Pink Floyd - Obscured By Clouds

Discussions about Pink Floyd and Solo Official Album CDs and DVDs.

Rate This Album

5 - Best
19
17%
4
57
50%
3
28
25%
2
7
6%
1 - Worst
2
2%
 
Total votes: 113

nat
Embryo
Embryo
Posts: 8
Joined: Sun Jan 29, 2012 11:07 pm
Gender: Male

Re: Pink Floyd - Obscured By Clouds

Post by nat »

Agreed... While Obscured doesn't make my top 4 favorite PF albums list, it's a very highly underrated album. It differs from my favorites (WYWH, Animals, Wall, TFC) in that it lacks a cohesive trademark PF 'concept;' the tracks are kind of all over the spectrum. The songs are mostly all really good, though, and the musicianship is outstanding. Songs like Mudmen really foreshadow what was coming a year later on DSOTM. I've always viewed Obscured as sort of a DSOTM 'rehearsal.'
RonToon
Blade
Blade
Posts: 248
Joined: Sun Jan 18, 2009 8:47 pm
Gender: Male

Re: Pink Floyd - Obscured By Clouds

Post by RonToon »

For years I dismissed More and OBC but now I'm really into them. I like all eras of Floyd and I regard the soundtracks as a category as well. Both soundtracks are stripped down song cycles and there are hidden gems on each. These days when I reach for a Floyd album there's a good chance that I'll listen to both of these back to back... that is when I'm not listening to a boot. <ii>
ricky66
Axe
Axe
Posts: 58
Joined: Sun Sep 28, 2008 2:10 pm
Gender: Male
Location: City of Churches

Re: Pink Floyd - Obscured By Clouds

Post by ricky66 »

Sonic Destruction wrote:
J Ed wrote:I would guess the opposite is also true
Childhoods End has a similar energy and groove to the studio version of Time
but we can hear from 1972 shows, eg Best of Tour 72, that originally Time was a very sleepy number, sounding something like Space Oddity
so I think they decided to make Time sound a little more like Daves new song, which may also be why Childhoods End disappeared from the setlist so fast
That could well be true. Either way, both Dave's song and "Time" are awesome, and ended up sounding quite different from each other (to my ears). Perhaps any similarities can be put down to "conceptual continuity"?

Grab ur guitar and bash out the intro to Childhoods End, then crank into Have a cigar, there's your recycling in full swing.

I love to play through the (short and) very sharp solo in Childhoods End, sometimes without the catch on the G left in the studio performance! I love this track, more than anything else in the PF catalogue. Who copied who with the lyrics? Don't really care, Time and CE are so far apart it doesn't matter, but if I was to guess, based on the fact that RW didn't demand a writing credit, it's all down to DG. :roll:
User avatar
rememberaday
Judge!
Judge!
Posts: 1571
Joined: Fri Apr 13, 2012 1:45 pm
Gender: Male
Location: Gravity Eyelids

Re: Pink Floyd - Obscured By Clouds

Post by rememberaday »

Pink Floyd has taught us one thing - NEVER UNDERESTIMATE SOUNDTRACKS!! <ii> <ii>

Along with More, one of this strongest efforts as a group. I give it a high 4.
User avatar
thefinalcut
Hammer
Hammer
Posts: 836
Joined: Fri Mar 11, 2005 7:57 pm
Gender: Female
Location: Argentina

Re: Pink Floyd - Obscured By Clouds

Post by thefinalcut »

It´s a nice album, but sort of overrated in some way...
Free Four is the worst track.
Really love The Gold Is In The...
FreeFour
Knife
Knife
Posts: 278
Joined: Thu Apr 19, 2012 5:44 pm
Gender: Male
Location: Surrey, England UK

Re: Pink Floyd - Obscured By Clouds

Post by FreeFour »

A solid 4/5

Not a well known album to the casual Floyd fan, but those who know it, know it well.
User avatar
Massed Gadgets
Supreme Lord!
Supreme Lord!
Posts: 5001
Joined: Thu Feb 24, 2005 8:16 am
Location: Take it easy, man

Re: Pink Floyd - Obscured By Clouds

Post by Massed Gadgets »

Yes, 4 out of 5 works well for this album. A real hidden gem in the Floyd collection. Some great songs on this album.
Morty
Axe
Axe
Posts: 74
Joined: Thu Oct 09, 2014 9:11 pm

Re: Pink Floyd - Obscured By Clouds

Post by Morty »

Not a bad album at all, but a strong 3 from me. It has its ups and downs, but I do put it on now and then. My main problem is the mix, it sounds very flat.
OBYKA
Axe
Axe
Posts: 62
Joined: Wed Sep 03, 2014 5:51 pm

Re: Pink Floyd - Obscured By Clouds

Post by OBYKA »

Definitely a step back after Meddle. Only Wots Uh the Deal and Childhoods End are worth a listen and are solid tracks.
mabewa
Axe
Axe
Posts: 93
Joined: Mon Sep 09, 2019 6:32 am

Re: Pink Floyd - Obscured By Clouds

Post by mabewa »

I'd give it a solid 4, and definitely think it's overlooked. It's a laid-back, unadorned album, but has a few minor classics (Childhood's End, Free Four, Burning Bridges, Wot's the Deal), and there are no stinkers. It's quite interesting that the sound is similar to that of DSotM, but much more stripped down and less produced.

The only 2 songs that I could kind of take or less are 'When You're In' (nice riffs but doesn't really go anywhere) and "The Gold It's in the...' The latter is a seriously odd song by Floyd standards, as the lyrics and music sound like typical early 70's hard rock--really no hint of progressive elements. I'm assuming that Roger wrote those lyrics, but they sound sound like him at all. They are even less typical than something like 'San Tropez.' Normally, I like it when Roger writes less-serious stuff, but these lyrics are too generic.

But nothing really offends me, the other instruments all have nice moods, 'Stay' is pretty good,' and the 4 tracks above are great, so it's quite a good album overall in my book.
User avatar
theaussiefloydian
Hammer
Hammer
Posts: 683
Joined: Mon Apr 17, 2017 6:57 pm
Gender: Male
Location: Down Unda

Re: Pink Floyd - Obscured By Clouds

Post by theaussiefloydian »

I would ordinarily give it a 3.5/5, but since that's not possible I feel it's closer to a 4 than a 3 to that's what I clicked.
I agree with Nick Mason's assertion that this is a really good LP. Is it Pink Floyd's best? No. But it is highly listenable, and flows extremely well, much better than a lot of pre-Dark Side Floyd albums. There aren't any songs that actively strike me as a lesser effort (except maybe "Stay", but even that one isn't bad per se, just more not my cuppa tea), and it's clear that more than anything else Pink Floyd were enjoying recording this album. The closing track also has a surprisingly creepy feeling to it, which I totally dig. From the glam rock fun of "The Gold It's In the..." to the calmer tones of "Wots... uh, the Deal?" to the tonal dissonance between the music and the lyrics on "Free Four", I can't find anything on this LP to take drastic issue with.
User avatar
space triangle
Hammer
Hammer
Posts: 858
Joined: Tue Jan 21, 2020 1:25 pm

Re: Pink Floyd - Obscured By Clouds

Post by space triangle »

This is not a very cohesive album, and very much in the three-minute pop song style. But. some brilliant songs nonetheless. 4 out of 5
User avatar
DarkSideFreak
Knife
Knife
Posts: 319
Joined: Wed Aug 05, 2015 4:22 pm
Gender: Male

Re: Pink Floyd - Obscured By Clouds

Post by DarkSideFreak »

In the 5 category myself. There's an energy, an infectious live feel to the tracks that can still be heard on DSOTM, but then vanished completely from PF's music. Is OBC their most important album? No, but it's their most fun. And I really like the tracks, only Absolutely Curtains drags on too long for my taste.

Special mention goes out to David's guitar tone on "Mudmen". :shock: Floors me every time.
User avatar
space triangle
Hammer
Hammer
Posts: 858
Joined: Tue Jan 21, 2020 1:25 pm

Re: Pink Floyd - Obscured By Clouds

Post by space triangle »

As we know this album was about a woman who along with a group of people travel into the remote interior of New Guineau in search of a valley that is marked on the map simply as "Obscured By Clouds". From the opening song 'Obscured by Clouds' fram to the last song 'Aabsolutely Curtains' the music and songs (thematically) accompanies a group of people in their search of that lost valley. Does this make OBC first PF's concept album?
ZiggyZipgun
Hammer
Hammer
Posts: 1236
Joined: Mon May 05, 2008 3:04 pm

Re: Pink Floyd - Obscured By Clouds

Post by ZiggyZipgun »

space triangle wrote: Tue Aug 04, 2020 10:33 amDoes this make OBC first PF's concept album?
Again, I don't think film soundtracks should be counted as concept albums. If someone creates a concept for a film, then hires someone else to create incidental music (or source music, in the case of More) to include in the film, that's very different from a songwriter or a group of musicians coming up with an original concept and creating a standalone album based on that. Of course, The Who (and later, Roger) flipped the script by creating a concept album, and then making a film version of it.

Prior to recorded media, there was program music and absolute music - music that "attempts to render an extra-musical narrative, musically" and music that, well...doesn't. The "program" was usually a physical printed program with an explanation of what each movement is about, or could just sum it up in the title of the piece.

During the interviews in the Pompeii film, Gilmour jokes about Berlioz - whose Symphonie fantastique: Épisode de la vie d'un artiste…en cinq parties (Fantastical Symphony: Episode in the Life of an Artist…in Five Sections) was not only programmatic, but according to Leonard Bernstein, the first musical expedition into psychedelia: "You take a trip, you wind up screaming at your own funeral." It was written in 1830. (Gilmour was referring to Te Deum, which Berlioz really did perform with a combined orchestra and choir of 900 to 950 people, inside a cathedral.)

My big question is whether or not Pink Floyd were familiar with Ottorino Respighi's The Pines of Rome, which was not only a tone poem about the same length as "Echoes" that came with a program of descriptions, but also used a recording of bird sounds on stage during a specific point in the performance - the first use of sampling, in 1924.

https://youtu.be/mdve48nptNk?t=175

The opening of Respighi's Belkis, Queen of Sheba (1934) sounds eerily similar to "Shine On".

https://youtu.be/3FBlL-_kXNk