Wish you were Here. Probably just too much exposure to The Wall and Dark Side. They’re all great.
I’m amazed at the love for The Final Cut here. Out in the big bad world, it’s almost always completely derided. I must go back and listen to it again.
If it makes you feel better, I don’t particularly like it.
It seemed to me to be the perfect answer to The Wall, which was a completely inward turned catalog of what the fuck is fucked up about Mr. Pink in the most Freudian terms. The Wall is an overblown and bombastic rock opera.
The Final Cut is a bit more accessible. After The Wall is broken down our hero looks out and sees what is wrong with all the bloody butchering and war within the world and the horror of that and imagines a nuclear holocaust, but finally realizes that he can’t go back to that pit of depression he was in and must face the tedium of the world. If DSOTM, WYWH, TW and FC are considered as different chapters of a whole body of “Pink’s” work and coming to grips with the world, they each answer the previous depression DSOTM, working WYWH, therapy TW and facing the real world FC; in such a situation I can see why Waters thought he was completely done with Pink, as the character had matured at the end of FC and there was no further development. Anything else would be regression. Of course ending the band wasn’t his decision to make.
To me, The Final Cut is Waters’ best solo album, but that’s all it is, really. The cover tacitly acknowledges this with “An album by Roger Waters…”.
I don’t even think it’s “quite a clever forgery”–it sounds nothing like pre-Wall Floyd and, for the most part, sounds like the more mediocre parts of The Wall without any of the highlights.
I guess I’d go with Division Bell, I think I play that one more often than the others I have.
My son and I were in a used CD/record store a couple months ago, and they had the Pulse CD on the shelf behind them, with the red LED blinking. Inspired me to get out my CD case, and it’s been blinking away on our kitchen counter since.
ETA: Oops, it was Pulse, not Division Bell. Actually, at the store I was telling my son it was Division Bell too. Sigh.
Animals, but that could be because I love the Les Claypool Frog Brigade version. Les Claypool brought me back to Floyd after years off due to over exposer.
Pink Floyd The Wall (1982)
Although The Final Cut would probably be my favorite were it not for the '82 video.
Ooooooh, not possible to choose.
Perhaps “Wish you were here” as the title track was what turned me onto Pink Floyd in the first place.
Or maybe “dark side of the moon”? seeing as it did the impossible and lived up to it’s ridiculous hype when I finally came to listen to it properly (seriously…how did I avoid it for 31 years?).
Or maybe that oft-ignored gem “obscured by clouds”?..“Stay” is simply beautiful.
But I think if I were pushed, it would be “The Wall” As has been mentioned above, there may be some filler on there but the remainder still represents a careers-worth of good songs for any other band
Also, The 30 second solo on “Mother” is…I humbly suggest…the finest in rock music. If you need to know what a solo should be, Gilmour’s your man. It is as long as it needs to be and as simple as it should be. All other imitations are mere plank-wankery.
And finally, however bad your life may be, whatever neurosis and hang-ups you have, you can pop on “The Wall” revel in the music and content yourself with the fact that you do not inhabit Roger Waters’ head…you do not have it that bad.
My band plays an acoustic guitar and mandolin version of “Mother.” At a gig yesterday, as I played Gilmour’s solo on mandolin, some guy whistled along with it.
Wish You Were Here
Dark Side of the Moon gets my vote. The band has had various facets that have risen and fallen throughout its existence. Dark Side of the Moon was made at a point when every facet was at a peak.
Dark Side of the Moon is perfection, IMO it’s rock’s equivalent of Beethoven’s 9th. Wish You Were Here is just a shade behind it.
Meddle, Animals and The Wall are all good albums but have dull stretches that I can’t wait to get past.
I’d pick Animals, primarily because it’s some of my favorite Rick Wright Hammond work ever – real subtle, almost spacey. The man could play.
I think that was Roger Waters’ shining breakthrough as a vocalist. He had always been a bit overshadowed by Gilmour’s vocal talent…and while Waters was quite good on The Wall, Gilmour still outperformed him.
On The Final Cut, though, Waters was untouchable and put out a vocal performance greater than the summation of Floyd’s previous catalog. His vocal phrasing and emotion were the vocal equivalent of the greatest Gilmour guitar solos.
Dark Side has got to be mine, with The Wall a close second. I haven’t been able to get into the others as much.
Am I the only one who has different Pink Floyd favorites over the years?
First, it was DSOTM when it first came out in '72, I was 9.
Next, it was The Wall when I was 16 in '79.
Then over the remaining years, it was Meddle, Animals, Wish You Were Here, Final Cut, Waters and Gilmour solos…then back to DSOTM and now I am split between Animals and WYWH because my age is beginning to dictate what I actually feel in the music rather than what I hear. As I lose my older relatives and friends, I feel Wish You Were Here. But as I look around my surroundings, I identify more with Animals.
They are my 1a and 1b at this particular moment.
What? Better than The Pros & Cons of Hitchhiking??
Ok, sorry, I’ll be serious now.
I know this is all subjective, but I find this take totally baffling. Sure, Waters injects emotion into his vocals, and this makes up for his lack of technical ability, but what’s his emotional range on The Final Cut? Despair, anger, contempt, resignation? It’s all pretty monochromatic, AFAICT.
Gilmour, IMHO, has both a better vocal and emotional range, and to his credit, can sing Waters’ lyrics and inject real soul into them.
Amused To Death is the Roger Waters album I’d been waiting for him to make. It is a superb album - and I am being serious.