Divisive thread alert

[mosespa]

The Final Cut is always going to have a special place in my heart just because it was the first NEW PINK FLOYD ALBUM since I'd become aware of them through the release of The Wall (which was already out by the time I'd discovered the band.)

I still remember randomly finding the "When The Tigers Broke Free" single in the mall and seeing that it was from the at-the-time forthcoming new album "The Final Cut."

It was the first Pink Floyd album that I kept an eye open for...wondering what the cover was going to look like, if I'd recognize it when I saw it. Then, one day, it was just there. The first album in the "Pink Floyd" section of the bin. I picked it up and looked at it, but didn't buy it. I was only 12 and didn't have my own money; plus, my Grandparents weren't eager to throw any of their money at Pink Floyd after I dragged Grandpa to a midnight showing of The Wall not even six months before.

A few months later and I was seeing the video for "Not Now John" on Cinemax's 30 minute (or so) music video program that happened between some movies. It reminded me of "Young Lust," but also, somehow, not quite as good.

I joined my high school's Speech Forensics team and would routinely use the money that my grandparents would give me to buy lunch and dinner at meets, to instead buy cassettes; one of those cassettes was "The Final Cut."

Everything about it seemed to signal some kind of finality. It even seemed to me to make sense as a conclusion for the band. Of course, by this time (late 86/early 87,) it was accepted that they were done. I was collecting their albums bit-by-bit. I had two copies of Dark Side Of The Moon on vinyl; the same was true of "The Wall," and I think I still had a copy of it on 8-track when I got the second vinyl copy.

Just after my Junior year started, I got excited about the new Pink Floyd album I was hearing was coming...but that excitement was leavened with a bit of wariness because I'd been hearing that Waters wasn't coming back. I was even a little worried about a trend I was seeing beginning to develop where these great 70's rock bands were coming out with new albums that were just sterile facsimiles of previous albums (Boston's "Third Stage," anyone?) I wondered if the 80's deserved another Pink Floyd album (the music had gotten really shitty ever since "Take On Me" had been released.)

I'd already graduated to a larger bedroom, had a waterbed, psychedelic lights, black lights, fluorescent posters, etc. etc. etc. and "Learning To Fly" fit that atmosphere as well as "Baba O'Riley" did or "Dark Side Of The Moon." I liked "One Slip" quite a lot and "On The Turning Away" was tolerable. But everything after that sounded like it was all one song, just broken up into sections with other things ("A New Machine") getting tossed in when they couldn't figure out how to make the segues work.

Which, to be fair, describes some of their best albums...but that was kind of the point. At least "Echoes" was a good song; "Dark Side Of The Moon" fits this formula, so I'll say that it's a "good song."

This "Sorrow," thing was...bland; generic. There was nothing inherently Pink Floyd about it beyond the attempt at creating a specific atmosphere. To that end, well done...but the song, man. The song was monotonous. I think I'd have felt better about it as a DG solo release.

To me, TFC seems more like a "Pink Floyd Album" than AMLOR in the sense that at least TFC was a move forward from The Wall.

AMLOR was an attempt to take a step back, but still "be relevant" with the now-dated production.

[Kerry King]

The only pf album that might be worse than AMLOR is the studio album from Ummagumma. Actually, studio Ummagumma is better. AMLOR is a piece of shit in many ways.

TFC is a good album. The sound is infinitely superior to AMLOR and the great songs are easily greater.

[Yucateco]

The Final Cut is always going to have a special place in my heart just because it was the first NEW PINK FLOYD ALBUM since I'd become aware of them through the release of The Wall (which was already out by the time I'd discovered the band.)

I still remember randomly finding the "When The Tigers Broke Free" single in the mall and seeing that it was from the at-the-time forthcoming new album "The Final Cut."

It was the first Pink Floyd album that I kept an eye open for...wondering what the cover was going to look like, if I'd recognize it when I saw it. Then, one day, it was just there. The first album in the "Pink Floyd" section of the bin. I picked it up and looked at it, but didn't buy it. I was only 12 and didn't have my own money; plus, my Grandparents weren't eager to throw any of their money at Pink Floyd after I dragged Grandpa to a midnight showing of The Wall not even six months before.

A few months later and I was seeing the video for "Not Now John" on Cinemax's 30 minute (or so) music video program that happened between some movies. It reminded me of "Young Lust," but also, somehow, not quite as good.

I joined my high school's Speech Forensics team and would routinely use the money that my grandparents would give me to buy lunch and dinner at meets, to instead buy cassettes; one of those cassettes was "The Final Cut."

Everything about it seemed to signal some kind of finality. It even seemed to me to make sense as a conclusion for the band. Of course, by this time (late 86/early 87,) it was accepted that they were done. I was collecting their albums bit-by-bit. I had two copies of Dark Side Of The Moon on vinyl; the same was true of "The Wall," and I think I still had a copy of it on 8-track when I got the second vinyl copy.

Just after my Junior year started, I got excited about the new Pink Floyd album I was hearing was coming...but that excitement was leavened with a bit of wariness because I'd been hearing that Waters wasn't coming back. I was even a little worried about a trend I was seeing beginning to develop where these great 70's rock bands were coming out with new albums that were just sterile facsimiles of previous albums (Boston's "Third Stage," anyone?) I wondered if the 80's deserved another Pink Floyd album (the music had gotten really shitty ever since "Take On Me" had been released.)

I'd already graduated to a larger bedroom, had a waterbed, psychedelic lights, black lights, fluorescent posters, etc. etc. etc. and "Learning To Fly" fit that atmosphere as well as "Baba O'Riley" did or "Dark Side Of The Moon." I liked "One Slip" quite a lot and "On The Turning Away" was tolerable. But everything after that sounded like it was all one song, just broken up into sections with other things ("A New Machine") getting tossed in when they couldn't figure out how to make the segues work.

Which, to be fair, describes some of their best albums...but that was kind of the point. At least "Echoes" was a good song; "Dark Side Of The Moon" fits this formula, so I'll say that it's a "good song."

This "Sorrow," thing was...bland; generic. There was nothing inherently Pink Floyd about it beyond the attempt at creating a specific atmosphere. To that end, well done...but the song, man. The song was monotonous. I think I'd have felt better about it as a DG solo release.

To me, TFC seems more like a "Pink Floyd Album" than AMLOR in the sense that at least TFC was a move forward from The Wall.

AMLOR was an attempt to take a step back, but still "be relevant" with the now-dated production.

It is really funny how opinions about the albums vary. I too love TFC, one of my top three Floyd albums and I actually do like AMLOR, but in a completely different way than you: imho learning to fly and one slip are two of the worst Floyd ever released, but I love Sorrow and Yet another Movie.

[Yucateco]

exactly that, people are still stuck in that mind set and repeating the same thing's even now and only a few minority have changed their opinion on the post waters era thanks too the The Later Year's release and grown too like it & have changed their past opinion and like the songs/albums and tours after dis crediting them for what they are & seeing Roger for what he really is.

People are not stuck in a mindset. People don’t need to “see Roger for what he really is” (or how you want to have them see him). Maybe we have the same boring conversation over and over again because of witty remarks like this?

[battra]

The Final Cut is...

Well it's ABOUT something.

A Momentary Lapse of Reason...isn't. It's 80's Yacht Rock. (Quite good 80's yacht rock.)

As Floyd is a band that's best when actually saying something, I choose The Final Cut.

[theaussiefloydian]

The Final Cut is...

Well it's ABOUT something.

This is true. I find Final Cut to be a bit of a slog on occasion, and would much rather listen to Momentary Lapse any day, but it's also Pink Floyd's most direct message and I have a certain amount of respect for it on that part (even if its directness is a result of Waters pretty much running the entire show)

[henno]

AMLOR is cocaine fuelled 80s pomp rock.

Its better than a hell of a lot of generic 80s pomp rock that was released at the that time, but it is not even in the same category as The Final Cut to me.

TFC is a very personal album. That's patent throughout it. It's Rogers dam breaking free and spewing his anti war feelings onto a lyrics page.

As the band were acrimonious by then, it's no wonder that the music is sparse and lacking.

As Floyd albums go, AMLOR is bottom of the pile, and TFC is about halfway on the ladder.

[battra]

The Final Cut is...

Well it's ABOUT something.

This is true. I find Final Cut to be a bit of a slog on occasion, and would much rather listen to Momentary Lapse any day, but it's also Pink Floyd's most direct message and I have a certain amount of respect for it on that part (even if its directness is a result of Waters pretty much running the entire show)

I cannot imagine listening to it and not agreeing with it...

And it's not the best album Floyd did...not the worst either, and I'm including ONLY the Waters albums there.

It's more on brand to me than AMOLR.

As for anyone else? YMMV

[theaussiefloydian]

I cannot imagine listening to it and not agreeing with it...

Oh I don't disagree with it - far from it. I just don't think the music on a lot of the tracks is much good (the sax solo on "The Gunner's Dream" being quite silly in my opinion for example). But I am known to listen to it from time to time, though I still by far prefer the pre 2004 track listing.

[ZiggyZipgun]

As Floyd is a band that's best when actually saying something, I choose The Final Cut.

They were usually conveying something, but more often than not, it was intentionally broad and to some extent universally relatable. To then write an album about something that happened one month prior, contrast it with sentiments from several decades prior, while promoting a tax-funded welfare state after having only just returned from living as a tax exile for several years prior...it is obsessive yet somehow unfocused, and it's hypocritical - another one of Roger's recurring themes. Musically...who the hell was this written for? Was this some aristocratic chamber rock overture to butter up his second wife before unveiling his adulterous fever-dream song-cycle?

[theaussiefloydian]

To then write an album about something that happened one month prior, contrast it with sentiments from several decades prior

Not that I've made myself known on this forum for going to bat for Waters, but I feel like this is a bit of a narrow look at The Final Cut. It's always struck me as being about war in general, just using the Falklands as a focal point. Because of this, references to different wars are inevitable, but I don't recall many direct references to the Second World War (going forth I am referring to the pre-2004 tracklist, simply because I like it more). "The Hero's Return" might reference it, but given that it's about the Teacher from The Wall, that was to be expected. "The Gunner's Dream" is also probably set in WWII, but again its general purpose is to make a simple point - that the gunner had a dream. The setting could be any war really, so the World War II setting is not totally relevant. And of course the Final Solution allusions in "The Fletcher Memorial Home" are really there as a roundabout way for Waters to say hyperbolically "f-ck these leaders, I hope they cook."

Musically...who the hell was this written for? Was this some aristocratic chamber rock overture to butter up his second wife before unveiling his adulterous fever-dream song-cycle?

Now I can sympathize with this first part - musically I will stand on the hill that this album isn't much good - but this is a baffling reference to The Pros and Cons of Hitch-Hiking. Wasn't the point of that album that Reg's dream was him working through a violent mid-life crisis? Not a particularly graceful metaphor I'll grant you, but that album has sod-all to do with The Final Cut.

[Kerry King]

Musically...who the hell was (tfc) written for?

For that matter...who was Learning To Fly written for? Record label execs, radio programmers?

(the sax solo on "The Gunner's Dream" being quite silly in my opinion

A Gilmour solo would have been fine. Or maybe Sonny Rollins...

[ZiggyZipgun]

this is a baffling reference to The Pros and Cons of Hitch-Hiking. Wasn't the point of that album that Reg's dream was him working through a violent mid-life crisis? Not a particularly graceful metaphor I'll grant you, but that album has sod-all to do with The Final Cut.

I was suggesting that the only person listening to largely acoustic and sparsely symphonic music in the early '80s was Lady Carolyne Christie, whose husband was about to awkwardly release an album about cheating on his wife.

Also, the "post-war dream" was the hope that following World War II, countries would work together to diplomatically resolve conflicts rather than resorting to military action. It's why the United Nations was established. The UN had specifically mandated de-colonization to avoid territorial disputes like this. The fact that 255 Englishmen died to keep a cluster of islands near Antarctica under British authority was fairly offensive to those who believed that their loved ones died in World War II so that this would never happen again. World War I was similarly viewed as "the war to end all wars" but was ultimately responsible for World War II and just about every other military conflict that's occurred since.

For that matter...who was Learning To Fly written for? Record label execs, radio programmers?

It wouldn't have been of much use to either of them if it didn't sell like hotcakes, which it did.

[theaussiefloydian]

Also, the "post-war dream" was the hope that following World War II, countries would work together to diplomatically resolve conflicts rather than resorting to military action. It's why the United Nations was established. The UN had specifically mandated de-colonization to avoid territorial disputes like this. The fact that 255 Englishmen died to keep a cluster of islands near Antarctica under British authority was fairly offensive to those who believed that their loved ones died in World War II so that this would never happen again. World War I was similarly viewed as "the war to end all wars" but was ultimately responsible for World War II and just about every other military conflict that's occurred since.

This is, in a roundabout way, kind of what I was getting at. The Final Cut is using the Falklands as a focal point to ask what happened to the post war dream. One other reference to WWII makes this plain in the song "The Post-War Dream" - "was it for this that Daddy died?" While the references to the Falklands contemporize the album, it's still about the general cycle of war and the half hearted follow up of "never again" from the respective governments. I don't think much of the album as a whole, but it's definitely thematically consistent.

[battra]

I cannot imagine listening to it and not agreeing with it...

Oh I don't disagree with it - far from it. I just don't think the music on a lot of the tracks is much good (the sax solo on "The Gunner's Dream" being quite silly in my opinion for example). But I am known to listen to it from time to time, though I still by far prefer the pre 2004 track listing.

I don't think I was clear.

I mean, if you didn't agree with the points, then listening to it.

I couldn't imagine that.