A Journey Through Time To Put Pink Floyd Albums Under The Microscope

Saturday, September 22, 2007

Relics of an era been and gone!

Well I love this CD cos it is just so physcodelic and Pink Floyd like. Back in the good old days when vintage was cool! I just love the composing techniques and everything that has been written for the album. Arnold Lane is very Floyd like with its organ parts. David Gilmour performed it with David Bowie. Interstellar Overdrive is so typical Floyd it's not funny! It is a sort of mixture between progressive rock and physcodelica. Bloody Brilliant! See Emily Play is a strange single. One of their earlier songs. Remember a day is very good because it feels like you really are going back in time to the days that you remember everything was fantastic. Paint Box is a representation of why not to get drunk and then go on a blind date. I love the drums and guitar in this song. I love the drums and guitar in practically all songs really. Julia Dream is a bit weird which is very Syd Barret like! Careful With That Axe Eugene is very well composed and brilliant in the live at Pompeii DVD. Cirrus Minor is very lovely song and very by the church yard. Nile is full on screamer and very strange for Pink Floyd. I love Biding My Time. I've always loved jazz cross rock songs. It's a bit like a scar song but with the Floyd twist to it. And Bike is very weird and a good song to cap it all off. So there you have it...a really fun album to listen to.

Monday, July 16, 2007

The Division Bell Or Hell's Bells On Earth

Well we all know our planet is now completely screwed and we are all floundering about saving power to try and keep it cool. Well Pink Floyd's Division Bell is dedicated to this subject it seems. The whole album is a message (like most Pink Floyd albums) about what we have done and are still doing to this world and the effects of what we have done. It really shows the importance of our Earth and how we have slowly taken the rope and spiralled out of control. The track What Do You Want From Me has a very out there message. It is in the place of the Earth talking to mankind, asking what the hell we want from mother nature and how much we need. The Earth is asking us what we want it to do and what we want from it. It seems in the past and still in the present we have wanted all but given nothing back. Poles Apart seems to me that this is in the place of humans because of the line "And I never thought you'd lose the light in your eyes" saying that we never thought there would come a time when we pulled too much from the Earth and the Earth then has none left. The line "I stare out the still in your eyes," is very much a representation of what we are doing and that is ripping all of Earth's natural resources from it. Marooned seems to be dedicated to the whales that are being slautered murderously. It is a very beautiful and is so much like the whale's singing. A Great Day For Freedom is very good. It is showing what it was like when the war is over. What would life be like? For we seem to be at a never ending war with mother nature. Wearing the inside out I believe is very special and is about all those who know whats happening to our world but didn't have the courage to get up and speak for the world and help to stop it. Take It Back is brilliant! It is saying how eventually the Earth and mother nature will get its own back and take back everything that mankind has done to it. In other words the world will go wild with nature's rath. Coming Back To Life is good. It's the Earth saying where were you when everything went wrong. Its lost in time and space and is numb with confusion. Keep Talking is very good! It is all about keeping the communication happening between people for communication is the key to success in everything. Lost For Words. This is a very good song. I mean very good. It is showing how people get iscolated by their thoughts and beliefs and spite and don't try to make connections with enermies and even when they do it is a failure cos they aren't interested. And to finish it off High Hopes just reinforces the whole idea of the album. So there you have it. Heed its meaning and don't wreck the world!!!

Sunday, July 15, 2007

Amused to death or is death amused?

Well I have started listening to solo works of Roger Waters and David Gilmour and they are brilliant. One that stands out the most however is Roger Waters' Amused to Death. It's them is one that should be heeded. We are creating a world in which entertainment and laziness are hand in hand and rule our lives. We wake up to an alarm clock, a device we made to wake up when we want to. We shower with music to entertain us. We eat breakfast in front of the T.V to entertain us. We have the radio on when we drive to entertain us. We have breaks at work cos we get bored without entertainment. We come home and sit down and eat and watch the T.V for the rest of the night to entertain us and then we go to bed where some would be entertained before falling asleep, whether it be sex or an iPod. The whole album appears to me to be outlining that in today's world we are entertaining and amusing ourselves 'til the day we die. Hence the phrase amused to death. We are just wasting our lives in front of the T.V or we are in front of the computer or we are listening to music. We are just wasting away in front of creations that were originally for a purpose. the T.V was made to spread news of the Vietnam war to all across the U.S and other countries. The computer was there to make important calculations faster and evolved into word processors and spreadsheets all of which are needed for work. And music used to deliver important messages and used to talk to people through melodies. These days the T.V is used to host our favourite shows, the computer is game made and music is all about sex and video clips with women in the background. We are just sucked in by this way of life. There are other discourses in the album. For example the three parts of What God Wants shows the irony of the christian beliefs. It is saying well if the priest says we need money for the house of God then they are really saying God wants you to make donations. The Catholic church says don't contraceptive the work of god when you have sex. This must mean God wants sex. It's a miracle points out that somethings just won't happen anymore in today's society. It has steadily grown cold. Too much rope is by far my favourite and is so so so true. If any one spices has too much rope they will fuck it up. So true. Humanity has had too much chance and has screwed up Earth because of it. It is a very emotional album and is a must hear before you die!

Thursday, February 8, 2007

The Darkside Of The Tour

On Monday the 5th I attended the Roger Waters concert where he played live with a band he created. He was brilliant. He opened the night with In The Flesh with a big base sound and a good visual display. He had brilliant lights and the room was full of smoke. This was to show up the lasers and other lights. He had fireworks up the back and several mechines that created a burst of fire on selected beats. It was hot and so cool. The sound rocked through your chest. He played Mother, Shine On You Crazy Diamond, Set the Controls For the Heart of the Sun, Perfect Sense Parts I And II, Have A Cigar and a new song he composed for the tour called Leaving Bearute. This was based on his story of a time when his car broke down and his mate left him and a Lebonese family took him in and let him stay the night. His visual display was this comic strip and when ever Roger sang a speech buble would appear and point to him on the stage. In the second half he played the entire of Darkside of the Moon which was totaly awesome. The band then went off before coming back on again for an encore of Happiest Days of Our Lives, Another Brick In the Wall and Comfortably Numb. One of the best songs of the night was Wish You Were Here. The lead guitarist on the 2nd and 3rd solos used a glass slide on a steel string acoustic guitar which sounded very good. All in all the performance was on of the best and most magical experiences I've ever had and I recomend it to anyone.

Wednesday, January 3, 2007

He Played A Mean Guitar...

Wish You Were Here was one of the best albums in Pink Floyd history. It was hard to follow up an album like Dark Side Of The Moon but they did it well. Shine On You Crazy Diamond has One of the best intos. It was originally going to be on one whole side of the album but was later split into to parts. It is a long testament to Syd Barret. It starts of with a eerie piano solo with a haunting guitar solo from David Gilmour and escalates into a lyrical section before going into a sax solo by Dick Parry. The song Welcome To The Machine was a big gamble for Roger Waters. It was basically mocking the way we live and the people who couch us in life. It was pulled off well and is a strong out liner to the problems we deal with. The song have a cigar is very much laid back. Like a group of guys looking for fun and they stumble on this weird group. Wish You Were Here is one of my personal favourite songs as it has words and musical arrangements that sound like they are singing from another world. So you think you can tell...heaven from hell. This is a very powerful line for it puts the after life into perception. It gives us hope and helps us come through grief. The album in whole is a powerful but sad reminder of Syd, right down to the cover. The burning man represents Syd for he did light himself on fire once. Syd was always in Rogers mind when he was composing Wish You Were Here.