Wherein Sam listens to DSOTM for the 1ST time EVER and we talk about THE FLOYD

[hypehat]

This probably belongs nowhere, but hey. I've never listened to this before. Got the 2011 remaster on the youtubes.

1. Speak To Me

DROOOOOOOOOOONE.
Ok. Reverse Beatles there.

2. Breathe (In The Air)

What a title. As if you'd be breathing air listening to this album 
Slidey guitar is nice.
Is this supposed to be atmospheric? Organ stabs are kinda ruining my mellow here. This is a very busy track for a mellow, chilled vibe....

3. On The Run

Synths! Moogs ho! (drum machine or long suffering stickman?)
So the vibe I'm getting is that this is a oddly sequenced album. Two wordless segments already and we're only 7 minutes in! Some avantgarde noisy things, and you completely detonate the entire thing into near silence....


4. Time

....which is what I guess this is for. Pink Floyd, prog practical jokers!
...Does this record have any SONGS on it? 
Ah.
This is Roger Waters, yes? He's not exactly a classic rock voice. Sounds better on the slower bit.
Phased gospel singers - not so much. ("your voice sounds so amazing we're going to slather it in unnecessary effects, cheers love")
Guitar solo #1. Progggg. Being harsh, a fine piece of work.
David Gilmour is having a lot of fun during these sessions. Is the Pink Floyd dynamic something along the lines of 1970 Beatles, where any suggestion of editing of a band mates idea would instantly cause a ruckus? Gilmour is constantly throwing licks everywhere!

5. The Great Gig In The Sky

Have heard lots of about this.
Chords sound like a DW Bambu piece!
Oh hello.
Wow, this is a weird/bad vocal choice. Those high notes....
Amazing, given progs bad reputation, the first huge rubbish solo is a vocal one.
Jesus, I feel sorry for this woman. I can hear her checking the booth (no, go on, you've got 45 more bars! BE SOULFUL!)

That it? Was expecting, IDK, bombast or something.

6. Money

Well I obviously know this.
A friend of mine, upon this dropping at a party, was chatting to someone who said 'y'know, the only pop hit that's in 7/8' or whatever, and he just said 'that doesn't make it GOOD', to this dude's offence. I think he's right. Would this have hurt to have been put in 4/4. Although I'm not bothered to learn the riff and test it.

This isn't, well, bad....
Solos up the wazoo. It must have been easy to write this - "You got a second verse, Roger?" "Nah, why don't you solo for 90 minutes instead?"
This is just, like, IDK, a Fleetwood Mac tune. And Peter Green would have played louder.
Oh sh*t, that's a second verse?
Well shut my mouth.
Talky bits! Looped talky bits!

7. Us & Them.

That's a nice weird dissonant chord thing, there.
Back to mid-tempo balladry.
Oh christ, another sax solo.
Echoechoechoechoecho....

Is all this album in the same key or something? At the very least, YOU CAN PLAY A BIT FASTER, LADS.

Finally, some goshdarn volume. That's a pretty sweet chorus. Even the stax backing singers don't sound stilted.

What's with these talky bits? And just as I was about to type 'better than a sax solo at least', THERE IT IS. I do hate alto sax solos. Except Garth Hudson, tbh.

I guess it's a very nice album. I was expecting something less plodding, to be perfectly honest with you. They only seem to be breaking a sweat behind the mixing desk, as it all sounds very nice, meticulous and clean, but.... it's mid tempo ballads so far! Maybe I should find some weed.


8. Any Colour You Like

Oh sh*t, did they just go blaxploitation? It's still mid-tempo, but bass/hi-hats are getting a wee bit funkier.
Fisher Price My First Moog getting some play here.
What's shaking, Gil?
The Floyd jamming, I guess.

Hmm, not sure about this. Think I like it more than the other midtempo workouts so far. Maybe they'll go insane and start to rock, but with two songs left with crap titles I'm not optimistic.

9. Brain Damage

Booorn a pooor young couuuuntryy boyy....
You're right, this IS a pioneering record. It sounds like the 80's!
More gospel singers. Nothing says soul and pathos like gospel singers, even if the lyrics are somewhat trite

'The lunatic is in my head' *BBC CANNED LAUGHTER #4* oh c'mon mates, you can try harder than that....

I also like it when rock bands sing about rock bands for no apparent reason. It shows remarkable myopism.

Oh, that's it?

10. Eclipse

The record has done absolutely NOTHING to deserve this grandstanding. It should have been like this all the way through.
Wait, that's it? Just when I was struggling to find something to say rather than 'poor gospel singers' or 'gee, another trite platitude' IT ENDS?!

A short prog album. Guess the bad rep is Yes's fault.

So what do I think? It's boring! It's an album of mid-tempo ballads in the same key, punctuated by one blues song (probably also in the same key), and some noodling, dated SFX bridges. People must have had better drugs in 1973. I have none, although I think that if I was on drugs I would have shut this album off during The Great Gig In The Sky. None of it's BAD, per se, but none of it really works well.

A meticulously crafted bore.


You can tell me how I'm wrong and wasting your time now!

[SMiLE Brian]

I am not used to somebody not saying this album is god. Personally, I like the early floyd with the 20 minute epic songs.

[William Bowe]

I quite like it though.

This is Roger Waters, yes? He's not exactly a classic rock voice. Sounds better on the slower bit.

I believe the "not a classic rock voice" is David Gilmour, and the "better", "slower" bit is Rick Wright. Waters' only leads are on the last two songs, if I'm not mistaken.

[hypehat]

Ah ok, I don't know much about pf (can't you tell?) so I had it in my head Waters did the singing cos he wrote lyrics and stuff. That vocal still sounds a wee bit... Strained? Should probably try some Barrett stuff. Or would u guys recommend anything else? Or if I think this is a bit dull and neat should I give up on waters floyd?

[SMiLE Brian]

Ah ok, I don't know much about pf (can't you tell?) so I had it in my head Waters did the singing cos he wrote lyrics and stuff. That vocal still sounds a wee bit... Strained? Should probably try some Barrett stuff. Or would u guys recommend anything else? Or if I think this is a bit dull and neat should I give up on waters floyd?

Try the post Barrett stuff up to "dark side" if you like epic psychedelic/progressive jams. Meddle and Atom Heart mother are amazing with 20 min epics.

[William Bowe]

? Should probably try some Barrett stuff.

Damn straight. Not everybody gets him, but none of the complaints you've registered about DSOTM are going to cause you any problems with Syd. I like the solo stuff the best, The Madcap Laughs especially, though Barrett too is brilliant in parts. The Floyd stuff though (The Piper at the Gates of Dawn plus a few singles) is a lot more "together", not counting a few later oddities like Vegetable Man and Jugband Blues.

[Chocolate Shake Man]

I pretty much agree with you here, Hype. I do like "Breathe" a lot but outside of that, there's not much that does it for me. I also agree with the comments on Syd. He did some great stuff.

[Myk Luhv]

I've never listened to Pink Floyd beyond Barrett's short tenure with them (i.e. first couple singles and Piper). Honestly, I don't have much desire to do so either. I've seen The Wall when I was high as hell, and though most of the music was just OK -- it worked well with the video but I'd never listen to it separately. The scene where the wall starts shooting up out of the ground is hilariously goofy though. One thing I could've done without was the ridiculous scene where the flower is shape-shifting into various things, one of which is a man and woman having sex -- until the woman seems to devour the man! That struck me as pretty obviously sexist (oh no, women are emaciating men and making them insecure in their masculinity!) and made me roll my eyes so hard I passed out. Good riddance.

[William Bowe]

There's a disturbing attitude to women evident throughout The Wall, actually. Pillars of Waters' alienation include a cheating wife, a bubble-headed groupie and "Mother". When a male villain emerges in the shape of a sadistic school teacher, we learn that he and his type are victims in turn - of "their fat and psychopathic wives", who "thrash them within inches of their lives" (ever so slightly at odds with the reality of most domestic violence there). In the midst of all this there appears the flower animation Dr Voldelabra refers to. The whole thing makes my flesh crawl.

[I. Spaceman]

What a truly odd thread.

[guitarfool2002]

6. Money

Well I obviously know this.
A friend of mine, upon this dropping at a party, was chatting to someone who said 'y'know, the only pop hit that's in 7/8' or whatever, and he just said 'that doesn't make it GOOD', to this dude's offence. I think he's right. Would this have hurt to have been put in 4/4. Although I'm not bothered to learn the riff and test it.

"Love Is Only Sleeping", The Monkees from 1967, Pisces Aquarius album...featured on several episodes of the show, slated to be released as a single in 1967 but withdrawn, still got some airplay as an album cut.

The riff is in 7/8 time, drop D tuning on guitar.

I just like to point that out whenever "Money" and the odd time signature issue comes up, because The Monkees as usual were blowing minds in a more subliminal way by doing things like "Love Is Only Sleeping" in 7/8 time, getting millions of teenyboppers, teens, pre-teens, and the like tapping their foot and singing along to a song featuring an exotic time signature the likes of which had only been universally heard by a pop audience in jazz like Dave Brubeck's "Time Out" album and Take Five hit record.

The Monkees innovation was that they were doing these things in music and video/film without blatantly advertising "Hey, we're innovating here!" like some of the more ego-centric artists might do. They hit you subliminally with things that in future decades would become standard in pop culture, standard to the point of being formula.




(Dark Side is a great album, and a technical achievement which should be studied, analyzed, and appreciated as such by anyone with an interest in recorded music and recording technology. I'm not expressing opinion there, but if anyone would suggest any different beyond their like or dislike of the music on a personal taste level, I'll call them out on it...because no amount of revisionism or Syd Barrett fanaticism can suggest the Dark Side album is anything but a landmark release from that era. If you don't care for the songs themselves, or just the album in general, that's perfectly fine. But I hope there isn't an undercurrent of revisionism similar to that wave of Sgt. Pepper backlash which attempted to convince people the album wasn't as good as advertised, and it was all hype, and any number of other releases were "better". Well, that's just not true on either side except in the area of personal taste, and it's not true about Dark Side either, I hope the historical record notes that for future generations.)

[Aegir]

Hypehat man, you gotta listen to it while high, man

[guitarfool2002]

Hypehat man, you gotta listen to it while high, man

When did we start discussing Family Guy and the Cartoon Network, anyway?

[pixletwin]

DSotM synced with Wizard of Oz... anyone? 

[Pinder's Gone To Kokomo And Back Again]

Pink Floyd is not prog.

Someone needs to force this guy to listen to and review Tales From Topographic Oceans 

[SMiLE Brian]

Pink Floyd is not prog.

Someone needs to force this guy to listen to and review Tales From Topographic Oceans 

Not sure that whether  album or Emerson, Lake, and Palmer killed Prog.

[I. Spaceman]

Pink Floyd is not prog.
 

Maybe, but there wouldn't be progressive rock as we know it without them.

[Pinder's Gone To Kokomo And Back Again]

Pink Floyd is not prog.
 

Maybe, but there wouldn't be progressive rock as we know it without them.

Or more actual prog bands should have listened to them and they would have understood the importance of leaving space in the music and how good a nice groove felt....

[I. Spaceman]

Pink Floyd is not prog.
 

Maybe, but there wouldn't be progressive rock as we know it without them.

Or more actual prog bands should have listened to them and they would have understood the importance of leaving space in the music and how good a nice groove felt....

Agreed. It is more the image and iconography of the band that influenced Prog. Same with the Sex Pistols and punk.

[Myk Luhv]

Alright, I'll bite: Where should I start gettin' into this groovy-but-apparently-not-prog Pink Floyd then?

[Pinder's Gone To Kokomo And Back Again]

If you want serious grooves. I'd start with CAN..... They're not really prog either, but close enough... Then try Yes, staring with The Yes Album, then onto KIng Crimson and Genesis.

[hypehat]

If you want serious grooves. I'd start with CAN..... They're not really prog either, but close enough... Then try Yes, staring with The Yes Album, then onto KIng Crimson and Genesis.

I love CAN. Although they are simultaneously amazing and terrifying.

Hypehat man, you gotta listen to it while high, man

I've never been a sit-around-smoke-a-joint-listen-to-a-record-man man. My mind wanders, and not in a 'FEELTHESOUNDDUDE' way.  Weed is rare enough in my day-to-day as to be incredibly valuable too, and I'd rather drink and smoke cigarettes (I'm a lousy quitter) to music.

Guitarfool, as I noted, it did SOUND amazing. But I found the songwriting really lacking in parts, and some of the production choices (those bleedin' gospel singers, mostly) stuck in the craw. And I've never heard it before, which is why I did the whole liveblog thing to sort of clarify my opinion, as I think I've mentioned many times how I've barely listened to PF.

[I. Spaceman]

  some of the production choices (those bleedin' gospel singers, mostly) 

Yes, and that wasn't an influence on Spiritualized, or anything.

[hypehat]

It feels different with Spiritualized? I don't know how else to describe it other than it seems appropriate for Spaceman to throw a gospel choir on those songs because the sentiments are bigger/dumber on Come Together or Cool Waves or the whole of Let it come down because the songs suit it more, whereas with Dark Side the lyrics don't back it up. And Spiritualized would never attempt The Great Gig In The Sky...

[I. Spaceman]

And Spiritualized would never attempt The Great Gig In The Sky...

Well, maybe some folks would describe Pink Floyd's usage as more three-dimensional, and unexpected. I dunno, it seems silly to even try to defend an album as monumental as Dark Side Of The Moon. It just is, like the sky and the mountains.