Since there’s a couple of Floyd threads active at the moment, I thought another one would be interesting.
My choice would be Richard Wright’s Broken China. It’s a rather dark examination of mental illness - a theme common in Floyd’s work and history, obviously - and it’s strength comes from Wright’s rather down-to-earth approach, as contrasted with Water’s histrionics or Barrett’s whimsy.
I think I bought every single piece of solo material from Pink Floyd up until the late 1980s, from Syd Barrett to Nick Mason. Can’t get my motor to start, indeed.
My favorite of all these was easily Richard Wright’s Wet Dream, however. What a lovely, moody, wistful little collection of music.
Never followed their solo work, though I did enjoy Wet Dream.
Did you leave out an indefinite article?
I’ll go with About Face. There are more than a few great tracks on the album, my favorites being *Murder *and Love On The Air. I saw Dave when he toured for the album with Mick Ralphs on second guitar. It was a hoot to watch them trading licks until, at one point, Mick just threw his arms up and surrendered.
As, IMO, the guitar hero of the band I’d too vote for David Gilmour’s About Face. I believe a single from it, All Lovers Are Deranged, even charted. It also contains the song *Cruise *which at the time was Gilmour’s big F-U to the selfish & pretentious Roger Waters!
The Madcap Laughs, obviously.
[QUOTE=Shakester]
The Madcap Laughs, obviously.
[/QUOTE]
Obviously.
Amused To Death by Roger Waters. Hell, I like it better than anything PF has done.
About Face for me too. Dave is the best musician in that band.
I had read before that “Cruise” was about Thatcher and the cruise missiles and the Falklands. Think that was from the PF biography Saucerfull of Secrets.
“You Know I’m Right” on the other hand…
Going to agree with Amused to Death, assuming I can listen to it as one large batch. The individual songs don’t break out well but I like it as a whole.
I have much love for The Pros and Cons of Hitch Hiking. (And what a concert too, with Eric Clapton doing the Gilmour parts of the Pink Floyd songs.)
The Pros and Cons of Hitchhiking is one of my favourite albums in general. Eric Clapton’s work on it is sublime. I was disappointed not to hear any tracks from it when I saw Roger Waters play live a few years ago.
Thanks for bringing this one up - I’d never heard it, so I went to YouTube and found it (a few people have downloaded the whole album). Very nice - now to see if I can find a copy for my collection.
I can’t choose between About Face and Pros and Cons of Hitchhiking.
I think we can all agree that Radio KAOS is dreck, though, so no need anyone starting a “least favorite” version of this thread. 
The Pros and Cons of Hitchhiking should be the answer to this question. I like it better than many Floyd albums.
Ditto for me. It’s Waters being Waters, which I like.
I’m a Roger Waters fan. Love the idea of concept albums (look up “album” kiddies…) Amused to Death works for me as a whole.
Ya know Pink Floyd is probably the best example (short of Lennon-McCartney) of a band with two such diverse, yet integral parts. What do you get if you remove Waters? You get sweeping, hard-rockin’ guitar riffs & solos and smooth (if innocuous) vocals. If you take away Gilmore? You get artsy-fartsy, self-indulgent, avant-garde music with very emotional, freaky (and sometimes outright whiny & grating) vocals! Put them together and you get one of the greatest bands in history!
As much as I think Roger Waters is kind of an asshole, and even though I like a lot of post-Waters Floyd the moment he left the group Pink Floyd became a dinosaur band. They immediately lost their innovative, driving artistic force. But Waters solo stuff couldn’t maintain it either…
Yeah, this … except that you are not giving enough credit to Richard Wright, who was considerably more important to the Floyd than either George or Ringo were to The Beatles.