It seems like everybody sings the praises of Pink Floyd’s 1973
\nepic
\nThe Dark Side Of The Moon<\/i> — maybe that’s one of the reasons
\nwe’ve avoided reviewing it as long as we had. (Hard to keep an
\nobjective view of it when we hear parts of it played on the radio
\nevery damned day.)<\/p>\n
But what many people might not realize is that Roger Waters and
\ncompany almost had all the pieces together back in 1971, when
\nMeddle<\/i> was released. This might be one of the best efforts
\nthat Pink Floyd ever put together — and at times, it’s also one of
\ntheir most challenging.<\/p>\n
The opening track “One Of These Days” is a longtime concert
\nstaple, but nothing has ever come close to matching the mystique
\nand intensity of the original version. Starting off only with
\nWaters’s echoed bass line, then building to include Richard
\nWright’s keyboards, David Gilmour’s chainsaw guitar lines and Nick
\nMason’s drum work, “One Of These Days” is one of the songs in Pink
\nFloyd’s career that captured its essence perfectly. (Listen for a
\nsmall snippet of the “Doctor Who” theme in the bridge.)<\/p>\n
Were this the only worthwhile performance on
\nMeddle<\/i>, it would have secured its place in the rock annals.
\nBut Gilmour shows just how gentle his singing and playing could be
\non the very next track, “A Pillow Of Winds”. The gentle acoustic
\nguitar line paves the way for the rest of the track to unfold. For
\nthat matter, each song on the first half of
\nMeddle<\/i> not only examine slightly different genres of music,
\nbut they all seem to be natural progressions from the other.
\n“Fearless” examines a more subdued style of rock (great line a
\nteacher buddy of mine always quoted: “Fearlessly the idiot faced
\nthe crowd \/ Smiling.” That one’s for you, Buzz.), “San Tropez”
\ndelving a little bit into jazz, and “Seamus” taking a bizarre look
\nat blues – including a dog doing vocals. (If memory serves me
\nright, a version of this without Gilmour singing – that’s right,
\nonly the dog – was called “Mademoiselle Knobs” on a bootleg
\nrelease. I’ll have to dig that out of the Pierce Archives to
\ncheck.)<\/p>\n
The centerpiece of
\nMeddle<\/i> is “Echoes,” a 23-minute piece that is the first
\ntruly successful merge of psychadelia and rock that Pink Floyd
\nattempted. The interplay between all four band members is quite
\nsmooth – it does seem like it’s the most natural that Gilmour had
\nsounded since replacing acid casualty Syd Barrett in 1968 – and it
\ncould have been the most creative the band had ever been in this
\nvein. But there are times that the concept is stretched a little
\ntoo thin – especially around the half-way point in the song.
\nHowever, this is a small complaint.<\/p>\n
When you listen to
\nMeddle<\/i>, you notice that it seems like the seeds for
\nThe Dark Side Of The Moon<\/i> are occasionally heard. And while
\nit might not have been quite as spacy as the album that was to
\nfollow, Pink Floyd definitely had entered “the zone,” an almost
\nimpenetrable field where they could do no wrong — a field they’d
\nbe in for three more albums. (Sorry, but I don’t include
\nThe Wall<\/i> in this “zone” – the floor is now open for
\ndebate.)<\/p>\n
\nMeddle<\/i> is probably the second album you should buy if you’re
\njust starting to get into Pink Floyd, the first being
\nThe Dark Side Of The Moon<\/i>. If you want to discover more
\nabout this album, check out the video
\nPink Floyd Live At Pompeii<\/i>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":24722,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"tags":[],"artist":[5677],"rating":[5612],"class_list":["post-35926","review","type-review","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","artist-pink-floyd","rating-rating-b-minus"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/35926","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/review"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=35926"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/35926\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/24722"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=35926"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=35926"},{"taxonomy":"artist","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/artist?post=35926"},{"taxonomy":"rating","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/rating?post=35926"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}