FNV: Echoes

Chris

Chris lives in Austin, TX, where he once shook Willie Nelson's hand.

Related Post Roulette

56 Responses

  1. Jaybird says:

    Man, I love me some Floyd.

    If pressed, I might say that Animals was my favorite Floyd album (this week, anyway) but… well, my guilty pleasure remains The Final Cut. Lord knows, its politics have not aged particularly well but, dang.

    Live at Pompeii is one of those concepts that makes you say “that’d never get off the ground today. They’d never get past the soil impact permits.” Golly, that’s an awesome concert. I’m amazed they got away with it.Report

  2. Glyph says:

    Very different – from 1965, before they were called Pink Floyd (they were called The Tea Set).

    “Lucy Leave”:
    Report

  3. Stillwater says:

    Chris, Just wanted to chime in with one other thing about your OP: last night when I posted those two versions of The Porch Song I played ’em for my wife. She’s not a big REK fan, but she loves Lyle. That little video of Lyle with the Big Hair caused her to go out to our storage shed and grab all our boxes of old CDs, looking for some Lyle.

    And not that I think about it, I’ve had a similar experience as the one you’re describing here, but which lasted a really long time. After watching No Direction Home when it first came out I went on two-month long Bob Dylan bender. Couldn’t get enough of it.Report

    • Chris in reply to Stillwater says:

      Your wife would like REK if she’d been to an Austin show. It’s impossible not to.Report

      • Stillwater in reply to Chris says:

        I’m sure of that. She’s never seen him LIVE before. Anywhere, let alone in Texas.

        She made a comment last night about Robert’s delivery of the lines in the Porch Song, she said “he’s just rushing thru them.” But after I played both a few times (and frankly, I like Lyle’s a bit better) the version that stuck in my head was REK’s. It always does.Report

  4. Chris says:

    I love both “Animals,” which may be my second favorite Floyd album (though right now I’m really digging “Ummagumma”). I have the box set from the 90s, and have just been going through the all day.

    Also, I think I like Final Cut better than The Wall. I don’t know if that means I’m a horrible human being, but there it is.Report

    • Stillwater in reply to Chris says:

      If you were like me (!!!, which you weren’t since I’m Old and you’re Young) the release date of The Wall as counted down with skin-crawling frustration. It was A Big Album. And it lived up to it, in my view. The Final Cut, tho, was much milder, both in lead-up as well as intention. And much more interesting (if that’s possible!) I remember reading an interview where Gilmore said Waters basically told the guys “I’m gonna make this album [THe Final Cut] and you guys can either be part of it or not.” Obviously the boys in the band opted to make that record, but I think some really pronounced artistic differences emerged at that point.

      I’ve always thought the soul of Pink Floyd was Roger Waters, myself, tho lots of less-informed and obviously incorrect people tell me it was Gilmore.Report

      • Chris in reply to Stillwater says:

        It was Waters with Gilmour. Waters wrote the songs, for the most part, after Barrett, but Gilmour had more and more to do with the sound, particularly after Dark Side, when he pretty much created the Wish You Were Here and “Comfortably Numb” feel. Waters was the brains and Gilmour the ears, though Gilmour’s not a bad lyricist himself.Report

      • Glyph in reply to Stillwater says:

        Waters was the brains and Gilmour the ears

        This is the way I think of Spacemen 3 too. Sonic Boom was the “ideas” guy, but J Spaceman was the more musicianly of the two.

        The Wall…was A Big Album. And it lived up to it, in my view.

        What’s the consensus on The Wall around here? Given my age, it was the first Pink Floyd album I was really aware of, and I like it a lot. But I understand that a lot of Floyd fans don’t really rate it, so maybe it’s just nostalgia talking for me?Report

      • Chris in reply to Stillwater says:

        The Wall has its moments, but I haven’t really gotten into it since college. In high school, we used to go to the “party barn” (a shed behind my friends house) and partake of cheap microwaved cheese sticks and stuff that makes you crave microwave cheese sticks. The “barn” had two records, Paranoid and The Wall and a record player. So we listened to both a lot. A whole lot. I kinda feel like that’s where that album works best.Report

      • Stillwater in reply to Stillwater says:

        Glyph, re: the Waters v Glimore v Waters&Gilmore dispute, I have to ask: have you listened to Pros and Cons of Hitchhiking and Momentary Lapse of Reason? Those albums will pretty much settle any disputes about who was contributing what to Pink Floyd. At least towards the end.

        As far as the ranking of The Wall goes, I’m sure the purists will think Meddle was the beginning of the end, and another set of purists will think The Wall was a sellout.

        I’m not sure that anyone in PF would agree with any of that tho.Report

      • Stillwater in reply to Stillwater says:

        Or another way to say it: “The Wall got radio play, so you know it sucks!”Report

      • Glyph in reply to Stillwater says:

        I liked Lapse well enough in HS, but I haven’t really listened to it since then. IIRC, it was a pretty-good *sounding* record, but looking at a track listing I only remember 3 songs.Report

      • Chris in reply to Stillwater says:

        Waters said of Momentary Lapse of Reason that it was an excellent imitation of Pink Floyd. I like it and The Division Bell, but not the way I like Floyd with Waters.Report

      • Stillwater in reply to Stillwater says:

        Well, I’ve tipped my hand a bit on all this, since I’ve already said that I *rillyrilly* like Waters solo stuff. I’m perfectly cool with Floyd fans not liking those albums and thinking that the Waters + Gilmore (+ … uh, the other two guys …) sum was more than its parts.

        I just wanted to mention that the difference between the first post-Waters records (respectively) was pretty striking.Report

      • Jaybird in reply to Stillwater says:

        I can still listen to The Wall… but I find myself skipping over songs.

        I can’t listen to Brick in the Wall Part II, for example… but I still love Brick in the Wall Part I (and could listen to the drums in Happiest Days Of Our Lives for days and days). Mother isn’t as good as it used to be… but Comfortably Numb just will not age. Listen to that guitar solo! It’s a clinic on “here’s how you do a guitar solo”. In The Flesh and Run Like Hell are now unlistenable to me.

        Alternately, Is There Anybody Out There? used to be fast-forward material but I think I love it now. It’s brilliant.

        Notes: Watching Pink Floyd videos, I realize that the pre-video commercials are for things like “fiber”. That ain’t funny.

        In The Flesh (from the movie) has not aged well *AT ALL*. I find myself wondering “Did stuff like that *REALLY* keep Roger Waters up late at night???” And then I listen to The Final Cut again…Report

      • Glyph in reply to Stillwater says:

        Aw, I like “Run Like Hell”.

        Maserati are an instrumental band, but they do a half-decent cover of it for an encore here:

        Report

  5. Glyph says:

    The worst Floyd cover ever:

    Report

  6. aaron david says:

    At this point, the only Floyd I can listen to is Animals, I had to many friends in high schools (lo those many years ago) to listen to the ones that were popular with that crowd. That cuts our The Wall, Wish You Were Here, Dark Side, Meddle and Umaguma. If by chance I hear a track its cool, but not something I can seek out anymore. I never really listened to the Final Cut, so I went looking for it a few months ago, and it was… awful. I don’t think Roger Waters was very successful by himself, nor do I think Gilmore was truly successful working without him. The breakup didn’t workout like Bauhaus’ did, with the parts being worthy additions to the whole.

    By the way, a fun post would be the music you were super into when young, but you just cannot listen to now, and even have a hard time letting people know that is what you liked. I bet there are some really interesting skeletons in closets here.Report