PINK FLOYD

I like the fact that it's not just a list of hits, but rather a commitment to dig deeper in places (of course, Dark Side) and deliver the true spirit of the music. Guy Pratt does fine covering bass and occasional vocals, and Dick Parry still "has it". Nick and Rick are dependable as always, although very workmanlike.

However, what this really feels like to me is a big send-off for Dave, as if he had decided long before that this would be the last big stadium tour, and that he was going to do it on his terms: big, ambitious and visually gratifying, but somehow intimate and endearing at the same time. I think that has a lot to do with Dave as the leader: he smiles, he directs, and when appropriate, he just lets it rip. And I think after this he looked back upon his effort and felt pride and relief, and walked away from this kind of production for life. That's what I call grace and class, and Dave has always represented that for me.

Of course, the main show is great, but the best is saved for last, as the three encore songs are just fantastic. Special mention must be made for Comfortably Numb, as the visuals are simply extraordinary: during Dave's solo, the strobe-lined screen is lowered over Dave, and then the enormous disco ball above the crowd opens, creating perhaps one of my favorite live moments in rock. Fantastic stuff.

All in all, a wonderful show, and an equally satisfying DVD, with real extras (i.e., not simply a couple of last-minute throw-ins). A must-have for Floydians, and worthwhile for anyone who likes Floyd or enjoys rock shows with incredible visuals.

Unfortunately, probably not as much of a compliment as it may seem, because some of these kinds of projects are downright cringe-inducing. However, The Wall can be very interesting if you're in the right mood (preferably depraved and demented for biggest effect). I suppose I would put this on the same level as Quadrophenia in terms of watchability.

I will always have strong memories of this movie, because as a very young Floyd fan, I just had to have everything Floyd, and particularly everything The Wall at the time. That led to watching this movie with parents and other impressionable friends, uniquely susceptible to all the visual delights, including maggots on rotting flesh, a defecating judge, cartoon flower sex, and, perhaps most importantly, boobies.

Fast forward 20 years, and the story seems more heavy-handed, unrelatable, and less cohesive, at least for me. Perhaps The Wall is simply the most powerful for those early in either their journey in prog, their journey in life, or both. For example, at every Floyd tribute show I attend, there is always a contingent of people doing the arms-crossed-above-the-head motion during Wall songs, and let's just say 99% of them are males in the late adolescent years. In that regard, Roger has created a nice little self-fulfilling prophesy for himself, as he has created in real life one of the situations that he tried to denounce in writing The Wall: young, impressionable men following the wrong role models and willfully doing as they are told without question.

Of course, I don't feel bad for him, because these are the same people buying up the majority of tacky Wall-themed t-shirts out there.

I think Geldof does a fantastic job in his role, however, and as he is often the only familiar character in a given scene, it's hard to take your eyes off of him throughout. Of course, as the movie plays, I can't help but thinking: "Jeez, this character is messed up...was Roger this messed up in real life?"

Overall, a very fun movie, and it always offers some food for thought, but without as much cleverness or power as intended.

Even as a dense 10-year old, I could get the attempt at humor in the title. In other words, if even I got the attempt at a joke, then it was way too obvious, and by extension not nearly as clever as whoever came up with it thought it was.

And then we have the songs. If simply unedited, this would simply be a subpar compilation. But with some of these edits, things take a turn for the very worst. For example, chopping up Shine On like that should be an arrestable offense. This bothers me even more than those terrible edits of Who songs for the rotten CSI TV shows, which is on the same irritation level for me as jock itch and mosquito bites.

On the plus side? Hmmm...well...I suppose the album art is unobjectionable. In fact, it's downright minimally acceptable. At least something about this project is.

This is not even for completionists. This would be only for those who would in all seriousness ask "Which one is Pink?"

The added advantage is that this really gives you much of the best (not all, as Astronomy Domini and other notables are excluded, for example) of what spans a lot of albums (and, to be honest, an excruciating amount of poor to average music...that is, unless you are really into unstructured psychadelia and simplistic singles). For example, with Relics, you have The Nile Song and Cirrus Minor from More. I recommend that you needn't listen to anything else off of that album, it's so poor in places. Thus, Relics becomes a very convenient, and affordable, workaround. It also achieves the purpose of teasing a bit, by only giving a taste for those crave more (and thus go out and buy the albums).

As a side note, I owned the cassette version, which had the same cover as the American LP, with the big-lipped, double-eyed bottle opener head. That cover would seriously freak me out...it would give me nightmares. I would avoid the drawer where I kept this tape just to not see that awful head staring back at me. Perhaps others had a similar reaction, thus hampering US sales. The CD cover, on the other hand, which consists of a fairly neutral Nick Mason-designed gizmo, is much less disturbing.

Overall, Relics can be a worthwhile toe-in-the-pool test of early Floyd, which may be helpful in deciding whether to take the chilly and sometimes unpleasant dive into their early discography.

Works was one of those that I actually did enjoy, partly because it gave me hints of the early Floyd sound without me actually having to listen to the albums (and I still can't really get into most early Floyd). But upon later historical perspective, I realized how ridiculous this album was for 1983. As noted by others, what's the overarching theme? What's the hook? Maybe it's just "early Pink Floyd", but that's what makes the inclusion of Brain Damage/Eclipse (just different enough with the alternate mix) all the more puzzling/irritating.

Every Floyd fan should have Arnold Layne and See Emily Play, so if Works is how you obtain them, then it's worth picking up. Also, my two cents is that I am just not a big fan of either Ummagumma or Saucerful of Secrets, so having Set the Controls and Species is enough for me, although I know some early Floyd devotees may be wincing with this admission.

The rest of the songs are from albums that we all need to possess, and so Works is likely to add little value to most of our collections in that regard. Based on that, I think I'll give Works the "only for completionists" label.

Since P-U-L-S-E was partially intended as a promotional album for the band's release of the new material, there are quite a few tracks from Division Bell and A Momentary Lapse Of Reason featured on the set-list. This is something that I, even to this day, tend to skip through just to get to the good stuff from the classic era Pink Floyd. Most of the new tunes come off sounding much more dated and there are also times when the band seems almost like a bunch of old-timers being sentimental about their past. High Hopes is a prime example of this very sad experience where the song's lyrics actually get a whole new meaning it the context of the performance.

The biggest highlight of this live release has to be its second act that gives us a complete version of Dark Side Of The Moon and this is definitely where the band looses their sad-face act and start sounding like the professionals that they really are! Classics like Breathe, Us And Them and the album's outro are just as intense as their original studio counterparts. Downsides comes with the much more extravagant sounding version of The Great Gig In The Sky which, I guess, was meant as a show-stopper that didn't work too well in the context of the live performance. I'm also not too keen on the over the top performance of Money with a sax solo that doesn't sound as pleasant as it was originally intended to be.

The combination of classic material like Astronomy Domine and the LP/Video-only version of One Of These Days with the later tracks from The Wall make this live album a nice little retrospective of the band known as Pink Floyd. There are a few lesser moments that make most of their appearances during the first half of the show but overall P-U-L-S-E is a good, but non-essential album that gets more recognition with each passing year.

***** star songs: Breathe (2:33) Us And Them (6:57) Brain Damage (3:45) Eclipse (2:37) Wish You Were Here (6:35) Comfortably Numb (9:29)

**** star songs: Shine On You Crazy Diamond (13:35) Astronomy Domine (4:20) Keep Talking (6:52) A Great Day For Freedom (4:30) Another Brick In The Wall (7:07) Speak To Me (2:30) On The Run (3:47) Time (6:46) Money (8:54) Any Colour You Like (3:21) Run Like Hell (8:36)

*** star songs: What Do You Want From Me (4:09) Learning To Fly (5:15) Coming Back To Life (6:56) Hey You (4:39) Sorrow (10:49) High Hopes (7:52) The Great Gig In The Sky (5:52)

Whenever I want to explain what Pink Floyd was all about the four albums from the classic-era tend to be brought up. I also like to spice things up with a few hidden gems like A Saucerful Of Secrets, the underrated Meddle and, my personal favorite, The Final Cut. There has never been a moment when I started playing A Momentary Lapse Of Reason or Division Bell just to show one or two great gems that the band still were capable of towards the end of their career. Why is it so exactly? When listening to these albums I do experience those same rich landscapes with excellent playing from both Gilmour and Wright, but something is always missing in that experience. It was only recently that I realized that these two final Pink Floyd albums were completely hollow experiences that offered nothing that we, the fans, haven't heard done better before.

I'm sure that my discovery isn't all that controversial and most of the fans who listen to these final albums can agree that they aren't listening to them in order hear anything new from the band, but that's also when the music stops being progressive and just turns stale. Let's be open minded about this issue and accept thing the way they are. I agree that The Final Cut was more or less a Roger Waters solo album than a Pink Floyd such, but what followed after that should, just as much, be considered as David Gilmour solo albums. Just listen to On An Island and you'll see exactly what I mean.

The late great Richard Wright had only that much time in the spotlight on Division Bell while Nick Mason's contribution hadn't had a spark to it since Meddle. I hope that most of you agree that A Momentary Lapse Of Reason was a disaster and although Division Bell was a definitive step up from that flop the album lacks anything that would make me want to revisit it for any particular reason. I'm certain that this album plays on the nostalgia that most people associate with Pink Floyd's heydays. It would never have been half as popular if it was merely labeled as a David Gilmour album and I am don't understand why so many people have trouble acknowledging this.

There's no real point of discussing the individual moments of Division Bell because it will only end with me rambling about all of its flaws. Let me just acknowledge that this record would have never got this much attention have it been released by any lesser know artist and you're actually loosing an opportunity to discover new exciting music by listening to it! This is a definite collectors/fans only album since the fans have already spoken on this issue, but if you're new to Pink Floyd then I simply say-- Don't bother!

**** star songs: What Do You Want From Me (4:21) Marooned (5:28) Wearing The Inside Out (6:48) Keep Talking (6:11) High Hopes (8:31)

*** star songs: Cluster One (5:58) Poles Apart (7:04) A Great Day For Freedom (4:18) Take It Back (6:12) Coming Back To Life (6:19) Lost For Words (5:14)

After a complete turmoil where Richard Wright finally called it a day, Roger Waters was now in complete control over every aspect of Pink Floyd's work. With David Gilmour and Nick Mason functioning almost like session musicians, the idea for the next concept album began to take shape in Waters' mind and grew into the nightmarish voyage that is The Final Cut. Logically there's just no way this project could have been merely as good as The Wall or anything that came before it. After all, this album was originally based on the left-over material from The Wall-sessions. But even if everything spoke against anything worth a while coming out of Roger Waters' ego project, the final product was a surprisingly effective little rock opera!

Based around the concept of anti-war, Waters' lyrical content explored what he considered to be a betrayal of British government towards its own servicemen. Of course it's easy to dismiss the story as just another one of those "Waters having daddy issues"-kind of concept albums, but then you're definitely missing the bigger picture here. World War II is only functioning as a premise to the story that's suppose to promote an idea of a post-war dream that felt like something important to fight for. The post-war dream implies that victory would create a more peaceful society for everyone and no longer would there be a reason to resort to war, wherever a dispute occurs. Let's get together, win this war, and make sure that future generations will remember that war is never a solution.

Many people never cared to understand the underlying themes of this album and instead plainly assumed that it was just a continuation of the previous release, due to rather obvious similarities to The Wall. One of David Gilmour's main complaints about the album's content was the inclusion of the previously rejected material from The Wall sessions. He was even quoted saying--"If these songs weren't good enough for The Wall, why are they good enough now?". To me, that's certainly not the issue mainly because these tracks merely didn't work as a part of that story arc. When the material was rearranged and put in it current order then new concept created a completely different story progression.

Everything from the packaging design to the, for once, very passionate sounding vocals by Roger Waters made me fall in love with The Final Cut even since I heard it for the first time almost a decade ago. The music itself might not seem that varied, with only a few sections featuring a tenor sax or a guitar solo, but it fits the concept like a glove without ever making it all feel over the top or pretension. It's a dark little tale that doesn't give the listener a moment of rejoice and it seems to be asking a lot of an average-Pink Floyd fan since not many have managed to embrace the sheer power behind this album.

Musically this whole release is masterful from the beginning and right to the very end, with a minor exception of the completely uninspired rocker called Not Now John. This track just doesn't work well in contrast to the rest of the album and I generally prefer to skip it by going from the album's title track and right to the mighty Two Suns In The Sunset. If you though that the ending of The Wall seemed very dark, then The Final Cut will literally make you want to weep for the stupidity of the human race. That's something only a masterpiece of music should be capable of doing.

Am I weird for enjoying The Final Cut more than The Wall or do I deserve a more severe punishment for considering it to be the best Pink Floyd album of all time? Please remember that this opinion comes straight from the heart of a very passionate prog rock fanatic. Hopefully my review will make more people interested in visiting/revisiting this essential piece of progressive rock music. I wouldn't want it any other way.

***** star songs: The Post War Dream (3:00) The Hero's Return (2:58) The Gunners Dream (5:04) Get Your Filthy Hands Off My Desert (1:19) The Fletcher Memorial Home (4:10) The Final Cut (4:53) Two Suns In The Sunset (5:17)

**** star songs: Your Possible Pasts (4:21) One Of The Few (1:26) Paranoid Eyes (3:49) Southampton Dock (2:05)

*** star songs: Not Now John (5:03)

The style of this album is quite different compared to anything the band had done previously and it can be explained by the fact that The Wall wasn't much of a band effort. By this time, Roger Waters was in complete control of the band's direction which not only limited David Gilmour's and Nick Mason's contributions to a minimum, but also pushed Richard Wright completely out of the picture. This means no lengthy Space Rock passages like the ones on Echoes or Shine On You Crazy Diamond nor the instrumental perfection of Dark Side Of The Moon or Animals. One can attribute some of this change of style to the passing of a decade, considering the '80s were right around the corner, but the rest has definitely to do with Waters' steady grip on the direction.

Either way, The Wall is one excellent album experience that I can definitely recommend independent of whether you're actually a fan of progressive rock music or not. Does that mean that The Wall isn't really prog? I would be lying if I said that it had even the minimum Space Rock requirements to be a part of the movement. Fortunately, what it lacks in the arrangement it makes more than enough for in the concept department. After all, it's difficult to fuse great individual moments without loosing track of the full narrative and even classics like Genesis' The Lamb Lies Down On Broadway or Marillion's Misplaced Childhood had to sacrifice a few instrumental passages to create a fluid narrative in those story arcs.

There's just no denying that The Wall is a great concept piece of work that can be embraced just as much by the mainstream crowd as the most hard-core prog rock fans. It was probably not really the Pink Floyd album fans expected at the time of its release but hopefully even time had proved them wrong. As for me, this record will always have a place on my shelf. I might not play it as much as I used to, but that doesn't mean I love it any less.

Mr. Waters, I'll be seeing you at the performance!

***** star songs: In The Flesh? (3:17) The Thin Ice (2:28) Another Brick In The Wall, Pt. 1 (3:41) The Happiest Days Of Our Lives (1:20) Hey You (4:39) Is There Anybody Out There? (2:40) Nobody Home (3:25) Comfortably Numb (6:49) Outside The Wall (1:42)

**** star songs: Another Brick In The Wall, Pt. 2 (3:56) Mother (5:32) Goodbye Blue Sky (2:48) Empty Spaces (5:36) Young Lust (2:03) One Of My Turns (1:33) Don't Leave Me Now (4:22) Another Brick In The Wall, Pt. 3 (1:17) Goodbye Cruel World (1:05) Vera (1:38) Bring The Boys Back Home (0:50) The Show Must Go On (1:36) In The Flesh (4:16) Run Like Hell (4:22) Waiting For The Worms (3:56) Stop (0:34) The Trial (5:16)