Biography

Pink Floyd is the premier space rock band. Since the mid-'60s, their music relentlessly tinkered with electronics and all manner of special effects to push pop formats to their outer limits. At the same time they wrestled with lyrical themes and concepts of such massive scale that their music has taken on almost classical, operatic quality, in both sound and words. Despite their astral image, the group was brought down to earth in the 1980s by decidedly mundane power struggles over leadership and, ultimately, ownership of the band's very name. After that time, they were little more than a dinosaur act, capable of filling stadiums and topping the charts, but offering little more than a spectacular recreation of their most successful formulas. Their latter-day staleness cannot disguise the fact that, for the first decade or so of their existence, they were one of the most innovative groups around, in concert and (especially) in the studio.
While Pink Floyd are mostly known for their grandiose concept albums of the 1970s, they started as a very different sort of psychedelic band. Soon after they first began playing together in the mid-'60s, they fell firmly under the leadership of lead guitarist Syd Barrett, the gifted genius who would write and sing most of their early material. The Cambridge native shared the stage with Roger Waters (bass), Rick Wright (keyboards), and Nick Mason (drums). The name Pink Floyd, seemingly so far-out, was actually derived from the first names of two ancient bluesmen (Pink Anderson and Floyd Council). And at first, Pink Floyd were much more conventional than the act into which they would evolve, concentrating on the rock and R&B material that were so common to the repertoires of mid-'60s British bands.

Pink Floyd quickly began to experiment, however, stretching out songs with wild instrumental freak-out passages incorporating feedback; electronic screeches; and unusual, eerie sounds created by loud amplification, reverb, and such tricks as sliding ball bearings up and down guitar strings. In 1966, they began to pick up a following in the London underground; on-stage, they began to incorporate light shows to add to the psychedelic effect. Most importantly, Syd Barrett began to compose pop-psychedelic gems that combined unusual psychedelic arrangements (particularly in the haunting guitar and celestial organ licks) with catchy melodies and incisive lyrics that viewed the world with a sense of poetic, child-like wonder.

The group landed a recording contract with EMI in early 1967 and made the Top 20 with a brilliant debut single, "Arnold Layne," a sympathetic, comic vignette about a transvestite. The follow-up, the kaleidoscopic "See Emily Play," made the Top Ten. The debut album, The Piper at the Gates of Dawn, also released in 1967, may have been the greatest British psychedelic album other than Sgt. Pepper's. Dominated almost wholly by Barrett's songs, the album was a charming fun house of driving, mysterious rockers ("Lucifer Sam"); odd character sketches ("The Gnome"); childhood flashbacks ("Bike," "Matilda Mother"); and freakier pieces with lengthy instrumental passages ("Astronomy Domine," "Interstellar Overdrive," "Pow R Toch") that mapped out their fascination with space travel. The record was not only like no other at the time; it was like no other that Pink Floyd would make, colored as it was by a vision that was far more humorous, pop-friendly, and lighthearted than those of their subsequent epics.

The reason Pink Floyd never made a similar album was that Piper was the only one to be recorded under Barrett's leadership. Around mid-1967, the prodigy began showing increasingly alarming signs of mental instability. Barrett would go catatonic on-stage, playing music that had little to do with the material, or not playing at all. An American tour had to be cut short when he was barely able to function at all, let alone play the pop star game. Dependent upon Barrett for most of their vision and material, the rest of the group was nevertheless finding him impossible to work with, live or in the studio.

Around the beginning of 1968, guitarist Dave Gilmour, a friend of the band who was also from Cambridge, was brought in as a fifth member. The idea was that Gilmour would enable the Floyd to continue as a live outfit; Barrett would still be able to write and contribute to the records. That couldn't work either, and within a few months Barrett was out of the group. Pink Floyd's management, looking at the wreckage of a band that was now without its lead guitarist, lead singer, and primary songwriter, decided to abandon the group and manage Barrett as a solo act.

Such calamities would have proven insurmountable for 99 out of 100 bands in similar predicaments. Incredibly, Pink Floyd would regroup and not only maintain their popularity, but eventually become even more successful. It was early in the game yet, after all; the first album had made the British Top Ten, but the group were still virtually unknown in America, where the loss of Syd Barrett meant nothing to the media. Gilmour was an excellent guitarist, and the band proved capable of writing enough original material to generate further ambitious albums, Waters eventually emerging as the dominant composer. The 1968 follow-up to Piper at the Gates of Dawn, A Saucerful of Secrets, made the British Top Ten, using Barrett's vision as an obvious blueprint, but taking a more formal, somber, and quasi-classical tone, especially in the long instrumental parts. Barrett, for his part, would go on to make a couple of interesting solo records before his mental problems instigated a retreat into oblivion.

Over the next four years, Pink Floyd would continue to polish their brand of experimental rock, which married psychedelia with ever-grander arrangements on a Wagnerian operatic scale. Hidden underneath the pulsing, reverberant organs and guitars and insistently restated themes were subtle blues and pop influences that kept the material accessible to a wide audience. Abandoning the singles market, they concentrated on album-length works, and built a huge following in the progressive rock underground with constant touring in both Europe and North America. While LPs like Ummagumma (divided into live recordings and experimental outings by each member of the band), Atom Heart Mother (a collaboration with composer Ron Geesin), and More... (a film soundtrack) were erratic, each contained some extremely effective music.

By the early '70s, Syd Barrett was a fading or nonexistent memory for most of Pink Floyd's fans, although the group, one could argue, never did match the brilliance of that somewhat anomalous 1967 debut. Meddle (1971) sharpened the band's sprawling epics into something more accessible, and polished the science fiction ambience that the group had been exploring ever since 1968. Nothing, however, prepared Pink Floyd or their audience for the massive mainstream success of their 1973 album, Dark Side of the Moon, which made their brand of cosmic rock even more approachable with state-of-the-art production; more focused songwriting; an army of well-time stereophonic sound effects; and touches of saxophone and soulful female backup vocals.

Dark Side of the Moon finally broke Pink Floyd as superstars in the United States, where it made number one. More astonishingly, it made them one of the biggest-selling acts of all time. Dark Side of the Moon spent an incomprehensible 741 weeks on the Billboard album chart. Additionally, the primarily instrumental textures of the songs helped make Dark Side of the Moon easily translatable on an international level, and the record became (and still is) one of the most popular rock albums worldwide.

It was also an extremely hard act to follow, although the follow-up, Wish You Were Here (1975), also made number one, highlighted by a tribute of sorts to the long-departed Barrett, "Shine on You Crazy Diamond." Dark Side of the Moon had been dominated by lyrical themes of insecurity, fear, and the cold sterility of modern life; Wish You Were Here and Animals (1977) developed these morose themes even more explicitly. By this time Waters was taking a firm hand over Pink Floyd's lyrical and musical vision, which was consolidated by The Wall (1979).

The bleak, overambitious double concept album concerned itself with the material and emotional walls modern humans build around themselves for survival. The Wall was a huge success (even by Pink Floyd's standards), in part because the music was losing some of its heavy-duty electronic textures in favor of more approachable pop elements. Although Pink Floyd had rarely even released singles since the late '60s, one of the tracks, "Another Brick in the Wall," became a transatlantic number one. The band had been launching increasingly elaborate stage shows throughout the '70s, but the touring production of The Wall, featuring a construction of an actual wall during the band's performance, was the most excessive yet.

In the 1980s, the group began to unravel. Each of the four had done some side and solo projects in the past; more troublingly, Waters was asserting control of the band's musical and lyrical identity. That wouldn't have been such a problem had The Final Cut (1983) been such an unimpressive effort, with little of the electronic innovation so typical of their previous work. Shortly afterward, the band split up; for a while. In 1986, Waters was suing Gilmour and Mason to dissolve the group's partnership (Wright had lost full membership status entirely); Waters lost, leaving a Roger-less Pink Floyd to get a Top Five album with Momentary Lapse of Reason in 1987. In an irony that was nothing less than cosmic, about 20 years after Pink Floyd shed its original leader to resume its career with great commercial success, they would do the same again to his successor. Waters released ambitious solo albums to nothing more than moderate sales and attention, while he watched his former colleagues (with Wright back in tow) rescale the charts.

Pink Floyd still had a huge fan base, but there's little that's noteworthy about their post-Waters output. They knew their formula, could execute it on a grand scale, and could count on millions of customers — many of them unborn when Dark Side of the Moon came out, and unaware that Syd Barrett was ever a member — to buy their records and see their sporadic tours. The Division Bell, their first studio album in seven years, topped the charts in 1994 without making any impact on the current rock scene, except in a marketing sense. Ditto for the live Pulse album, recorded during a typically elaborately staged 1994 tour, which included a concert version of The Dark Side of the Moon in its entirety. Waters' solo career sputtered along, highlighted by a solo recreation of The Wall, performed at the site of the former Berlin Wall in 1990, and released as an album. Syd Barrett continued to be completely removed from the public eye except as a sort of archetype for the fallen genius.

Albums

1. 1967 The Piper at the Gates of Dawn EMI
2. 1968 A Saucerful of Secrets EMI
3. 1969 More EMI
4. 1969 Ummagumma EMI
5. 1970 Atom Heart Mother EMI
6. 1971 Meddle EMI
7. 1972 Obscured by Clouds EMI
8. 1973 Dark Side of the Moon EMI
9. 1975 Wish You Were Here EMI
10. 1977 Animals EMI
11. 1979 The Wall EMI
12. 1983 The Final Cut Columbia
13. 1987 A Momentary Lapse of Reason Columbia
14. 1988 Delicate Sound of Thunder [live] Columbia
15. 1994 The Division Bell Columbia
16. 1995 Pulse [live] Columbia
17. 2003 The Dark Side of the Moon [SACD] Capitol

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Biography

The title of Pink Floyd's debut album is taken from a chapter in Syd Barrett's favorite children's book, The Wind in the Willows, and the lyrical imagery of The Piper at the Gates of Dawn is indeed full of colorful, childlike, distinctly British whimsy, albeit filtered through the perceptive lens of LSD. Barrett's catchy, melodic acid pop songs are balanced with longer, more experimental pieces showcasing the group's instrumental freak-outs, often using themes of space travel as metaphors for hallucinogenic experiences — "Astronomy Domine" is a poppier number in this vein, but tracks like "Interstellar Overdrive" are some of the earliest forays into what has been tagged space rock.

But even though Barrett's lyrics and melodies are mostly playful and humorous, the band's music doesn't always bear out those sentiments — in addition to Rick Wright's eerie organ work, dissonance, chromaticism, weird noises, and vocal sound effects are all employed at various instances, giving the impression of chaos and confusion lurking beneath the bright surface.

The Piper at the Gates of Dawn successfully captures both sides of psychedelic experimentation — the pleasures of expanding one's mind and perception, and an underlying threat of mental disorder and even lunacy; this duality makes Piper all the more compelling in light of Barrett's subsequent breakdown, and ranks it as one of the best psychedelic albums of all time. — Steve Huey

Album Songs

1. Astronomy Domine (Barrett) - 4:12
2. Lucifer Sam (Barrett) - 3:07
3. Matilda Mother (Barrett) - 3:08
4. Flaming (Barrett) - 2:46
5. Pow R. Toc H. (Barrett/Mason/Waters/Wright) - 4:26
6. Take Up Thy Stethoscope and Walk (Waters) - 3:05
7. Interstellar Overdrive (Barrett/Mason/Waters/Wright) - 9:41
8. The Gnome (Barrett) - 2:13
9. Chapter 24 (Barrett) - 3:42
10. The Scarecrow (Barrett) - 2:11
11. Bike (Barrett) - 3:21

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Biography

A transitional album on which the band moved from Barrett's relatively concise and vivid songs to spacy, ethereal material with lengthy instrumental passages. Barrett's influence is still felt (he actually did manage to contribute one track, the jovial "Jugband Blues"), and much of the material retains a gentle, fairy-tale ambience.

"Remember a Day" and "See Saw" are highlights; on "Set The Controls for the Heart of the Sun," "Let There Be More Light," and the lengthy instrumental title track, the band begin to map out the dark and repetitive pulses that would characterize their next few records. — Richie Unterberger

Album Songs

1. Let There Be More Light (Waters) - 5:38
2. Remember a Day (Wright) - 4:33
3. Set the Controls for the Heart of the Sun (Waters) - 5:28
4. Corporal Clegg (Waters) - 4:13
5. A Saucerful of Secrets (Gilmour/Mason/Waters/Wright) - 11:57
6. See Saw (Wright) - 4:36
7. Jugband Blues (Barrett) - 3:00

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Biography

Commissioned as a soundtrack to the seldom-seen French hippie movie of the same name, More was a Floyd album in its own right, reaching the Top 10 in Britain. The group's atmospheric music was a natural for movies, but when assembled for record, these pieces were unavoidably a bit patchwork, ranging from folky ballads to fierce electronic instrumentals to incidental mood music.

Several of the tracks are pleasantly inconsequential, but this record does include some strong compositions, especially "Cymbaline," "Green Is The Colour," and "The Nile Song." All of these developed into stronger pieces in live performances, and better, high-quality versions are available on numerous bootlegs. — Richie Unterberger

Album Songs

1. Cirrus Minor (Waters) - 5:18
2. The Nile Song (Waters) - 3:26
3. Crying Song (Waters) - 3:33
4. Up the Khyber (Mason/Wright) - 2:12
5. Green Is the Colour (Waters) - 2:58
6. Cymbaline (Waters) - 4:50
7. Party Sequence (Gilmour/Mason/Waters/Wright) - 1:07
8. Main Theme (Gilmour/Waters/Wright) - 5:28
9. Ibiza Bar (Gilmour/Mason/Waters/Wright) - 3:19
10. More Blues (Gilmour/Mason/Waters/Wright) - 2:12
11. Quicksilver (Gilmour/Mason/Waters/Wright) - 7:13
12. A Spanish Piece (Gilmour) - 1:05
13. Dramatic Theme (Waters/Wright) - 2:15

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Biography

For many years, this double LP/CD was one of the most popular albums in Pink Floyd's pre-Dark Side of the Moon output, containing a live disc and a studio disc all for the price of one (in the LP version). The live set, recorded in Birmingham and Manchester in June 1969, is limited to four numbers, all drawn from the group's first two LPs or their then recent singles.

Featuring the band's second line-up (i.e., no Syd Barrett), the set shows off a very potent group, their sound held together on stage by Nick Mason's assertive drumming and Roger Waters' powerful bass work, which keep the proceedings moving no matter how spaced out the music gets; they also sound like they've got the amplifiers to make their music count, which is more than the early band had. "Astronomy Domine," "Careful With That Axe Eugene," "Set the Controls for the Heart of the Sun," and "A Saucerful of Secrets" are all superior here to their studio originals, done longer, louder, and harder, with a real edge to the playing. The studio disc was more experimental, each member getting a certain amount of space on the record to make their own music — Richard Wright's "Sysyphus" was a pure keyboard work, featuring various synthesizers, organs, and pianos;

David Gilmour's "The Narrow Way" was a three-part instrumental for acoustic and electric guitars and electronic keyboards; and Nick Mason's "The Grand Vizier's Garden Party" made use of a vast range of acoustic and electric percussion devices. Roger Waters' "Grantchester Meadows" was a lyrical folk-like number unlike almost anything else the group ever did. In 1994 the album was remastered and reissued in a green slipcase, in a version a lot louder and sharper (and cheaper) than the original CD release. — Bruce Eder

Album Songs

1. Astronomy Domine (Barrett) - 8:29
2. Careful With That Axe, Eugene [instrumental] (Gilmour/Mason/Waters/Wright) - 8:50
3. Set the Controls for the Heart of the Sun (Waters) - 9:12
4. A Saucerful of Secrets (Gilmour/Mason/Waters/Wright) - 12:48
5. Sysyphus, Pt. 1 (Wright) - 1:08
6. Sysyphus, Pt. 2 (Wright) - 3:30
7. Sysyphus, Pt. 3 (Wright) - 1:49
8. Sysyphus, Pt. 4 (Wright) - 6:59
9. Grantchester Meadows (Waters) - 7:26
10. Several Species of Small Furry Animals... (Waters) - 4:59
11. The Narrow Way, Pt. 1 (Gilmour) - 3:27
12. The Narrow Way, Pt. 2 (Gilmour) - 2:53
13. The Narrow Way, Pt. 3 (Gilmour) - 5:57
14. The Grand Vizier's Garden Party: Enterance... (Mason) - 1:00
15. The Grand Vizier's Garden Party:... (Mason) - 7:06
16. The Grand Vizier's Garden Party: Exit, Pt. (Mason) - :38

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Biography

Appearing after the sprawling, unfocused double-album set Ummagumma, Atom Heart Mother may boast more focus, even a concept, yet that doesn't mean it's more accessible. If anything, this is the most impenetrable album Pink Floyd released while on Harvest, which also makes it one of the most interesting of the era. Still, it may be an acquired taste even for fans, especially since it kicks off with a side-long, 23-minute extended orchestral piece that may not seem to head anywhere, but is often intriguing, more in what it suggests than what it achieves.

Then, on the second side, Roger Waters, David Gilmour, and Rick Wright have a song apiece, winding up with the group composition "Alan's Psychedelic Breakfast" wrapping it up. Of these, Waters begins developing the voice that made him the group's lead songwriter during their classic era with "If," while Wright has an appealingly mannered, very English psychedelic fantasia on "Summer 68," and Gilmour's "Fat Old Sun" meanders quietly before ending with a guitar workout that leaves no impression. "Alan's Psychedelic Breakfast," the 12-minute opus that ends the album, does the same thing, floating for several minutes before ending on a drawn-out jam that finally gets the piece moving.

So, there are interesting moments scattered throughout the record, and the work that initially seems so impenetrable winds up being Atom Heart Mother's strongest moment. That it lasts an entire side illustrates that Pink Floyd was getting better with the larger picture instead of the details, since the second side just winds up falling off the tracks, no matter how many good moments there are. This lack of focus means Atom Heart Mother will largely be for cultists, but its unevenness means there's also a lot to cherish here. — Stephen Thomas Erlewine

Album Songs

1. Atom Heart Mother: Father's Shout/Breast... (Geesin/Gilmour/Mason/Waters/Wright) - 23:44
2. If (Waters) - 4:30
3. Summer '68 (Wright) - 5:29
4. Fat Old Sun (Gilmour) - 5:22
5. Alan's Psychedelic Breakfast: Rise and... (Gilmour/Mason/Waters/Wright) - 13:00

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Biography

Atom Heart Mother, for all its glories, was an acquired taste, and Pink Floyd wisely decided to trim back its orchestral excesses for its follow-up, Meddle. Opening with a deliberately surging "One of These Days," Meddle spends most of its time with sonic textures and elongated compositions, most notably on its epic closer "Echoes." If there aren't pop songs in the classic sense (even on the level of the group's contributions to Ummagumma), there is a uniform tone, ranging from the pastoral "A Pillow of Winds" to "Fearless," with its insistent refrain hinting at latter-day Floyd. Pink Floyd were nothing if not masters of texture, and Meddle is one of their greatest excursions into little details, pointing the way to the measured brilliance of Dark Side of the Moon and the entire Roger Waters era. Here, David

Gilmour exerts a slightly larger influence, at least based on lead vocals, but it's not all sweetness and light — even if its lilting rhythms are welcome, "San Tropez" feels out of place with the rest of Meddle. Still, the album is one of the Floyd's most consistent explorations of mood, especially from their time at Harvest, and it stands as the strongest record they released between Syd's departure and Dark Side. — Stephen Thomas Erlewine

Album Songs

1. One of These Days (Gilmour/Mason/Waters/Wright) - 5:56
2. A Pillow of Winds (Gilmour/Waters) - 5:13
3. Fearless (Gilmour/Waters) - 6:08
4. San Tropez (Waters) - 3:43
5. Seamus (Gilmour/Mason/Waters/Wright) - 2:15
6. Echoes (Gilmour/Mason/Waters/Wright) - 23:27

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Biography

Pink Floyd followed the commercial breakthrough of Dark Side of the Moon with Wish You Were Here, a loose concept album about and dedicated to their founding member Syd Barrett. The record unfolds gradually, as the jazzy textures of "Shine On You Crazy Diamond" reveal its melodic motif, and in its leisurely pace, the album shows itself to be a warmer record than its predecessor.

Musically, it's arguably even more impressive, showcasing the group's interplay and David Gilmour's solos in particular. And while it's short on actual songs, the long, winding soundscapes are constantly enthralling. — Stephen Thomas Erlewine

Album Songs

1. Shine on You Crazy Diamond, Pts. 1-5 (Gilmour/Waters/Wright) - 13:40
2. Welcome to the Machine (Waters) - 7:31
3. Have a Cigar (Waters) - 5:08
4. Wish You Were Here (Gilmour/Waters) - 5:34
5. Shine on You Crazy Diamond, Pts. 6-9 (Gilmour/Waters/Wright) - 12:31

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Biography

By condensing the sonic explorations of Meddle to actual songs and adding a lush, immaculate production to their trippiest instrumental sections, Pink Floyd inadvertently designed their commercial breakthrough with Dark Side of the Moon. The primary revelation of Dark Side of the Moon is what a little focus does for the band. Roger Waters wrote a series of songs about mundane, everyday details which aren't that impressive by themselves, but when given the sonic backdrop of

Floyd's slow, atmospheric soundscapes and carefully placed sound effects, they achieve an emotional resonance. But what gives the album true power is the subtly textured music, which evolves from ponderous, neo-psychedelic art rock to jazz fusion and blues-rock before turning back to psychedelia. It's dense with detail, but leisurely paced, creating its own dark, haunting world. Pink Floyd may have better albums than Dark Side of the Moon, but no other record defines them quite as well as this one. — Stephen Thomas Erlewine

Album Songs

1. Speak to Me/Breathe (Gilmour/Mason/Waters/Wright) - 4:00
2. On the Run (Gilmour/Waters/Wright) - 3:33
3. Time (Gilmour/Mason/Waters/Wright) - 7:06
4. The Great Gig in the Sky (Waters/Wright) - 4:44
5. Money (Waters) - 6:32
6. Us and Them (Waters/Wright) - 7:40
7. Any Colour You Like (Gilmour/Mason/Wright) - 3:25
8. Brain Damage (Waters) - 3:50
9. Eclipse (Waters) - 2:04

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Of all of the classic-era Pink Floyd albums, Animals is the strangest and darkest, a record that's hard to initially embrace yet winds up yielding as many rewards as its equally nihilistic successor, The Wall. It isn't that Roger Waters dismisses the human race as either pigs, dogs, or sheep, it's that he's constructed an album whose music is as bleak and bitter as that worldview.

Arriving after the warm-spirited (albeit melancholy) Wish You Were Here, the shift in tone comes as a bit of a surprise, and there are even less proper songs here than on either Wish or Dark Side. Animals is all extended pieces, yet it never drifts — it slowly, ominously works its way toward its destination. For an album that so clearly is Waters', David Gilmour's guitar dominates thoroughly, with Richard Wright's keyboards rarely rising above a mood-setting background (such as on the intro to "Sheep").

This gives the music, on occasion, immediacy and actually heightens the dark mood by giving it muscle. It also makes Animals as accessible as it possibly could be, since it surges with bold blues-rock guitar lines and hypnotic space rock textures. Through it all, though, the utter blackness of Waters' spirit holds true and since there are no vocal hooks or melodies, everything rests on the mood, the near-nihilistic lyrics, and Gilmour's guitar. These are the kinds of things that satisfy cultists, and it will reward their attention — there's just no way in for casual listeners. — Stephen Thomas Erlewine

Album Songs

1. Pigs on the Wing, Pt. 1 (Waters) - 1:25
2. Dogs (Gilmour/Waters) - 17:08
3. Pigs (Three Different Ones) (Waters) - 11:28
4. Sheep (Waters) - 10:20
5. Pigs on the Wing, Pt. 2 (Waters) - 1:25

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Roger Waters constructed The Wall, a narcissistic, double-album rock opera about an emotionally crippled rock star who spits on an audience member daring to cheer during an acoustic song. Given its origins, it's little wonder that The Wall paints such an unsympathetic portrait of the rock star, cleverly named "Pink," who blames everyone — particularly women — for his neuroses.

Such lyrical and thematic shortcomings may have been forgivable if the album had a killer batch of songs, but Waters took his operatic inclinations to heart, constructing the album as a series of fragments that are held together by larger numbers like "Comfortably Numb" and "Hey You." Generally, the fully developed songs are among the finest of Pink Floyd's later work, but

The Wall is primarily a triumph of production: Its seamless surface, blending melodic fragments and sound effects, makes the musical shortcomings and questionable lyrics easy to ignore. But if The Wall is examined in depth, it falls apart, since it doesn't offer enough great songs to support its ambition, and its self-serving message and shiny production seem like relics of the late-'70s Me Generation. — Stephen Thomas Erlewine

Album Songs

1. In the Flesh (Waters) - 3:19
2. The Thin Ice (Waters) - 2:29
3. Another Brick in the Wall, Pt. 1 (Waters) - 3:09
4. The Happiest Days of Our Lives (Waters) - 1:51
5. Another Brick in the Wall, Pt. 2 (Waters) - 3:59
6. Mother (Waters) - 5:36
7. Goodbye Blue Sky (Waters) - 2:48
8. Empty Spaces (Waters) - 2:08
9. Young Lust (Gilmour/Waters) - 3:30
10. One of My Turns (Waters) - 3:37
11. Don't Leave Me Now (Waters) - 4:17
12. Another Brick in the Wall, Pt. 3 (Ezrin/Waters) - 1:14
13. Goodbye Cruel World (Waters) - 1:17
14. Hey You (Waters) - 4:42
15. Is There Anybody Out There? (Waters) - 2:40
16. Nobody Home (Waters) - 3:24
17. Vera (Waters) - 1:33
18. Bring the Boys Back Home (Waters) - 1:27
19. Comfortably Numb (Gilmour/Waters) - 6:24
20. The Show Must Go On (Waters) - 1:35
21. In the Flesh (Waters) - 4:17
22. Run Like Hell (Gilmour/Waters) - 4:24
23. Waiting for the Worms (Waters) - 3:58
24. Stop (Waters) - :30
25. The Trial (Ezrin/Waters) - 5:20
26. Outside the Wall (Waters) - 1:44

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Biography

The Final Cut extends the autobiography of The Wall, concentrating on Roger Waters' pain when his father died in World War II. Waters spins this off into a treatise on the futility of war, concentrating on the Falkland Islands, setting his blistering condemnations and scathing anger to impossibly subdued music that demands full attention.

This is more like a novel than a record, requiring total concentration since shifts in dynamics, orchestration, and instrumentation are used as effect. This means that while this has the texture of classic Pink Floyd, somewhere between the brooding sections of The Wall and the monolithic menace of Animals, there are no songs or hooks to make these radio favorites.

The even bent of the arrangements, where the music is used as texture, not music, means that The Final Cut purposely alienates all but the dedicated listener. Several of those listeners maintain that this is among Pink Floyd's finest efforts, and it certainly is an achievement of some kind — there's not only no other Floyd album quite like it, it has no close comparisons to anybody else's work (apart from Waters' own The Pros and Cons of Hitch Hiking, yet that had a stronger musical core).

That doesn't make this easier to embrace, of course, and it's damn near impenetrable in many respects, but with its anger, emphasis on lyrics, and sonic textures, it's clear that it's the album that Waters intended it to be. And it's equally clear that Pink Floyd couldn't have continued in this direction — Waters had no interest in a group setting anymore, as this record, which is hardly a Floyd album in many respects, illustrates. Distinctive, to be sure, but not easy to love and, depending on your view, not even that easy to admire.

[The Final Cut was reissued in a remastered edition in 2004. This edition added "When the Tigers Broke Free" — originally heard in the soundtrack to The Wall, but its moody, war-obsessed soundscape is better suited for The Final Cut — as the fourth track, inserted between "One of the Few" and "The Hero's Return," where it fits nicely into the album's narrative.] — Stephen Thomas Erlewine

Album Songs

1. The Post War Dream (Waters) - 3:00
2. Your Possible Pasts (Waters) - 4:26
3. One of the Few (Waters) - 1:11
4. When the Tigers Broke Free (Waters) - 3:16
5. The Hero's Return (Waters) - 2:42
6. The Gunner's Dream (Waters) - 5:18
7. Paranoid Eyes (Waters) - 3:41
8. Get Your Filthy Hands off My Desert (Waters) - 1:17
9. The Fletcher Memorial Home (Waters) - 4:12
10. Southampton Dock (Waters) - 2:10
11. The Final Cut (Waters) - 4:45
12. Not Now John (Waters) - 4:56
13. Two Suns in the Sunset (Waters) - 5:22

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Biography

A David Gilmour solo album in all but name, heavily featuring the kind of atmospheric instrumental music and Gilmour guitar sound typical of the Floyd before the now-departed Roger Waters took over but lacking Waters' unifying vision and lyrical ability. — William Ruhlmann

Album Songs

1. Signs of Life [instrumental] (Ezrin/Gilmour) - 4:25
2. Learning to Fly (Carin/Ezrin/Gilmour/Moore) - 4:53
3. The Dogs of War (Gilmour/Moore) - 6:08
4. One Slip (Gilmour/Manzanera) - 5:07
5. On the Turning Away (Gilmour/Moore) - 5:39
6. Yet Another Movie/Round and Around (Gilmour/Leonard) - 7:27
7. New Machine, Pt. 1 (Gilmour) - 1:46
8. Terminal Frost (Gilmour) - 6:17
9. New Machine, Pt. 2 (Gilmour) - :38
10. Sorrow (Gilmour) - 8:48

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Biography

In one respect, it's hard to fault David Gilmour for retooling Pink Floyd as a neo-oldies act with Momentary Lapse of Reason, since Roger Waters took the band over the brink with his obsessive, non-musical The Final Cut. Fans were eager for an album that sounded like classic Floyd, which is what Momentary Lapse was. But what they really thirsted for was a live spectacle from Floyd, where they could hear the old tunes and see all the old stunts. That's what they got on the 1987/1988 Pink Floyd world tour, which is documented on the double-disc set, The Delicate Sound of Thunder.

Gilmour's reunited Floyd was intent on recreating the sound and feel of classic Floyd, so it shouldn't come as a surprise that the oldies feel like the classic records, only with Gilmour taking each vocal. He and Floyd deliver well, but this is a recreation that makes less sense on record than it did on stage, where the nostalgia was justified. Here, it feels passable but never compelling. This is professional, competent, and, often, even enjoyable music, yet, like many souvenirs, it never once feels necessary. — Stephen Thomas Erlewine

Album Songs

1. Shine on You Crazy Diamond (Gilmour/Waters/Wright) - 11:53
2. Learning to Fly (Carin/Ezrin/Gilmour/Moore) - 5:27
3. Yet Another Movie (Gilmour/Leonard) - 6:21
4. Round and Round (Gilmour) - :33
5. Sorrow (Gilmour) - 9:28
6. The Dogs of War (Gilmour/Moore) - 7:18
7. On the Turning Away (Gilmour/Moore) - 7:58
8. One of These Days (Gilmour/Mason/Waters/Wright) - 6:15
9. Time (Gilmour/Mason/Waters/Wright) - 5:16
10. Wish You Were Here (Gilmour/Waters) - 4:49
11. Us and Them (Waters/Wright) - 7:22
12. Money (Waters) - 9:52
13. Another Brick in the Wall, Pt. 2 (Waters) - 5:28
14. Comfortably Numb (Gilmour/Waters) - 8:56
15. Run Like Hell (Gilmour/Waters) - 7:12

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Biography

The second post-Roger Waters Pink Floyd album is less forced and more of a group effort than A Momentary Lapse of Reason — keyboard player Rick Wright is back to full bandmember status and has co-writing credits on five of the 11 songs, even getting lead vocals on "Wearing the Inside Out." Some of David Gilmour's lyrics (co-written by Polly Samson and Nick Laird-Clowes of the Dream Academy) might be directed at Waters, notably "Lost for Words" and "A Great Day for Freedom," with its references to "the wall" coming down, although the more specific subject is the Berlin Wall and the fall of Communism.

In any case, there is a vindictive, accusatory tone to songs such as "What Do You Want from Me" and "Poles Apart," and the overarching theme, from the album title to the graphics to the "I-you" pronouns in most of the lyrics, has to do with dichotomies and distinctions, with "I" always having the upper hand. Musically, Gilmour, Nick Mason, and Wright have largely turned the clock back to the pre-Dark Side of the Moon Floyd, with slow tempos, sustained keyboard chords, and guitar solos with a lot of echo. — William Ruhlmann

Album Songs

1. Cluster One (Gilmour/Wright) - 5:58
2. What Do You Want from Me (Gilmour/Samson/Wright) - 4:21
3. Poles Apart (Gilmour/Laird-Clowes/Samson) - 7:04
4. Marooned (Gilmour/Wright) - 5:28
5. A Great Day for Freedom (Gilmour/Samson) - 4:18
6. Wearing the Inside Out (Moore/Wright) - 6:49
7. Take It Back (Ezrin/Gilmour/Laird-Clowes/Samson) - 6:12
8. Coming Back to Life (Gilmour) - 6:19
9. Keep Talking (Gilmour/Samson/Wright) - 6:11
10. Lost for Words (Gilmour/Samson) - 5:15
11. High Hopes (Gilmour/Samson) - 8:32

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Biography

Pink Floyd claim they had no intention of recording another live album when they began the Division Bell tour, but performing The Dark Side of the Moon in its entirety convinced the group to release another double live set, called Pulse. There's no question that the group is comprised of talented musicians, including the number of studio professionals that augmented the trio on tour.

Whether they're inspired musicians is up to debate. A large part of Pink Floyd's live show is based on the always impressive visuals; on the Division Bell tour, they closed each show with an unprecedented laser extravaganza. In order for the visuals and the music to coincide, the group needed to play the sets as tightly as possible, with little improvisation. Consequently, an audio version of this concert, separated from the visuals, is quite dull. Pink Floyd play the greatest hits and the new songs professionally, yet the versions differ only slightly from the original recordings, making Pulse a tepid experience. (The first edition of the album featured a blinking red light — a symbolic representation of the "pulse" — in the spine of the disc and cassette.) — Stephen Thomas Erlewine

Album Songs

1. Shine on You Crazy Diamond (Gilmour/Waters/Wright) - 13:34
2. Astronomy Domine (Barrett) - 4:20
3. What Do You Want from Me (Gilmour/Samson/Wright) - 4:09
4. Learning to Fly (Carin/Ezrin/Gilmour/Moore) - 5:15
5. Keep Talking (Gilmour/Samson/Wright) - 6:52
6. Coming Back to Life (Gilmour) - 6:56
7. Hey You (Waters) - 4:39
8. A Great Day for Freedom (Gilmour/Samson) - 4:30
9. Sorrow (Gilmour) - 10:49
10. High Hopes (Gilmour/Samson) - 7:52
11. Another Brick in the Wall, Pt. 2 (Waters) - 7:07
12. Speak to Me (Mason/Waters) - 2:29
13. Breathe (Gilmour/Waters/Wright) - 2:33
14. On the Run (Gilmour/Waters/Wright) - 3:47
15. Time (Gilmour/Mason/Waters/Wright) - 6:46
16. The Great Gig in the Sky (Waters/Wright) - 5:52
17. Money (Waters) - 8:54
18. Us and Them (Waters/Wright) - 6:57
19. Any Colour You Like (Gilmour/Mason/Wright) - 3:21
20. Brain Damage (Waters) - 3:45
21. Eclipse (Waters) - 2:37
22. Wish You Were Here (Encore) (Gilmour/Waters) - 6:35
23. Comfortably Numb (Encore) (Gilmour/Waters) - 9:29
24. Run Like Hell (Encore) (Gilmour/Waters) - 8:36

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Biography

The Final Cut extends the autobiography of The Wall, concentrating on Roger Waters' pain when his father died in World War II. Waters spins this off into a treatise on the futility of war, concentrating on the Falkland Islands, setting his blistering condemnations and scathing anger to impossibly subdued music that demands full attention.

This is more like a novel than a record, requiring total concentration since shifts in dynamics, orchestration, and instrumentation are used as effect. This means that while this has the texture of classic Pink Floyd, somewhere between the brooding sections of The Wall and the monolithic menace of Animals, there are no songs or hooks to make these radio favorites.

The even bent of the arrangements, where the music is used as texture, not music, means that The Final Cut purposely alienates all but the dedicated listener. Several of those listeners maintain that this is among Pink Floyd's finest efforts, and it certainly is an achievement of some kind — there's not only no other Floyd album quite like it, it has no close comparisons to anybody else's work (apart from Waters' own The Pros and Cons of Hitch Hiking, yet that had a stronger musical core).

That doesn't make this easier to embrace, of course, and it's damn near impenetrable in many respects, but with its anger, emphasis on lyrics, and sonic textures, it's clear that it's the album that Waters intended it to be. And it's equally clear that Pink Floyd couldn't have continued in this direction — Waters had no interest in a group setting anymore, as this record, which is hardly a Floyd album in many respects, illustrates. Distinctive, to be sure, but not easy to love and, depending on your view, not even that easy to admire.

[The Final Cut was reissued in a remastered edition in 2004. This edition added "When the Tigers Broke Free" — originally heard in the soundtrack to The Wall, but its moody, war-obsessed soundscape is better suited for The Final Cut — as the fourth track, inserted between "One of the Few" and "The Hero's Return," where it fits nicely into the album's narrative.] — Stephen Thomas Erlewine

Album Songs

1. The Post War Dream (Waters) - 3:00
2. Your Possible Pasts (Waters) - 4:26
3. One of the Few (Waters) - 1:11
4. When the Tigers Broke Free (Waters) - 3:16
5. The Hero's Return (Waters) - 2:42
6. The Gunner's Dream (Waters) - 5:18
7. Paranoid Eyes (Waters) - 3:41
8. Get Your Filthy Hands off My Desert (Waters) - 1:17
9. The Fletcher Memorial Home (Waters) - 4:12
10. Southampton Dock (Waters) - 2:10
11. The Final Cut (Waters) - 4:45
12. Not Now John (Waters) - 4:56
13. Two Suns in the Sunset (Waters) - 5:22