I agree entirely. I'm amazed at some of the negativity and pessimism here, it is very off putting and frustrating. Being a musician myself and understanding the process of how one may pick songs from material that has been laid down I suppose may make it easier to see what Gilmour is doing here. We can easily have over 10 hours of material to play with when we are looking to put a small album together and some material is revisited over time. Where are the rules about what a new studio album should and should not contain?Several people have asked this question...and of all the answers I've seen to that question, none of them have been the obvious answer:
Because Gilmour finally got around to seeing what could be done with it.
Remember, these "leftovers" from The Division Bell are probably little different from the pieces that began The Division Bell.
Read a Pink Floyd book, for fuck's sake...they didn't WRITE that album and then just toss this stuff aside; they jammed...and jammed...and jammed...and jammed...and they took the bits that they liked best (in the moment) and then made songs out of those.
Gilmour's probably doing the same thing, here. Taking the bits which seem most promising and turning them into songs.
It's not that they weren't "good enough" before...it's just that at the time, these bits were liked a little bit less than the bits which became TDB.
Look at what Gilmour done with some of Barrett's material! There are some great Barrett songs that Gilmour has mixed and produced.
We have heard that Gilmour was in the studio ages ago and was 'working on a solo album'. it's now being said that this was a secret PF album. I'm quite sure he isn't sitting on his ass doing nothing. If he has taken some older recordings and, added more instruments and vocals with Mason drumming whilst keeping Ricks keyboard parts and the backing gals are back then as far as I'm concerned it's a new Pink Floyd album, simple!!!
I wish the grumblers would stop with their moaning about Polly Samson, Waters not being around, re-hashing old material, a gig not being forth coming and all the other negative comments.