A better title for this musical mess would perhaps have
been ‘The Final Straw’. Many Pink Floyd Fans call this the first of
Roger Waters’ solo career rather than a full blown proper Pink Floyd
album, and we all know how successful Roger Waters has been solo. (Playing
live in Bangkok Roger Waters had to slip his solo songs in between Floyd
classics to keep the audience attention from wandering too far.) However,
it has to be said the man is a genius with the written word. His lyrics on
‘Dark Side Of The Moon’ and ‘The Wall’ are nothing short of
superb. The trouble starts when he sets them to music without the full
support and musical ideas of his colleagues.
‘The Final Cut’ is made up of some half-baked Roger
Waters ideas and some things that did not get onto ‘The Wall’. So what
you are getting are songs that were once considered not good enough. What
the heck! If the album cover has got ‘Pink Floyd’ on it the gullible
public will buy anything. And buy they did. ‘The Final Cut’ got to #1
in England, Italy, Norway, Sweden, and West Germany, and #6 in the
all-important American market. But this was purely on pre-release sales
and the album forthwith dropped out of the charts like the preverbal
falling brick.
Roger Waters had written all the lyrics for the
magnificent ‘The Wall’, and he had the full backing of David Gilmour,
Nick Mason, and Rick Wright on that particular masterpiece. Still ‘The
Wall’ tour had not been a happy experience for Pink Floyd. Waters
resorted to dictatorial methods to dominate all the others. This put extra
strain on the band to the expense of performing ‘The Wall’ live. Plus
they lost most of their already amassed fortune by bad investments by
their accountants. Rock ‘n’ Roll and money never seem to stay together
long. So before going into the studio again, Roger Waters, to the
amazement of the whole rock world, fired Rick Wright. Actually this had
taken place during ‘The Wall’ tour when Wright was cut off from the
Pink Floyd financial machine and put on wages. This turned out to save him
a fortune when their investments crashed.
For the first time in their career Pink Floyd went into
the studio with only one person allowed to write the songs and no keyboard
player (a certain Michael Kamen played some keyboards, but remained pretty
anonymous). On one song only one original member of Pink Floyd played as
Andy Newmark was on drums on ‘Two Suns In The Sunset’. Technically
David Gilmour was not an original member of Floyd as he was brought in to
replace the wayward genius Syd Barrett, and although Andy Newmark is a
fine drummer, Nick Mason is the Pink Floyd drummer. The results are
disastrous.
While I sympathize with Waters views, I in fact applaud
them. The futility of war, the innate powerlessness of the individual in
modern society to have any effect on his surroundings, even from the giddy
heights of one of the world’s most recognizable people, in parts of the
album in the spoken word his point comes across with great bile and
intensity. In these parts Waters’ object was to create ‘A requiem for
The Post War Dream’. He succeeded with aplomb.
The music that accompanies it though is embarrassing.
Not only that, every song is taken at the same turgid pace. ‘The Poor
old National Philharmonic Orchestra’ is used totally out of context and
must have been wondering what was going on during recording. With Roger
Waters limited musical ability the orchestral arrangements were done by
Michael Kamen (co-producer of Roger Waters’ wretched mess), who’s own
ideas seemed to cross Roger Waters’ plans. It’s all a bit like
watching a musical with the wrong soundtrack. Themes repeat themselves
again and again like a recurring nightmare - quite unsettling. They are
only being broken up by the odd moments of David Gilmour’s rapier like
guitar breaking through like a ray of sunshine in a perfect storm.
Unfortunately these moments are too few and far between. You would need to
be a complete David Gilmour anorak case (like this Dog) to get this album
just for these moments. David Gilmour is perhaps not the greatest
guitarist ever put on the planet, but in the light of these songs he
positively sparkles.
The nadir of this album though is the dreadful pathos
that Roger Waters puts into his singing when he is trying to get his point
across. It becomes cringing when he actually takes on his own audience in
‘Not Now John’. Talk about biting the hand that feeds you.
So you buy the album. First time you play it you
desperately hope that things will improve as things go from bad to worse.
Then to add insult to injury on the 2nd last track the author starts
slagging you off. Great. I had to actually dust this album off to listen
to it again before I could review it (with paws over ears). Not an
experience I shall gladly go through again.
The album comes with a sticker on the front warning of
lyrics that may be offensive to some listeners. Well, there ought to be
one from the Trades Description Board and the Office of Fair Trading as
this is a Pink Floyd album in name only.
Books
being published do happen to reflect the current sociological situations
in the world, and with there being so much anti-Americanism at present, it
does not come as any surprise to see another American ‘introspective’
on the shelves this week.
Mott’s CD review: Pink Floyd
The Final Cut
