Pink Floyd - Zabriskie Point soundtrack

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

Rate this album

5 - Best
1
3%
4
12
38%
3
8
25%
2
8
25%
1 - Worst
3
9%
 
Total votes: 32

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Enish
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Re: Pink Floyd - Zabriskie Point soundtrack

Post by Enish »

danielcaux wrote:Does any of you have alternate/personal running orders for an hypothetical Zabriskie Point Floyd only album?
I never tried to string together the Zabriskie tracks as such. I see the tracks that actually made it into the movie and the ones on the bootleg as part of 2 separate entities. The ones that are actually in Zabriskie Point are the result of Antonioni's pickiness and his control over the film soundtrack, whereas the tracks on the bootleg are all Floyd. If the band had their way, most, if not all, of the tracks on that bootleg would have made it into the film. We would have gotten a more polished version of "The Violent Sequence" (not counting "Us and Them"), possibly another whole official album, etc.
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Re: Pink Floyd - Zabriskie Point soundtrack

Post by rememberaday »

Hmm. Gave it a 2. Not that it's awful, but it's not really interesting in any way. They sound like mere rip offs of More.
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Re: Pink Floyd - Zabriskie Point soundtrack

Post by RonToon »

Other than Crumbling Land I really dislike this album. Antonioni only really wanted a variation of Careful and seemed to string the band along for a couple of weeks in the studio, disliking everything they submitted. The Floyd just played along with this and never really had their heart in the project, unlike the Schroeder films.

Walter/Wromanus (on Yeeshkul) did extensive research on the recording of this album and with some help (under the MQR label) did a fine job cleaning up all the bootleg tracks and faithfully recreated their full soundtrack album that was submitted for this project.

http://www.yeeshkul.com/forum/showthread.php?p=160334
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Re: Pink Floyd - Zabriskie Point soundtrack

Post by my breakfast. »

I'm going to have to recycle my own writing here... :lol:

I posted about this a few months ago on a different forum (Ron might know what I mean). My issue was that certain collectors were giving Z-point far too much credence in terms of the artistic product. My (somewhat stinging) response was;

To me, Z-point PROVES Pink Floyd could not create good music on the fly. The 'strongest' cut is basically Careful with that Axe but transposed up a tone to the key of E. This is all Antonioni (onionioni) wanted from the band. He must have heard Ummagumma. The rest was superfluous garbage that didn't meet his requirements.

Some of the tracks are 3rd rate country rock, but as badly hammed in by a middle-class English rock band. Buffallo Springfield could fart better melodies. That song about chess (as a clumsy metaphore for 'can't we all just get along') is lumpy, heavy handed and dull. Oenoni is boring ambient organ music. Another track is Narrow Way part 2 (basically Dave trying and failing to play the intro to Dear Prudence for 5 minutes). Other tracks are Rick dialing it in on vibraphone and piano. Literally "ring ring, there's a call from a Mr. Wright for you sir" levels of dialed in. Seriously, the guy didn't know enough music theory to improvise anything on piano that a highschool student couldn't dial in. If anybody played piano in a psuedo-intellectual manner it was Rick Wright on the Z-point recording sessions. All sorts of jaggy half-assed Debusy-lite without any of the context.

The whole Z-point mania on this forum seems to be little to do with the actual music and more of an attempt to dig out the full context of those 1969 sessions AND catalogue every butt-scratch they recorded during that time. Commendable I agree, but you might as well be recording the numbers of railway engines going past your house or something, although the inevitable drama that every new thread causes is amusing.
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Re: Pink Floyd - Zabriskie Point soundtrack

Post by danielcaux »

The style of that vitriolic rant did seem familiar back then... hehehe.
RonToon wrote:Walter/Wromanus (on Yeeshkul) did extensive research on the recording of this album and with some help (under the MQR label) did a fine job cleaning up all the bootleg tracks and faithfully recreated their full soundtrack album that was submitted for this project.
Yeah, that and Heywood's version is what I'm listening right now, but neither does the job for me though, as a listenable Floyd album. That said, regardless of the actual quality of the music recorded by the band during those sessions, Wromanus research is something to admire an be grateful for. I wish that kind of research and info and audio sources existed for every Floyd studio session. Is kinda like those DVDs about the making of Dark Side Of The Moon and WYWH, not absolute must haves but interesting to watch and listen if you want to know more about, and witness, the creative process of the band in the studio.

Like I said before there's stuff I reeeeally like from these sessions. I've always been a fan of Heart Beat, Pig Meat (the grand daddy of Speak To Me), that version of Eugene (by far the best studio version of that song :) ) and Crumbling Land (Floyd trying to sound like The Grateful Dead?) And there's good stuff in the unreleased tracks too, some of those spacey Love Scenes would work really well on a spacerock comp with tracks like Set The Controls and Main Theme and Quicksilver from More. The harpsichord version of Country Song is lovely too, it's short and lacks the stupid lyrics from the full song version, always a good thing. Too bad all those decent tracks don't work very well as a whole. But oh weel, I'm glad we can listen to all those outtakes anyway. I would loooove to be able to do the same with the Meddle, AHM, Gumma, More, Saucerful or Piper sessions... You know, Floyd's thrash is the fans' treasure, but they don't seem to get that.
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Re: Pink Floyd - Zabriskie Point soundtrack

Post by RonToon »

my breakfast. wrote:The whole Z-point mania on this forum seems to be little to do with the actual music and more of an attempt to dig out the full context of those 1969 sessions AND catalogue every butt-scratch they recorded during that time. Commendable I agree, but you might as well be recording the numbers of railway engines going past your house or something, although the inevitable drama that every new thread causes is amusing.
Or count the distance to the studio and include that as part of the title to prove how tediously worthless the research ultimately is?
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Re: Pink Floyd - Zabriskie Point soundtrack

Post by my breakfast. »

But its 96 Roman Yards damnit! Can't you see! This information makes your life so much more complete!

Actually having a cursory glance at that new Z-point release it appears to be much the same as my old scratchy CD-R copies of the Z point stuff I got five years ago (at least). Pimpin' new artwork though.
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Re: Pink Floyd - Zabriskie Point soundtrack

Post by omeaeol »

TheLazenby wrote:Nope, none of the bonus tracks are "Oenone." We got Love Scene No. 4, which is a Richard piano improv; and Love Scene No. 6, which is simply the blues jam they did live.

Three takes of what became known as "Oenone" seem to be Love Scenes No. 1, 2, and 3.
Actually, there are four takes with similar themes. On the OMAY YAD bootleg the instrumental piece under the title "Oenone" is NOT identical to either of the "Love Scene" Versions (e.g., 1, 2 & 3). So it seems that there have been 7 "Love Scene" versions (no. 4 being a piano piece, officially released [piano + vibes in a different mix, unreleased], no. 5 the vibes, no. 6 is the blues jam, officially released [likewise, there is an alternate mix, available on bootlegs only]).


Otherwise the tracks composed to Zabriskie Point (especially the unreleased ones) are the finest representatives of the quintessential Pink Floyd Sound.
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Re: Pink Floyd - Zabriskie Point soundtrack

Post by rememberaday »

What's all this fuss about love scenes? They ain't great, ya know. <.8.>
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Re: Pink Floyd - Zabriskie Point soundtrack

Post by omeaeol »

rememberaday wrote:What's all this fuss about love scenes? They ain't great, ya know.
No, I did not know that - and I never will. I only guess that anyone bashing Zabriskie Point (or Ummagumma, recorded the same year) may have failed to recognize some of the finest representations of the true ( = psychedelic) Pink Floyd Sound.
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Re: Pink Floyd - Zabriskie Point soundtrack

Post by my breakfast. »

Or we just don't have aspergers and therefore fail to give a fuck about such sub-standard music.
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Re: Pink Floyd - Zabriskie Point soundtrack

Post by rememberaday »

omeaeol wrote:
rememberaday wrote:What's all this fuss about love scenes? They ain't great, ya know.
No, I did not know that - and I never will. I only guess that anyone bashing Zabriskie Point (or Ummagumma, recorded the same year) may have failed to recognize some of the finest representations of the true ( = psychedelic) Pink Floyd Sound.
I'm not bashing Zabriskie point, in fact I love psychedelic Floyd a lot from Piper to More and even Ummagumma and the live shows they did in '69. That you like the album does not mean that it is THE finest representation of psychedelic Floyd and anyone who dislikes this album is a twat. Peace
my breakfast. wrote:Or we just don't have aspergers and therefore fail to give a fuck about such sub-standard music.
What's up with the Asperger's bit? :?
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Re: Pink Floyd - Zabriskie Point soundtrack

Post by my breakfast. »

The original compiler of the Z-point album on Yeeshkul definitely has a tenuous grasp of the social skills. Seriously he got through 3 threads and many more forum members trying to achieve his goal. For something as 'glorious' as a concise Z-point collection he annoyed a lot of people. His obsessive compiler behaviour coupled with a distinct lack of personality lead me to conclude he has aspergers. To me it isn't even about the music it is more about the little nugget of truth derived from owning all of the Z-point material. A lot of it is basic music at best.
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Re: Pink Floyd - Zabriskie Point soundtrack

Post by RonToon »

my breakfast. wrote:His obsessive compiler behaviour coupled with a distinct lack of personality lead me to conclude he has aspergers.
I don't think so because I know some folks who met/know him. He may be compulsively obsessed by this material but other than that he seems to be a likeable, very social person.

What surprised me was when he hunted down and PM'ed those who downloaded his torrents w/o selecting the THANKS button. That's what tipped the scales for me.
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Re: Pink Floyd - Zabriskie Point soundtrack

Post by my breakfast. »

That behaviour sort of tips me off too. To me the whole deal was easily 25% the actual uncovering of new material to give to the Floyd community and 75% the arrogant need to be seen to be the one who made it all happen taking sole credit. I find that conspiracy theorists behave the same way; they want to be the ones who are 'smart' enough to work out the Aurora shooting was done by the CIA or whatever.