MEDDLE

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.