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Pink Floyd - A Momentary Lapse of Reason CD (album) cover

A MOMENTARY LAPSE OF REASON

Pink Floyd

 

Psychedelic/Space Rock

3.06 | 1928 ratings

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Glubluk
5 stars So, the time has come to review the album on which one of the key members of Pink Floyd lost his grip and recorded an awful 80's pop album that only proved that of the two pillars of the band, he is the one lacking good musical ideas.

Oh, no, wait! This is not a "Radio KAOS" review!

I have always liked "A Momentary Lapse of Reason". Aside from the 80's production values and the number of guest musicians, I can't find anything to criticize here, really. Most of the songs are very good to great, all of them being distinctive and memorable. "Learning to Fly" and "One Slip" are the kind of pop song that would give pop a good name, if it was more common. "Yet Another Movie" and "Sorrow" are gloomy in a strangely detached way that I find very rewarding. "Signs of Life" is an effective opener that lets the listener know immediately whose album they are listening to. "Terminal Frost" might be too 80's production-wise, but still it's a very good instrumental. Even the worse tracks have their merits: the overblown "On the Turning Away" has a wonderful solo and I have even come to like "Dogs of War" a bit for what it is, a pastiche rooted in 80's themes and fobias. Oh, and I never count an abundance of good songs as a negative. Whether it's more 'prog' or 'pop' is a point that I find purely academic.

Production-wise the album isn't as 80's as you might expect. Or, most albums released around 1987 dated more badly ("Radio KAOS" being a prime example). As for the guests, as much as I like Water's bass work, can you truly count it as a drawback that an album has TONY LEVIN as the replacement? Ok, the idea of a Pink Floyd album on which only Gilmour plays a significant role is not among my favourite, but what counted is the effect, and I can't say that this album sounds less Pink Floyd than "The Final Cut". To put it differently, I doubt that if they had released an album in 1987 with Waters on, in the best of band camaraderie, it would sound significantly different than "AMLOR". Such were the times, and it always strikes me as odd that people blame Gilmour for the sound of the album (which, to reiterate, is not even its truly negative aspect). Even if he had a hand in it, Waters proved himself to be even more susceptible to the trends of the times, QED.

In short, "A Momentary Lapse of Reason" is a full-quality Pink Floyd album. It's well-written, well-played and memorable. It's one of the cases of an album disliked for what people think it should have been rather than for what it actually is.

(In all fairness, I should probably admit that I don't actually dislike "Radio KAOS". My point is that blaming everything that one might dislike about post-1985 Pink Floyd on Waters' departure as stands in contradiction to the actual evidence, i.e. the albums themselves.)

Glubluk | 5/5 |

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