A Momentary Lapse of Reason

[Mother]

I don't rate it up there with some of their masterpieces but I bought A Momentary Lapse of Reason upon it's release and loved every minute of it. Still do. I don't get the hate at all. Gilmour is a God. I recall it was a lovely accompanying album for The Final Cut/Pros and Cons which I was also listening to a lot at the time (both five-star classics mind you). I'll defend it till the pigs come home. Plus it's loads better than The Division Bell which is a bit of a borefest.

[mrfeldman]

amlor is the first Rogerless album , he isn’t missed imho. It’s typical Pink Floyd, and shows off Gilmore, Mason, & Wright’s incredible talent.
The album from start to finish is a masterpiece, I might even go as far as to say the final 2 minutes and 46 seconds of “Sorrow” is David Gilmour’s best ever guitar solo. I grew up listening to PF . I remember listening to the complete album of Dark Side at age 13. Loved it and still do.

[Annoying Twit]

For me, it sounds a bit forced. There are some great tracks like 'Sorrow' and 'On the Turning Away' that stand up to anything in the PF catalogue. Sorrow has, for me, some of Dave's best lyrics. I like 'Terminal Frost', and 'A New Machine' , and ''Round and Round' too. 'Learning to Fly' to me is a good song, but lyrically and musically I don't think it has quite the sophistication I expect from Floyd. It's a reasonable single, as it's subtly catchy, but not a great song.

I'm not such a fan of 'Dogs of War', 'One Slip', and 'Yet Another Movie'. For me, all of these songs sound like the melodies aren't finished. A good example is the bit: 'There'll be no sleep in here tonight'. To me it sounds tacked on, without having any rewarding melody or rhythm. The song doesn't have the perfection - not a note or word out of place - that really great songs should have.

[theaussiefloydian]

I honestly think AMLoR gets a bum rap. Is it a masterpiece? By no means at all. But an album that isn't so good by the lofty standards set by Pink Floyd in the 70s... still isn't really that bad.
To elaborate. There are definitely the ghosts of good ideas on this album, even in the tracks that kind of suck (I honestly can't see the point of "A New Machine", but I commend Gilmour's willingness to experiment). Sometimes those ideas grow into genuinely good tracks ("Sorrow", "On the Turning Away", and dare I say it "Yet Another Movie / Round and Around"), and sometimes they don't ("The Dogs of War" and "One Slip" being the primary offenders here). Many of these sins could probably be attributed to the production that is beyond dated now, which is one reason I am cautiously looking forward to the 2019 remix. But the album is tonally consistent. It flows pretty decently, which is one of the most important things an album needs to do. It doesn't outstay its welcome, although it's probably pushing it at 51 minutes (I realize that it isn't Pink Floyd's longest album, but for what it is it doesn't need to be any longer than 50 minutes really). And for all those reasons, I think it's pretty all right, and it's one I find myself gravitating towards these days, though it's not in any danger of becoming my favourite Floyd album.

[Kerry King]

Mason and Gilmour = Pink Floyd? I don't think so. Add Wright and I'll accept it as Pink Floyd. But not if he's simply copied and pasted onto the album.

Some of us knew in the 80s, in real time, that this production sucked. It was already dated. With outsider's fingerprints all over it. KAOS' production was just as wretched but at least the album was more honest in it's naming of the artist.

[mabewa]

Mason and Gilmour = Pink Floyd? I don't think so. Add Wright and I'll accept it as Pink Floyd. But not if he's simply copied and pasted onto the album.

I see no problem with cutting-and-pasting if it's taking real parts that Rick played in real time on the live recordings. I really don't see a major difference between having him play some great organ parts live and putting that on a studio recording and having him overdub some great organ parts on a studio recording. The latter would have been even better, granted, but based on the version of One Slip out there, they got a take of Rick just rocking out on the organ, power chords and all, and that's now the main keyboard part on the song. I think you could even argue with the way the album (and many PF albums for the last few decades) were recorded via overdubbing over the rhythm section, we probably got a more spontaneous take of Rick playing than we would have gotten from overdubbing.

Anyway, listen to the vocal sections of One Slip now, and you are primarily hearing David Gilmour, Nick Mason, Rick Wright and the Godlike Tony Levin. I'll take that as Pink Floyd.