several floyd transitional albums, and this marks the change from rambling psychedlia to something more. waters is beginning to display some of the lyrical brilliance that make make him so hard to hate despite his general attitude towards others. Gilmour has fully amalgamated himself into the band and together they start the bal rolling for Floyd

The stunning instrumental "One of These Days" opens the album by gradually building until it reaches its zenith, which it sustains for nearly half the song. "A Pillow of Winds" has a dreamy atmosphere that reflects the title, and for whatever reason it never grabbed a hold of me. "Fearless" picks back up with great lyrics and a better riff. "san Tropez" is another laid back tune that is more enjoyable than Pillow, but "Seamus" is by far the low point of the album.

Then, comes "Echoes." A 23 minute culmination of the band up til this point.It is a stunning tour de force with Waters' best lyrics at the time (and one of the best things he's ever pinned), and incredible instrumental work that alternates between traditional sounds and random bits where synths and Gilmour's guitar mimcik animal sounds ranging from prehistoric birds to whales. The lyrics deal with man's empathy, but various meanings have been derived (take a gander at inpraisoffolly's review for his impressive insights). When sifting through Floyd's impressive catalog to pick their greatest song, this should be somewhere at the top of your list.

Meddle has its ups and downs, and in a way it reminds me of ELP's Tarkus and Rush's 2112, where a stunning epic is supplmented by several shorter tracks that cannot hope to compare to it. However, Meddle, like 2112, has shorter songs of a higher quality than that on Tarkus. Every fan of Floyd should pick this up for the first and last tracks, but I'm sure quite a few would love the whole album. Highly recommended.

Grade: B

Meddle was a groundbreaking work for Pink Floyd, chiefly because of the amazing 23+ minute Echoes featuring some of the most wonderful guitar experimentation ever done. Gilmour was a genius on this instrument and Echoes showcases some of the most unusual sounds ever produced by one. Pure space music. The section with the soaring echoed parts and wind will take you off to some far-off unexplored planet. Gilmour also makes effective use of delay, a precursor to much of what he did on The Wall and possibly one of the earliest uses of this technique to make this sound (maybe Hillage did it first?).

In addition to the side-long track, the group puts together five short tracks for side A of the album, starting off with the driving instrumental One of These Days, one of their most popular tracks and concert favorites. A Pillow of Winds, Fearless, and San Tropez are also great songs with San Tropez being a piano-driven lounge-like song. The only weak track is Seamus, which is slow and lazy featuring dog barks and howling. A far cry from their future release of Animals; here it's just filler.

With or without Seamus, Meddle is easily a five-star masterpiece, chiefly because of Echoes. Highly recommended and a great place to start if you haven't heard any of the group's pre-Dark Side material.

(Seamus, that's the 3.5)

Meddle was, of course, the album that shows the Floydsters FINALLY pulling themselves from out of Syd's shadow, and figuring out exactly what they wanted to do for the next decade. Gone are the experimentations with post-psychedelia, orchestral suites, and mindless avant-garde tuning. The Floyd formula is in place, a pleasant mesh of all of those elements (sort of psychedelic-art-pop, with an edge). And in that way, this album is even more revolutionary than Piper At the Gates of Dawn.

...Okay, I'm [&*!#]ting you, I've NEVER heard any Pink Floyd albums before this one. However, I have glanced at some histories of the band, read some liner notes for Division Bell, and downloaded a "Wish You Were Here" ringtone, and I THINK that that makes me qualified to be a Floyd historian...I also own Barrett, but that's another review I guess.

Meddle contains arguably the worst opener of all time: "One of These Days," the ULTIMATE Pink Floyd song, in my opinion. The Floyd never got finer than this, an absolutely melody-less piece (I couldn't hum the tune if you put a gun to my head, save for a few slide guitar riffs) of pure, hard rockin' mayhem.

It starts slowly, the instruments unsurely meshing with each other. Then, it drops off for just a little while with some furious bass pounding, the track's infamous only line is uttered, and then it's a free for all, everyone playing their respective guts out. Truly amazing. And at the end, it all falls back to wherever the hell it all came from. Freaky, the whole damn thing. So what makes it so horrible you ask? Well, it's horrible because the album NEVER lives up to it. Tries though, gotta give it that.

But not for a while; ballad "A Pillow of Winds" is awful. A largely tuneless bore, the lyrics are okay, but why all that noodling? What, is this supposed to be lullaby-esuqe? It's putting me to sleep. "Fearless" is a better, if overlong, acoustic number. The tune is good, pleasant even. I like the descending riff; still wonder if those footballer noises were necessary though.

The lazy lil' "San Tropez" is actually a really fun number. Once the Floydsters crawl off their serious pedestal, the album gets a lot better! Well, a little at least. The tune itself is no great shake, but the lyrics are hilarious, the guitar solo is pretty solid, and I swear that the piano at the end is Rick's finest hour. Heh. And then there's "Seamus," obviously designed to be the set piece of the album. At less than two minutes, it's a furious example of nicely-if-not-astonishingly played, dog-based blues.

Of course, if you've got a short number, and you're listening to a prog album, odds are you've got an epic REAL close to it, and...OH! There's "Echoes!" "Echoes" is, of course, the very good, but still very overrated, epic that encompasses side two of Meddle. It's overrated because parts of it are horrible, in fact, some of the worst on the album. However, it's good because some of the best material on the album is here too (very "Supper's Ready" that).

Take the opening movement...well, actually, it's probably the second movement. This sucker supposedly contains about six million and twenty-two musical themes. I hear four or so. What? "Think Like a Brick" is WAY more complex than this thang.

Alright, alright, Floyd not Tull, sheesh...the first movement sounds like a bunch of silly twanging. However, it actually sets up a very nice, very cold, watery atmosphere (I call this movement "That Opening Part," or, "The Cold, Watery Part" on a good day). Then, when the actual SONG begins, it's really quite good ("Echoes"). I love the lyrical imagery, and I love the guitar solo that follows. One of Dave's best, actually.

But then, then it all turns into this ridiculous, crappy, funky organ solo (which I call, "Crappy, Funky Organ Solo"). What's up with that? I mean, on its own, it's not that bad, but it just lasts FOREVER! What, were they, competing with Iron Butterfly? And if you thought it couldn't get any worse, it magically transforms into this really stupid sound collage. Everyone tells me those are supposed to be whales, but it just sounds a bunch of doggies ("Dog Noises"). Sick doggies. VERY sick doggies. I guess it works from a freaky point of view, what with the screaming and the crow noises (okay, crows AND whales? Now you're [&*!#]ting ME), but why does that part have to be so long?

Luckily, the lads are clever enough to pull us out of this with some bass trickery (which is also too long, but definitely more tolerable), a movement which I have dubbed "One of These Days Part 2," because, well, it sounds like "One of These Days." Then we get back to the main theme ("Echoes Pt. 2"), and then it all fades like it started. Good one lads, way to destroy a hopefully good song, then redeem yourselves slightly at the end. That's just what you did with the whole album.

And, all in all, it should be a fairly average album. I mean, "San Tropez" and "Seamus" ARE both filler, however pleasant and amusing they may be. And, c'mon, TWO ballads? No one thinks of ballads when they think of the Floyd! And one of them sucks too...

However, the better moments of "Echoes," and definitely "One of These Days" pull it out of that; the album is hardly essential, but any fan of the Floyd NEEDS that song. Unfortunately though, I think that that's the point. Does anyone feel like the lads wanted to do "Echoes" really, REALLY badly, so they cobbled together a first side? Thank God we got the first track out of that...

And, uh, that pretty much sums up the entire album in a nutshell. Pretty much all the emotional resonance, the sparkling musicianship, and the best material is located in the first track and the first (second?) movement of "Echoes." The two filler numbers are fun, and the two ballads are unnecessary at best, boring at worst.

You know what, I'm sorry, I'm listening to the album again. "San Tropez" is clearly the best song here. Screw that dreadful "One of" thing, THIS is the finest Floyd number...okay, maybe not, but it's better than "Echoes," right?

With this album PINK FLOYD signal they are through their transitional, post-BARRETT period and have formed their own unique sound.

'Meddle' and the next album, the OST 'Obscured By Clouds' showcase this new sound: simpler, less pretentious and virtually effect-free, with very little remaining from their psychedelic era. 'Echoes' aside, their compositions are relatively short and of a standard rock structure, with verses, choruses and bridges. I ascribe this to the rise of GILMOUR's influence in the band: he gets his first meaningful vocal load on these two albums, and his guitar features far more strongly, taking over from RICK WRIGHT's keyboards as the main melodic driver.

It is important to consider this album in the context of its immediate predecessor, 'Atom Heart Mother'. That album had a side-long symphonic prog piece, with an opening theme, a funky section, a psych freakout and climactic close - as does 'Meddle'. It also had a side of more orthodox soft rock songs, as does 'Meddle'. I see 'Meddle' as an attempt to re-do 'Atom Heart Mother' without the overambitious encumbrance of the orchestra. For many people the result is an improvement: certainly the sound is more accessible and far 'rockier'. For me, however, it falls some way short of AHM's brilliance.

I will say this about the excellent 'Echoes'. From the first sonar ping, the sole remnant from an unrecorded project, the song has an energy missing from PINK FLOYD's studio work since their debut album. And in the section immediately following the second verse, they write their first really dynamic rock piece, a genuinely strong and powerful section that blazes through the speakers. The funky section is an improvement on 'Funky Dung' from AHM, but clearly derivative of it. The only negative for me is the length of the psych freak-out 'cawing birds' section of the track: half the length would have been more than enough.

I'm far from impressed by the first side of 'Meddle'. Of course, 'One of These Days' is excellent, a rock take on their psychedelic days, and a pointer to what they'd become: the combination of driving rock and special effects presages albums like 'Animals' and 'The Wall'. The rest of the album consists of gentle blues/rock, with GILMOUR at the helm. These tracks are fine on their own without being outstanding, but the genius of latter-day PINK FLOYD was to take simple song structures and invest them with meaning by the use of samples, solos and segues (the three S's of PINK FLOYD music). None of these four tracks feature the three S's (save 'Fearless' which has the Anfield faithful sending their own 'fearless' message, and the wind segue between the first two tracks).

Both GILMOUR and MASON saw this album as the emergence of the modern PINK FLOYD (Nick Mason, Inside Out), as do many of their fans. I believe their signature sound was already evidenced on 'Atom Heart Mother' - MASON'S fills, GILMOUR's guitar and so on, as well as the symphonic/space-rock song structure - but it was obscured by the choir and orchestra. This album is, in my view, AHM II, and the loss of the embellishments means, for me, this is a lesser effort. I'll happily admit that my taste is perhaps not that of the majority, for whom my ratings for this and AHM could be reversed.

For those of you who have only heard the famous FLOYD albums, you'll enjoy this one. I'd encourage you to go back one further and try 'Atom Heart Mother' as well. Just don't expect the acidic, petulant lyrics and themes of the late 70s. Instead you'll get contemplative, pastoral music with some rockier moments. And there's a beauty here sorely missing from the WATERS-dominated albums.

I like the warmth of this album. It relay should have been named "A pillow of winds", after a track. It's like a pillow, warm and cuddly. It suits me the most to listen to this album while I'm in my bed, or around it. Pyjama prog, the finest example.

Excuse me; pyjama rock. I don't consider PINK FLOYD to be a (very) prog rock band, certainly not on this album. But this is rock of high quality. And there are some other things, much more relevant then a technical quality.

The opening track is closest to prog, that's all you have to know, because you already know everything else. So I will skip it in my review, although I like it a lot and I think its historical significance should be more renowned. The Floyds are most of the time overrated, but when they are great, they don't get enough recognition.

A self-titled track (cuddly album version) is enjoyable rock tune with some guitar sliding. "Fearless" is enjoyable rock tune with some guitar sliding. Actually it's not guitar sliding, it's more like a solo on a chorus. It's a bit folksy (not to say country 'n' western) + meditative. "Saint Tropez" is enjoyable rock tune...if you consider CREAM's "Four Until Late" or "Wrapping Paper" rock songs. But it has some guitar sliding. "Seamus" is enjoyable rock tune with some guitar sliding. Honestly. Go pay attention to acoustic guitar. But who listens to guitar when the dog is singing? Forget the sentence at the beginning of the paragraph: this is the closest thing to prog on this album - if you think about a concept of music in general, and only human beings as capable of doing and appreciating art...and we have a dog here as a performer. Cool. By the way, it's not a rock tune unless you consider that form a slow rock , which is something else. The word "blues" is stolen today for something entirely else.

Side B contains a side-long "Echoes", a really enjoyable rock tune. It is not an epic (because PINK FLOYD are not prog band), it's a bunch of ordinary (yet enjoyable) rock songs glued together with some hilarious seagull calls and scary atmospheric sounds. Performed with a guitar sliding. And a sexy funky middle part. (The solo is missing, but don't blame a non-prog band for that.)

So, in general what do we have here:

1. Enjoyable rock tune with some guitar sliding. 2. Enjoyable rock tune with some guitar sliding. 3. Enjoyable rock tune with some guitar sliding. 4. Enjoyable rock tune with some guitar sliding. 5. Enjoyable rock tune with some guitar sliding. 6. Enjoyable rock tune with some guitar sliding. 7. Enjoyable rock tune with some guitar sliding.

What's wrong with this album. Is it THAT boring?!?

No. Actually it's, as you may guess it, enjoyable. As far as the eclecticism goes, we have a scary space rock as an opener, tune or two of good straightforward rock, a blues piece, a side-long suite and a jazzy one (music hall?). Quite diverse. And do not forget, all the tracks are good. Really. Some people complain about the "Seamus", I don't have a clue why, unless they're Irish.

This album contains six tracks, but I got carried away with copy and paste, the one of the most useful things of 20th century.

I would like to say a thing or two about evolving of the band, about the transition between the two periods and so forth, but why bother? It's obvious that I like this album quite a lot. Actually, it's one of my favourites from the band of which I don't have very high opinion (regardless of yes-prog non-prog nonsense).

So, if by some cosmical coincidence you are reading this and you don't own the album, get it. It's enjoyable, with some guitar sliding.

Pink Floyd's MEDDLE straggles the line between a superb album and a masterpiece. Surely side 2 of the LP covered the entire groove with the 23min31 epic entitled 'Echoes'. For the inquisitive ; I was heavily into 'The Wall' during the end of 1985 - from then on it was everything 'Floyd'. At the local Video shop was 'Live At Pompeii' for hire - me, thinking that it was Floyd performing 'The Wall' I got my Dad to hire it out. I wasn't to know that the Pompeii video was from 71/72 and not 1979/80, as was 'The Wall'. I was greeted with the most amazing music I've ever heard with 'Echoes' (Part 1, the first half) - I just didn't know what it was I was hearing....It was from this performance I knew that the Bass Guitar was the instrument for me - Roger Waters was so confident, self profound and adequate on the instrument it totally blew me away enough to go out and purchase a Bass Guitar. Nothing too complex, but so tasteful and effective it didn't really occur to me that music can be complicated and incredibly clever. Moving on, I received 'Meddle' (on Cassette) as a Birthday gift and listened to it religiously for weeks, months even.... this, after intense analysis over a period of time, became an extremely nostalgic album and something of a 'comparison' for all music I listened to thereafter. Side 1 of the record opened with the superb instrumental - 'One of these Days' - some multi-tracked Bass-guitar (complete with 'Delay' effects) kick off an incredible composition which no other band have equalled ever since. It is Drummer Nick Mason who yells out a distorted vocal line 'One Of These Days I'm Going To Cut You Into Little Pieces'. This intense track leads into a tastefully mellow song 'A Pillow Of Winds' - complete with Fretless Bass playing (Gilmour, no doubt) but so 'warm' and likeable that no-one should dislike this tune. 'Fearless' follows with a catchy riff and accessible song - difficult to put into words but it does interpolate the Rogers/Hammerstein classic 'You'll Never Walk Alone' (one for the Soccer fanatics) and then followed by the Burt Bacharach-like 'San Tropez' (as I've read somewhere) which offers some jazzy piano playing from keyboardist Richard Wright. The side is finished off with 'Seamus' - a blues tune designed to get your pet dog wailing along to - quite experimental and amusing, but not something many listeners would see the point of. 'Echoes' is a progressive-rock masterpiece if there ever was one. How to compose a catchy tune and extend it over a lengthy period of time without losing the listener's attention - this is (partially) what it's all about, and Mason/Waters/Gilmour/Wright succeed no end in doing so. I give it 4.5 stars, as they have achieved consistently stronger moments throughout their career.

Review 64, Meddle, Pink Floyd, 1971

StarStarStarStar

My first real step (aside from one early, and preferably forgotten, expedition. A rather unfortunate Teutoberg Forest-style incident) into the nebulous world of reviewing Pink Floyd comes with the album that widely seems to be regarded as the start of their classic period. While I think there was a lot of merit, certainly, in the preceding Atom Heart Mother, and there are certainly many admirers of the early psychedelic stuff (I've yet to delve into this, since Floyd is relatively expensive), the view is understandable as the product, the complete booklet, stunning cover art and musical perfectionism does really glimmer from Meddle almost as brightly as it does from the timeless Dark Side Of The Moon. Meddle is often regarded as an album with two unforgettable Floydian gems, rarely, if ever, bettered by the band, while the remnants of the first side are somehow unworthy of these two pieces. I think this view is somewhat fair, if a little exaggerated, and so am taking a slightly different approach to the review's format to try to bring a new angle in.

Echoes is, in my mind, the crowning triumph of Roger Waters as a lyricist. It holds the single finest set of lyrics I have yet heard (and I am very much into the lyrics of our nebulous genre), and so perfectly delivered by the joint Wright-Gilmour vocals. Mysterious, mood-altering and brilliantly, simply phrased, Waters transports the listener to the three-part world of his poem.

The first verse locates the listener in the submarine world, using locative words and atmospheric word choices to ensnare them at the ocean floor, looking up (hence the initial 'overhead'), feeling like a speck in this temporal ocean (everything is green and submarine, and the singularity of the (motivating?) echo and the (inspiring?) albatross compared to the plural and inanimate sand, caves, labyrinths, waves and air). The verse extension introduces the song's theme with the existentialist idea of no-one, no god, no inherent gene pool, guiding our development and understanding how the world works, and yet some thought, some ambitious urge, within us developing (note the sea-land development here. As in the first creatures coming from the sea) and aspiring. Beginning to make the journey towards a greater goal, although it's unsure of exactly what that goal is.

The second takes the idea onto land and into human form, with a chance, uncertain (Do I?, which could also be a nuptial reference) encounter between two strangers, one being the narrator, the other 'you'. Both of these people are in essence the same, but divided by circumstances. The narrator shows an awareness of the meaning, of the understanding, in cooperation, in helping others, and, indeed, in love. Again, the 'no-one', the creator-shaped gap in this reality, encourages or bars us, but this time no-one cooperates or aspires, and no progress is made. The reality of the ultimate, uncaring capitalist ethic is implied as simply mediocrity embodied.

The final, magnificent verse raises the above ideas to their peak, softly, powerfully, the 'you' of the previous verse, whether the sun, or a person, encourages and offers motivation to move on, to grow, to try, and this cooperation (ambassadors) and motivation (sunlight) and open-ness ('through the window in the wall' - a link, a receptiveness to the outside) cause development. And finally, the protagonist in turn calls out and inspires his own muse, throwing the windows wide, and he can do this because there is nothing, no apparent god, no gene pool making him avoid this. The message, then, is to grow and cooperate, that working together with other people will advance you, while selfishness won't have any effect, and this is the single most inspiring piece of socialist/pro-cooperation writing I have ever read. This is my humble view on the subject, and I'm sure there are other interpretations out there. I leave this section with the final verse extension:

And no-one sings me lullabies And no-one makes me close my eyes And so I throw the windows wide And call to you across the sky

The music can only introduce itself, it is majestic, slowly developing, climaxing magnificently and beautifully, inspiring and yet at times lowkey and never remotely pompous. Perhaps the organ solo winds on too long, perhaps the desolate guitar screeching in the middle is too dissonant for the mood, perhaps the actual piece is quite simple and extended without rapid changes in style. However, I do not mind, because the overall atmosphere, delivery and lyrical content is so incredibly overwhelming that I leave the semblance of a fair critic behind from the first notes.

Now, back to the first side: One Of These Days opens the album superlatively, with an immersive windy feel and kicking bass, as Wright adds all sort of brilliant keyboard textures, sharing some of the ideas with Mason's cymbals. Mason too contributes brilliantly with both thudding drums and very subtle percussion. At about the two minute mark, the piece really takes off with Gilmour's gritty guitar wails, a tense section vaguely resembling the Doctor Who theme with very dark ideas and a spoken, thoroughly distorted vocal ('One Of These Days, I'm going to cut you into little pieces) initiates the full-blown chaos of the following section, with everyone simply playing. The Floyd rhythm section simply rocks, while Gilmour and Wright add loads of stunning ideas over the top. Superb, but also irritatingly indescribable. Another wind effect closes the piece off.

A Pillow Of Winds, a rather sweet, relaxing acoustic-dominated ballad with so many stretchy edges (acoustics, subdued electric, bass throbs, keyboard swirls) and a gentle vocal. Intense layering and deep choices feature throughout, and the end result is an odd mixture of haunting textures and relaxing ones, and uplifting choices. Damned weird, but very interesting, and with a good set of matching lyrics.

Fearless, sadly, had amazing potential. If it didn't, I could forgive the ending, which single-handedly kills any risk of the album hitting the fifth star. A great set of lyrics, a good acoustic melody with jaunty rises and accompanying excellent vocals and a tasteful rhythm section, as well as a brilliant break including an acoustic/bass all suggest that the song would be great. It nearly was. Unfortunately, someone in the band decided that it would be a good idea to stick in the most obnoxious football chant possible as an irritating end that breaks all real immersion by what is, presumably an attempt to give it relevance. Urkh!

San Tropez very much suggests a Simon And Garfunkel influence, with a bouncy set of lyrics and music, although both are absolutely top notch. A cheerful bass thing holds up the piece, while Wright's piano substantiates and emphasises, and Gilmour takes a quality solo. Utterly cheerful, and not at all filler.

Seamus is simply brilliant blues, with dog howling and a bit of harmonica incorporating itself into the band's general fun on piano, guitars and bass. I can't see what's so despicable about it. Very soulful.

So, do I give this the five stars of a flawed masterpiece, or the four of something that didn't quite make it? I'm torn, admittedly, but the following Dark Side Of The Moon and Wish You Were Here albums, though not losing any of the warmth of this slightly weaker effort, do have a complete perfectionism and stunning polish that establishes their brilliance. Meddle doesn't, however excellent it is, reach the same artistic height consistently, and so merits 'only' four stars. Nonetheless, an absolutely essential album for any Floyd fans, and even those who aren't the band's greatest devotees. Brilliant stuff, and deserving to be seen as an excellent album in its own right rather than a mere prototype of Dark Side Of The Moon.

This is when things started to change.

I don't consider "Meddle" a masterpiece in the same level as the four releases that succeeded it. I think that the album is still uneven, with a few weak moments. But there's no doubt that it's the point when PINK FLOYD turned from a very interesting band to one of the best of all time.

The main reason for my saying that is this record's last track, the fantastic "Echoes". This is the first taste that we would have of the band that gave us "Shine on you Crazy Diamond". David Gilmour's trademark, narcotic, celestial guitar melodies and solos make their first true appearance proper. This long epic also announces the arrival of a force never before heard in music. Atmospherics and notes flowing in the space were the new focal point, not kinetic energy. All the magic that was to come in the next albums was already here.

But this time around, the rest of the album has also several brilliant moments. The opener, "One of these days", is just a majestic crescendo piece with a constant idea being developed dynamically from a starting point in the deep corners of our minds to a sudden explosion driven by psychedelic rock. Like most of the previous album, "Atom Heart Mother", this track is vocal-less, purely instrumental. And we really wouldn't have it otherwise. "A Pillow of Winds" is ethereal, pastoral, with Waters-Gilmour's glorious hallucination-inducing voices striking with delicacy over soft sounds coming from above the clouds. "Fearless" is a more straightforward rock piece, with an interesting riff and with some bluesy- overtones. It's a very soothing song, very pleasant.

"San Tropez" is, in my view, the weakest link in the "Meddle" chain. It sounds a little like THE BEATLES, a little like THE DOORS, psychedelic but rather irrelevant. "Seamus" is another low point in the album, a boring guitar-and-vocals dirty little song that thankfully lasts only a couple of minutes. After this, the sonic world of "Echoes" is unleashed upon us, and we can be certain that the Monster has been created. Many have tried to sound like them, most every band sounds "floydian", but there's only one PINK FLOYD, and here it appears in all its glory.

If only for the superb "Echoes" and the fantastic "One of these days", this album deserves recognition as one of PINK FLOYD's best. A few weak tracks stop it from getting 5 stars from me. Nothing would stop the next four glorious albums. And in "Meddle" we get an excellent sneak preview of those.

Interesting opposition of Atom Heart Mother! The structure of the album is almost the same, but there is one big difference. The epic composition of the album - Echoes - is situated at the end of the album, instead of eponymous Atom Heart Mother situated at the beginning of its album. The other difference is about the quality of the music. It's definitely in favour of Atom Heart Mother - indisputable 5 stars masterpiece, while I'm still wondering what will be my mark about Meddle. The epic compositions are both charming, but the difference came from the other songs. All songs on Atom Heart Mother contain the power in its full phase, while Meddle's middle songs give way to the middle songs of AHM. The comparison between One of These Days and Alan's psychedelic breakfast is another equal giants' one. So, we have four Meddle's middle song, two of them melancholic works, a jazzy one and a bluesy one, but they don't meet the requirements for 5 stars. 4 and a quarter stars for me!!!

Meddle is one of the better Pink Floyd albums in my opinion. The psychedelic style and sound was still very much present on the previous Atom Heart Mother album, but with Meddle they moved away from psychadelia for the first time (only to revert to it on the next album Obscured By Clouds).

The album begins with One Of These Days, a rather hard rocking instrumental. Well, there is actually one vocal line in it that I think is out of place and adds nothing of value. This song is not progressive in my opinion since it is based on one single riff that moves through the whole song. As you probably guessed already, I'm not too impressed with this one.

A Pillow Of Winds is a very nice, folky acoustic song that I find quite enjoyable. However, this is hardly the stuff that will blow the Prog fan away. Fearless has a typical Pink Floyd melody, but untypical of them is that it is acoustically based. San Tropez is a more fun, jazzy song. This song also is acoustically based with acoustic guitars and very jazz grand piano parts. I judge this as a throwaway song, but it doesn't distract from the overall cohesion of the album. Seamus is a pure blues number, also acoustically based. It is an instrumental apart from the addition of a "singing" dog! This addition is the only thing that makes this one stand out.

Echoes is in many ways a very typical 70's Pink Floyd song and clearly a predecessor to Shine On You Crazy Diamond. Echoes takes up the whole second side of the album and I think it is quite a bit too long for its own good. There is a too long experimental part in the middle that just goes nowhere. Still, it is one of the better long Pink Floyd songs of all time.

The strong acoustic leaning they adopted for this album is what makes it stand out from most other Pink Floyd albums in my opinion. However, apart from Echoes the song structures of these songs are conventional. The influences are more varied than usual with Pink Floyd; folk, jazz, blues, but they seem not to be able to fuse these influences together. Therefore the music here is not particularly progressive. Thankfully is it also not very psychedelic, making this album stand out from all previous ones and some latter ones.

Meddle was clearly the best Pink Floyd album since the debut and a large step forward for a band that seemingly lost their direction after Syd Barret left (or became insane or whatever). Dark Side Of The Moon would become their commercial breakthrough but Meddle is more interesting musically. It is, however, very far from being a masterpiece of progressive music.

Good, but hardly essential unless you are a Pink Floyd fan (which I am not very much).

While not nearly my favorite Pink Floyd album, Meddle has over time become one of those strange albums I find myself gravitating toward with more (no pun intended at all) frequency. It is an album for both lovers of jazz and psychedelic music.

"One of These Days" The album begins with a pillow of winds, as it were, and Waters's echoing bass (perhaps hinting at the final track). The composition is repetitive, but uses that repetition to build by bringing in the various instruments, but it is without a doubt the wild bass guitar that stands out. Gilmour's slide guitar plays a more prominent role toward the end, but one may still be tempted to focus on the bass (and Wright's punctuating keys). The music ends with the sound of wind leading into the next track.

"A Pillow of Winds" This lovely track looks far into the future, seeing a time when Gilmour would make an album centering around this pleasant sound, which would be called, On an Island. If one is a fan of said album, one should not be disappointed by this satisfying acoustic guitar-based song, which also features slide guitar.

"Fearless" "Fearless" is one of those tracks that I always seem to forget about when I put on its album until it begins, and then I am filled with both delight and pity- delight because I have rediscovered something a song I enjoy, and pity because I find it impossible to refer to it as a memorable track. That said, I really enjoy the layers of guitars, the happy riff, and Gilmour's singing. The singing of "You'll Never Walk Alone" by the Liverpool Football Club is a nice touch.

"San Tropez" This Waters-penned piece reminds me quite a bit of Burt Bacharach, with it's easygoing but upbeat jazziness. Gilmour has a slide guitar solo, while Wright gets an opportunity to delight listeners with some jazzy piano at the end.

"Seamus" This is a short, acoustic blues song featuring the ever-annoying wailing of a Borzoi.

"Echoes" A piano through a Leslie rotary speaker begins this epic Pink Floyd song. Gilmour's guitar is subtle, although less so than the rest of the instrumentation until the drums come in. Three minutes in, the hypnotically beautiful vocals enter, full of mesmerizing lyrics. The guitar riff after the verses is intriguing, fitting the enigmatic nature of the song. Following several minutes of guitar soloing, a funkier, bass-driven ride gives Gilmour more freedom to run about on his guitar. Things take a turn for the strange, though, as the funky groove gives way to out-of-this-world psychedelic noises, all of which are the result of heavy experimentation or sheer accident. Waters used a steel slide on his bass and fed the signal through a Binson Echorec. The ear-piercing screams occurred because Gilmour accidentally had his cables switched around on his wah pedal. Wright contributed to the sonic experimentation by pulling certain drawbars on his Hammond organ. When the music becomes coherent again, reviving the Leslie-induced piano, Gilmour palm mutes rapid notes on his guitar while playing a lovely melody, and the sound builds with Mason's steady cymbal work. The music climaxes in this part to some creative guitar work, but unexpectedly brings the verse section back around. One of the greatest audio illusions ever, a Shepard tone, concludes the piece.

Meddle is the sixth full-length studio album by UK progressive rock act Pink Floyd. Pink Floyd´s transition from a psychadelic rock act to one of the most influential progressive rock acts began with the previous album Atom Heart Mother (1970) and while there are still psychadelic rock elements on Meddle, the transition is almost complete with this album. I had a long streak getting into Pink Floyd when I first got acquainted with their music in secondary school. I had a couple of friends who were very much into psychadelic sixties and seventies rock and even at a very young age they had collected houndreds of albums ( especially LPs) with obscure and less obscure psychadelic rock acts. Pink Floyd were of course one of the bands that they both adored. They introduced me to Dark Side Of The Moon (1973), The Wall (1979), Wish You Were Here (1975) and even The Piper At The Gates Of Dawn (1967). But it was not until I heard the song Echoes, which I later learned came from the album Meddle, that I was truly captured by Pink Floyd´s unique sound. So my appreciation for Pink Floyd started with Meddle and as a consequence I have a very special place for this album in my collection. As with most albums I feel are something unique and special from that time I own both the LP and the CD version of Meddle. Other than the audio quality which always differs slightly between LP and CD versions there are no differences between the two. No special CD editions with bonus tracks have yet been released of Meddle.

The album features six songs. Side 1 of the original LP release contains five shorter songs while Side 2 of the original LP release holds the 23:27 minute long Echoes. While the biggest attraction on Meddle for me is undoubtedly Echoes, the five shorter songs on Side 1 are almost equally as intriguing and beautiful.

The album starts with the excellent, dark and powerful instrumental One of These Days ( well... almost instrumental) which in addition to Echoes, is probably my favorite here. The soft, mellow and acoustic A Pillow of Winds is a great contrast to the harder edged One of These Days. It´s the kind of song that soothes my ears every time I listen to it. Simply beautiful. Fearless is a great song too with lots of sliding acoustic guitars and soft vocals. It´s not a soft song like A Pillow of Winds but it still has that relaxed and mellow feeling that Pink Floyd are so succesful in creating. Fearless ends with a field recording of the Liverpool F.C. Kop choir singing You'll Never Walk Alone, their anthem. I love it. Being a passionate football fan myself I understand the strong feeling of unity when singing your club anthem ( I guess it´s a bit like singing the Lords praise in church for Christians). The two last songs on Side 1 of the original LP are often scolded and called weak but I greatly enjoy the variation they bring to the album. The lounge jazzy San Tropez with its relaxed atmosphere and the bluesy acoustic Seamus with the barking dog sounds in the background might not be the strongest tracks on Meddle but both are a part of the great whole and without them the album just wouldn´t be what it is for me. So shoot me! I enjoy those songs.

Echoes fills the whole of Side 2 of the original LP and what a side long track that is. From the opening echo pings created by Richard Wright to the fantastic guitar solo by David Gilmour to the brilliantly arranged vocal section to David Gilmour imitating whale sounds this is simply a fantastic composition. A true masterpiece of progressive rock.

The production is warm and pleasant. Very well sounding and organic.

Meddle is an outstanding album by Pink Floyd which has remained a favorite of mine since I listened to it for the first time about 20 years ago. It´s the kind of album that even though it explores and experiments with various musical territories comes off incredibly consistent. These six songs weren´t put together at random. There´s a feeling of purpose behind the decision to place the songs as they are on the album. A consideration of the whole which is something I greatly appreciate. This is truly a masterpiece of progressive rock and if an album ever deserved a 5 star rating it would be Meddle.

A hit and miss album

I always seen "Meddle" as a transitional album, PINK FLOYD had already abandoned the most radical ideas of Syd Barrett and the four guys were giving their first steps towards the classic sound of "Dark Side of the Moon", "Wish You Were Here" and "Animals", but still they carried in their backs a strong Psychedelic inheritance that they would never leave totally behind.

This makes of "Meddle" a very eclectic album not fully Prog, Psyche or Rock, but with elements of the three genres blended with taste by Waters and Gilmour working as friends and peers. I don't believe it's as outstanding as most of the people believes, but already a very good album that leads from the trippy Psyche years to the mature Prog era.

"One of this days" opens the album in a superb way, after some wind noises, Roger Waters bass announces a frenetic song while blending, the excellent organ performance by Rick Wright. After some seconds with the bass hammering on our brains and a powerful drumming by Nick Mason, is David Gilmour who takes the lead with his distorted guitar, and then...the sonic explosion, the band hits us with everything they got,playing some sort of Psychedelia and early Space Rock, one of the best tracks by PINK FLOYD, and the highest point of the album in my opinion.

"A Pillow of Winds" marks a radical change, soft mellow and atmospheric but I believe too repetitive and gets a bit boring by the end; unlike the Beatlesque "Fearless", in which the powerful guitar work by David Gilmour is simply spectacular, and at the end the chants of the Liverpool fans (You'll Never Walk Alone) that blend perfectly with the music of Pink Floyd, another good moment.

But "Meddle" has also some weak moments and "San Tropez" is the weakest of all, the band takes the influence of the Beatles and creates a lame track with absolutely no interest, if the opener was average, "San Tropez" is one of the worst tracks of PINK FLOYD.

"Seamus" is a good chance to press the skip button, I believe they required a couple minutes to complete the album and added a rejected track they had in their portfolio, but at least we know that after this comes "Echoes"

After a weird intro, "Echoes" leads us in Psychedelic territory, the music is dreamy, trippy or oneiric, (choose the word you want) but the sound is typical of the late 60's, less aggressive than early PINK FLOYD but with the same spirit, only that more delicate and elaborate, simply delightful.

But this is a 23:30 minutes epic and the journey is only starting, the characteristic voice of David Gilmour and the nice work by all the band (specially by the bass and keyboards) demonstrates us this band is in the road towards huge achievements. The song goes in crescendo and the instruments keep joining and making it more complex, the tortured guitar of David Gilmour takes us through the eras of PINK FLOYD, from their early acid years, to the classic era, all in a lapse of minutes.

The interplay between Wright and Mason is elaborate and the arrangements are spectacular, each section leads us to the next with perfect coherence and extreme beauty, from the soft and calmed introductory vocals top the wild instrumental in the end, a great song.

People say that everything is well if it ends well, and "Meddle" can't end better, but the fact is that the album is uneven, I admit that "One of this Days" and "Echoes" are outstanding, that "A Pillow of Winds" and "Fearless" are good very good, but the "San Tropez" and "Seamus" are way bellow PINK FLOYD'S average and don't allow me to rate the album with more than 3 stars, that should be 3.5 if our system wasn't so rigid.

Good but non-essential.

Every album that Pink Floyd made before Meddle supplied ample proof of their genius. But never had they succeeded in creating a fully focused masterpiece, that's what too much hallucinating drugs to you. On Meddle they really got their act together. With Echoes they even created one of the most compelling masterpieces of rock music.

Not everything here is as astonishing as Echoes of course. But still it makes up a consistent album that goes through many different styles. One of These Days does not need an introduction here; it's an archetypical space-rock drone and one of the best ever. A Pillow of Winds is a beautiful melancholic piece from Gilmour, very subtle and understated. His gentle picking around minute 2.00 has served as a blueprint for many future generations: Porcupine Tree, Anathema, Tiamat, Radiohead and so many more have found their inspiration in this soft and textured approach.

Next on is a batch of 3 songs that are often disregarded. I think that Fearless is a very nice blues number though, it evolves into some kind a soccer anthem. It's a style they would revisit on The Wall. San Tropez is slightly out of place. Roger Waters does something in the psychedelic rock style of 4-5 years earlier. It's not bad but it would have fitted better on a Syd Barrett album. Seamus is a real fun blues though. Anyone who has seen the Pompeii video knows how they recorded that howling dog. It's a nice lighter touch that makes the majestic beauty of Echoes all the more overwhelming.

I think that this album contains the best music that Pink Floyd ever committed to tape. The five stars are entirely deserved by the strength of Echoes alone, but also the other tracks contain plenty of grace.