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Pink Floyd - Meddle CD (album) cover

MEDDLE

Pink Floyd

 

Psychedelic/Space Rock

4.30 | 3494 ratings

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ZowieZiggy
Prog Reviewer
4 stars 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.

ZowieZiggy | 4/5 |

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