Why was there so little Pink Floyd after 1994?

General discussion about Pink Floyd.
ZiggyZipgun
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Re: Why was there so little Pink Floyd after 1994?

Post by ZiggyZipgun »

space triangle wrote: Thu Jul 30, 2020 6:02 pmHe doesn't like a record companies. If he would establish his own record company, then he would deny everything he wrote in the Welcome to the Machine and Have a Cigar.
He's also said he'd never play in stadiums ever again, and then went back on that many times over.

But based on his history of terrible financial decisions...yeah, he should stay out of the business end of things.
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Re: Why was there so little Pink Floyd after 1994?

Post by azza200 »

Roger has also shelved many live recordings from his solo career DSOTM tour was supposed too be released never happened, is a shame he is holding back on releasing The Wall live 80-81 footage, which got talked about when he was touring The Wall. His solo band saw the whole footage and he mentioned it several times in interviews at the time.
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Hadrian
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Re: Why was there so little Pink Floyd after 1994?

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ZiggyZipgun wrote: Wed Jul 29, 2020 6:53 pm to work with Mason to finish The Endless River, which they agreed was the definitive end of Pink Floyd
I don't believe that David and Nick are on the same page about that. For David it is true, but if it were up to Nick, there would be more. We are getting more Pink Floyd from Nick now, in his own unique way.

Speaking of more, live version of Breakthrough, song originally released on Richard Wright's solo album Broken China (1996) in a strange version featuring Sinéad O'Connor on lead vocals, is I think a very good illustration what the third studio album of songs after Waters would've sounded like. The song was performed only 5 times live by David and Rick in 2002, but it was fully "Pink Floyded" for the occasion, resemble little from the record. A hidden gemstone.

(https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GW65I5OJrps)
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Re: Why was there so little Pink Floyd after 1994?

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Hadrian wrote: Fri Jul 31, 2020 10:42 pmI don't believe that David and Nick are on the same page about that. For David it is true, but if it were up to Nick, there would be more. We are getting more Pink Floyd from Nick now, in his own unique way.

Speaking of more, live version of Breakthrough, song originally released on Richard Wright's solo album Broken China (1996) in a strange version featuring Sinéad O'Connor on lead vocals, is I think a very good illustration what the third studio album of songs after Waters would've sounded like. The song was performed only 5 times live by David and Rick in 2002, but it was fully "Pink Floyded" for the occasion, resemble little from the record. A hidden gemstone.
Gilmour did record a solo for that, but Wright said he later decided to go take the track in a different direction. Based on the quality of the solo played live, and the fact that they chose to do that song, I'd wager that's what he originally came up with. I really hope they release anything Rick had left unfinished, including that version of "Breakthrough".
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Re: Why was there so little Pink Floyd after 1994?

Post by ZiggyZipgun »

I have to backtrack a little - I found footage of one of the other performances of "Breakthrough", and it is a mostly different, clearly improvised solo.

(The song starts around the 50 minute mark.)

https://youtu.be/xN78jtSj2hk
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Hadrian
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Re: Why was there so little Pink Floyd after 1994?

Post by Hadrian »

Wonderful, thanks. I do wonder now if Gilmour played that solo differently each time (I wish I could collect them all).

Another thing occurred to me back in 2014. They could've taken these live performances of Breakthrough, clean them up a bit in the studio (remove audience noise, etc.), put Mason on drums to make it Pink Floyd, and release it as the B-side of Louder Than Words (what a 7" that would've been) before the album came out. The album could've integrated in turn more music from the Deluxe Edition, to make it a purely instrumental piece. A non-album single of songs followed by an instrumental album - what an approach that would've been 8)
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Re: Why was there so little Pink Floyd after 1994?

Post by Hadrian »

KingQueenKnave wrote: Sat Jul 25, 2020 4:01 pm the band ran out of ideas
That is an interesting one. Did they? Realistically, A Momentary Lapse of Reason and The Division Bell were closest to More, a mix of songs and instrumentals without any attempt to produce a conceptual or narrative album. Making those was far easier than what was created during the 1973-1983 era, so a third one like that (or more of them) was not necessarily a Herculean effort.

In terms of other ideas, there is one I was always fond of, a post-1994 concept Mason mentioned in his book - an acoustic live album with minimalist versions of grandiose things. He also said that Gilmour "kind of did it" on his own, presumably referring to his 2001-2 concerts.

This one below might be part of that idea, Gilmour + Dick Parry playing Shine On live, alone (the first half). There is also an acoustic rehearsal of Echoes as a bonus on one of Gilmour's concert videos, again most likely another part of that same concept. Just imagine an LP like that, acoustic minimalist Shine On (1-9) on one side, with Echoes on the other. What a Floydian (whatever that means) product that would've been. 8)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0qjpOLj7WSY
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Re: Why was there so little Pink Floyd after 1994?

Post by twcc »

Hadrian wrote: Wed Aug 05, 2020 9:11 pm Just imagine an LP like that, acoustic minimalist Shine On (1-9) on one side, with Echoes on the other.
...
I'd be interested in a copy of that LP.

More acoustic material, audio not video, (including 'Shine On' as above) here -
.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OX0-ttduzqE
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Re: Why was there so little Pink Floyd after 1994?

Post by Hadrian »

Great, thank you, will give it a listen.
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space triangle
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Re: Why was there so little Pink Floyd after 1994?

Post by space triangle »

This can be another one reason, especially when it comes to releasing a new Pink Floyd albums since Divison Bell:

'Nick Mason: In the past touring was so linked to album releases, and now studio albums have become less a part of the mainstream music business. With streaming, pirating and everything else, the real activity is now in the live realm.
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Re: Why was there so little Pink Floyd after 1994?

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space triangle wrote: Fri Aug 07, 2020 6:28 am the real activity is now in the live realm
That was absolutely true up until March of this year and the whole C-19 thing. It is rather unclear what will happen to it all, and if streaming (which, so far, had not been an adequate financial replacement for physical records sales for the artists) is the only thing that remains. The plummeting sales of albums produced some interesting trends, for example playing entire albums as concert sets, to get the album form another lease on life. That peaked circa 30 years after Pink Floyd started doing it in 1972 with (yet to be released) The Dark Side of the Moon as a concert set.

Back to that Gilmour set above for a moment, and Fat Old Sun on it - a modern, long version of that is the one that "got away". The band (David, Nick and Rick) performed it for the last time live in late 2003, at Steve O'Rourke memorial service.
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Re: Why was there so little Pink Floyd after 1994?

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Hadrian wrote: Fri Aug 07, 2020 7:50 pm That was absolutely true up until March of this year and the whole C-19 thing. It is rather unclear what will happen to it all, and if streaming (which, so far, had not been an adequate financial replacement for physical records sales for the artists) is the only thing that remains. The plummeting sales of albums produced some interesting trends, for example playing entire albums as concert sets, to get the album form another lease on life. That peaked circa 30 years after Pink Floyd started doing it in 1972 with (yet to be released) The Dark Side of the Moon as a concert set.

Back to that Gilmour set above for a moment, and Fat Old Sun on it - a modern, long version of that is the one that "got away". The band (David, Nick and Rick) performed it for the last time live in late 2003, at Steve O'Rourke memorial service.
A lot of artists are now performing live from home across the internet, and they have a tip jar. Clearly people are not going to earn enough from tip jars to replace a stadium full of people paying £300 for a ticket. But, for a number of smaller artists, I can imagine this being a reasonable source of income. Their potential audience is world-wide, not just the people in the area of each concert.

If Eagles have lost their income stream - I think they are rich enough to survive. I'm more concerned about the musicians who in normal situations would have more difficulty making a living. Streaming and purchasing of past product isn't going to be enough for them. So, I've been making sure I watch quite a few of these online concerts and that I put something in the tip jar.
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Re: Why was there so little Pink Floyd after 1994?

Post by ZiggyZipgun »

It's simply not realistic to expect to make a living recording and performing original music. Artists used to tour to promote their albums, because they received a significant portion of record sales - enough that the tickets were practically free. That certainly shifted during the transition to CDs, and artists made less money, but then people stopped buying CDs. Ticket prices for established artists have gone up exponentially, but there really hasn't been a reliable income for lesser-known, independent artists, even before the current pandemic. The odds of making enough to support yourself are probably similar to your chances of winning the lottery.
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Re: Why was there so little Pink Floyd after 1994?

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ZiggyZipgun wrote: Wed Jul 29, 2020 6:53 pm Why so little Roger Waters after Pink Floyd?
I have a suspicious feeling that it might be the fault of us, the ungrateful audience. I remember seeing a video interview with Roger, when he genuinely conveyed that Amused to Death is as good as The Dark Side of the Moon and The Wall, but that the plebs did not get it. He did not bother to tour that album once it came out (due to sales, I assume), and then he did not bother to do a studio album followup for 25 years.
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Re: Why was there so little Pink Floyd after 1994?

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Hadrian wrote: Mon Aug 10, 2020 9:38 pmI have a suspicious feeling that it might be the fault of us, the ungrateful audience.
No, not at all. This is a consequence of the image that Pink Floyd built during band's career. The image of a mystery, and a members anonymity. By the early 90s a large majority of people still had no idea who Roger Waters was. The Internet was just in its infancy, and the only name known to the masses was Pink Floyd. If you want one example we can take this from Roger's 'The Wal'l concert in Berlin at 1990:

''Roger Waters: "You know why I don't read the Guardian any more?" he asks, narrowing his eyes. I’m afraid I don’t. “I’ll tell you why. When I did The Wall in Berlin in 1990 ”- a record-breaking charity performance -“ they printed a big picture, half a page, no article, and underneath it said something like ‘Last night, Pink Floyd played their record The Wall in Berlin and the sound was terrible. 'Full stop. And I thought, ‘Fuck you, that paper is never coming through my letterbox again.’ ”

Roger realized that he would never be able to come out under a shadow of powerful name of Pink Floyd and stopped making solo albums for 25 years. David also realized the same thing, reformed Pink Floyd in 1987 and continued to release ‘his music' (AMLOR; DB) wrapped into the name of Pink Floyd.