New David Gilmour album!

[Follix]

Well I guess it's a matter of personal taste. Forget the commercial aspect, I still think that Gilmour put Pink Floyd to the next level...

I respect Syd work's but for me it's no better than what The Beatles were doing at the same time. But when we talk about DSOTM, WYWH or Animals it's something else, like another league.

[Hudini]

I respect Syd work's but for me it's no better than what The Beatles were doing at the same time.

You make it sound like the late 1960s Beatles were average at best.

[raisemyrent]

mm a few thoughts. 2 things always seem to be dogmas here. barrett was a genius and songwriting equals talent.
on the first, I honestly can't say much that's good about the barrett days. people seem to treat it like it's pure gold, but to me, it actually does sound like the beatles and the 60s quite a bit, and not in a good way. I don't want to get into the beatles much, but to me they were a very prolific and successful pop band, with a lot of different tunes throughout their catalogue, and some have stood the test of time fairly well. some are of dubious origin etc, but that is not for me to get into right now. it is also important to note the severe contrast with the individual members' solo outpost post break-up. so, yeah, I have no qualms about making comparisons to the beatles sound negative.
barrett seems to get so much credit for what to me sound naïve and childish at best, standard otherwise. YES, he was the driving force initially, YES he came up with cool ideas that went on to define pink floyd (light show etc), YES, he got Waters, Wright, and Mason into rock music, but I honestly think he gets too much credit. case in point:
viewtopic.php?f=24&t=21625
http://www.schizophrenia.com/stories/sbarrett.htm#
I severely doubt that he was thinking of chromatics, diminished 7ths, barre chords etc when he was playing. legend says he wasn't even thinking. he had an incredible naivety and innocence and enough creativity and drive to make something with it all. but that doesn't mean you can reverse engineer his stuff and reach genius level because you would need to study for years and then unlearn everything or break many rules to arrive at the same thing. let's all get a grip. the shaggs come to mind. how many of you listen to the barrett stuff? is it relevant anymore, or contextual? ground-breaking? pure melancholy?

and what's with the songwriting title equalling musical genius? isn't Dylan (another demigod here) the ultimate songwriter? I wouldn't be caught in a coma listening to his stuff, let alone his voice, but I recognise that he has written some really good SONGS throughout his life, and I infer that they are famous mainly because of the way they wrap what he has to say in an accessible form. Isn't Dylan basically folk? We're stepping into a completely different territory here, folk (and it's inbred cousin country) are characterised by their emphasis on lyrics and storytelling over musical complexity (though not always) and (specifically) diversity. the latter also applies to most blues. so why does Dylan get branded around as the ultimate talent, that Roger is compared to, when it is a different art altogether, from that which we (I presume) understand Pink Floyd to fall in? he may be a hero of Roger's but that just illustrates the point many make, which is that Roger's career has gone in a different direction since he left the Floyd, and that's just that. I personally feel it all sounds the same since somewhere between Animals and The Wall. From the drug ashes of Barrett leaving came Set the Controls by Roger, which is a magically effective yet extremely simple tune (Nick Mason's admitted favourite btw), but I don't hear 20+ years of musical progression between that and Amused to Death, let alone the more recent stuff by Roger. Think of a kid working through his/her piano grades to see what I mean (mary had a little lamb to Chopin). And as I said before, I don't hear a difference between The Wall and TFC, save for the surround sound effects and well, more sound effects. I am not willing to budge on that without a clear case with chord charts, tempos keys and melody analysis. I'm not being snobby, it's just that some things in music can in fact be objectively quantified. Rick Wright himself said that when Roger showed up with the Wall demo it was 'all the same song'.
I'm not having a go at Roger for the sake of having a go, he's a great artist who's active and doing his part. I just think we need to recognise that he was not Pink Floyd, and that he had started to move in a different direction before he left, that he is not creative genius he advertises himself to be, and that his art hasn't changed much in the last 20+ years. Also, that he is not the bar by which Pink Floyd should be judged.
His lyrics even have changed, in my opinion. They went from abstract ethereal concepts or lines (tolling of the iron bell) to very specific, political statements (all happy in the Lebanon). He also seems to have written good lyrics in the 70s, and for some, absolutely every lyric he ever wrote since is GENIUS. let's get a grip. Not only does he always seem to struggle with matching his verbal and musical syllables (have a cigar, kill the child, amused to death, half the wall etc), which is kind of lyric writing 101, but he has changed from the general concepts of the 70s to very specific things, mostly political, mostly about war. That's how you go from coral caves to a samaritan serb (incidentally I like the portion that he sings, not speaks, in that song). so, again, everyone is entitled to their opinions and we all carry genius badges to hand out, but let's maybe recognise when we are generalising a bit. Roger the lyricist with Pink Floyd is not quite the lyricist he is now. not in quality but in the nature of his work. I'm not qualifying it, I'm not a lyrics guy, I'm just pointing it out.

[mastaflatch]

Somebody here hinted that songwriting = musical genius? Not me. I was comparing songwriters, not Barrett's songwriting talent against Gilmour's musical abilities.

[Hudini]

You can not judge Syd's output by today's standards because it fits in a completely different context. While it may sound obsolete now you must remember that if it wasn't for Syd and/or The Beatles back in the 1960s, we probably wouldn't have had popular music like we do today. It makes no difference how frequently we listen to their music today, and for what reasons. Today, every art student is technically a better artist than Giotto or Botticelli, so should we then rewrite art history to say neither of them was a genius in their own right? And do we go to museums to see their works as accurate representations of nature and human anatomy or we enjoy them as invaluable pieces of art history?

[Follix]

I respect Syd work's but for me it's no better than what The Beatles were doing at the same time.

You make it sound like the late 1960s Beatles were average at best.

Yeah sorry for that... I really meant that Pink Floyd led by Syd was pretty much like the Beatles but less good... Pink Floyd is my all time favorite, but if we only take the 60's I prefer Jimi Hendrix, The Doors, King Crimson, evenThe Moody Blues and obviously the Beatles...

I mean ''Arnold Layne'', ''The Scarecrow'', ''See Emily Play'', ''Astronomy Domine''... Fine fun songs but pretty bland compared to what was to come.

[BertWW96]

It occurs to me that Gilmour & Waters stopping working together (and I know they weren't the only people in PF) is like if cake and frosting broke up - then you'd see which part of it meant the most to you, and you'd find out that neither is much the same without the other there (as for me, I happen to enjoy both).

[kjek1]

Kjek gets so worked up and emotional.

Hey just because I'm correcting you doesn't mean I'm getting worked up. As long as you post drivel I'll correct it, you can keep ignoring my corrections too, but I'll still correct it

Barrett was never a genius in my opinion, I think he got that tag because of what happened to him. I think Roger's a bit of a lyrical genius, he's not the most gifted as far as composing the musical side of things goes though as his post Wall career so blatantly shows.

How are Radiohead getting on these days by the way? *chortle*

[mastaflatch]

Sorry for going off-topic here, kjek, here's a nice analysis of the lyrics to Syd's Octopus from Syd's brand new website: http://www.sydbarrett.com/featured-song/

[Follix]

We can speculate about Syd's talent forever but we will never really know... But my only point is that I doubt he could have put Pink Floyd to the same level than David Gilmour did.

Only taking material that got released, Gilmour is the best composer but off course, he wrote his best stuff around or over 30 year old (imo Dogs, Comfortably Numb, High Hopes, his best ''solo or almost solo'' work.) While Syd was already a spent force at 23... It's not a fair comparison.

[mastaflatch]

This is a clusterfuck of subjectivity.

I love all Floyd eras, I respect all of them.

I'm also interested in the history of rock music and while Waters and Gilmour were directly involved in writing absolutely A-grade classic songs, the inherent originality of those lie more in the musical clothes they were dressed in and/or the awesome concepts they were culled from. You bare most of Waters' and Gilmour's songs from their artifices and they're good, of course, but they don't push the art of songwriting. They're just great songs. While on Barrett's side, you don't have to search very far to find bare-bones versions of his songs and realize that this guy was very often ignoring most conventions in order to abstractly express some very human facets of life, he was adjusting the music to fit some odd rythyms in his lyrics thus producing asymmetrical bars and a wildly unique sense of timing. When you first listen to many Barrett's songs, there's an unsettling feeling that you just can't predict what is gonna happen at any moment because he's freed himself from the conventions of pop music while being totally able to play within them at times. Latter-day Pink Floyd music is the exact opposite of this because the band was playing within its defined boundaries. It's still a massive achievement because it's unmistikably Pink Floyd but it's also a creative cage. Just look at how closed-mind some of their fans are - "Oh my gosh, what the fuck is that crappy jazzy song on Gilmour's last album! I'm shocked! It doesn't sound like the idea of Pink Floyd we're used to!". And that's sad that for a band that built its carreer by pushing the enveloppe, many of its fans stick pathetically to a stereotype of a stereotype rather than to some adventurous spirit of discovery and sideways.

[Flathead]

Syd founded and named Pink Floyd.

Without him...nothing.


Syd started alternative rock and rave music (the insane jams early on for Interstellar Overdrive). He was Bowie's hero. He is widely regarded as one of the greatest songwriters of all time. Piper at the Gates of Down is in the top 100 all time at Rate Your Music. And compared to Sgt. Peppers, it sounds alive and edgy.

That said, Roger Waters learned from the master, and then one-upped him. Syd never wrote a song as good as Wish You Were Here.

No one did.

Not even The Beatles or Dylan.

And no one could write an entire album, then tour it 40 years later and become the largest grossing solo act of all time without being an absolute freaking genius.

That was Roger Waters.

[Follix]

That said, Roger Waters learned from the master, and then one-upped him. Syd never wrote a song as good as Wish You Were Here.

No one did.

Not even The Beatles or Dylan.

That's subjective... i do believe a few bands (The Beatles, Zeppelin, Queen, Genesis, Dire Straits...) did write a song better than WYWH... However nobody wrote a song better than ''Comfortably Numb''.

See it's subjective

[Flathead]

That said, Roger Waters learned from the master, and then one-upped him. Syd never wrote a song as good as Wish You Were Here.

No one did.

Not even The Beatles or Dylan.

That's subjective... i do believe a few bands (The Beatles, Zeppelin, Queen, Genesis, Dire Straits...) did write a song better than WYWH... However nobody wrote a song better than ''Comfortably Numb''.

See it's subjective

That's another song no one has topped. That's why this band is the best. The subtlety of Roger's "dark" (verse) and Gilmour's "light' (chorus) is simply on a level that has never been matched in popular music.

Genesis and Dire Straits are terrible.

[brell]

Syd founded and named Pink Floyd.

Without him...nothing.

While I totally agree that without Syd there would not have been any PF (but the Tea Set would propably have washed away), it is simply wrong that Syd founded PF. He joined the band Tea Set in autumn 1964. Then, about a year later, he came up with the alternative name "The Pink Floyd Sound" to distinct the band from another band also named Tea Set on a concert on an old RAF airport somewhere in Northolt. As Mason put it: "It was very much a case of Syd joining us rather than him recruiting a band".