You couldn't said it better. It's the same thing I think too. Post-Syd-pre-DSOTM Floyds are best. I like every period of them (as 4 member band and without inner-group-solo-albums aka Final Cut) but PSPD period is really their finest
Whole heartedly agree! They were at their best before they got really big. And yes, they were certainly floundering after Syd couldn't get it together anymore, but they pulled it together with Gilmour, found what they were good at(hypnotic basslines, orchestral maneuvers, and a concentration on tone and placement), and made some of the best music of their career.
Anyway I'll let the music speak for itself, some examples:
I love the refrain/chorus at the end of "Fearless", that is the Liverpool Football teams official song, "You'll Never Walk Alone". The first time I played Meddle I didn't know what to think, but it quickly grew on me.
Well I don't trash Final Cut, but I don't consider it aswell as work of whole PF. I know it's Roger Waters speaking from depth of his heart, but his music is monotone, which was never problem with Pink Floyd until Final Cut. I don't fancy Delicate Sound of Thunder too much awell, there's few good songs, but hey, it's 2 important members missing, what would you expect?
As I said before, too, I like PF era with chilly, relaxing and mindblowing songs like "Grantchester Meadows", "Embryo", "Fat Old Sun", "Mother Fore", "Green Is The Colour", "Cymbaline", "Set the Controls For The Heart Of The Sun", "Pillow Of Winds", "Echoes"; where acoustic guitar and relaxing tempo would prevale.
Delicate Sound Of Thunder is one of my favorite albums of the band After Waters left. It took a lot of chutzpa for the remaining members to carry on without the dominant songwriter in the band.
The VHS/DVD video of "Delicate..." has never failed to impress anyone I have shown it to, from kids 17 years old to old warhorses my own age in their late 40's/50's.
I love The Final Cut. It is the perfect epilogue to The Wall, almost like a prequel, in which we are given a glimpse into why Pink is as screwed up as he is. "Not Now John" never ceases to get me riled up.
I just listened to Animals a couple of days ago, for the first time in years. Wow. It's amazing how time and experience give you insight into what exactly a song is about. Dogs is about politicians and ranking military officers who ruthlessly do whatever they have to in order to advance their careers but wind up, in the end, nothing but sad old men all alone dying of cancer. Scathing. Pigs (Three Different Ones) is, in part, a thorough thrashing of Margaret Thatcher...Sheep is about blind faith, the blind leading the blind, people who do what they're told without questioning motives. Waters' cynicism is thick as syrup. Such an under rated album, unfortunate to be sandwiched between Wish You Were Here and The Wall, I think it's better than both. In fact, it's my favorite Floyd record and my favorite Floyd song is from it, "Dogs".
You'll get no trashing from me. The Final Cut is tied with about 4 or 5 other albums as my favorite record ever made. I love all of Floyd's incarnations, but Roger Waters is my hero. While earlier Floyd is of an inarguably more vast musical importance, the stuff Rog took over is of a much larger social and interpersonal worth. He's a true artisan when it comes to lyrics... he articulates emotions of such consequence. His work manages to portray a character who is utterly, vibrantly vulnerable while simultaneously appearing powerful, rageful, masculine and formidable. And that dichotomy... well that dichotomy is both the defining aspect of my life and my favorite thing to witness in any form of art or entertainment. (Look at my avatar... she's got it in spades. )
Honestly, I wish Floyd could have stuck around for another record with Rog. Eric Clapton is alright and all, but I think Hitch-hiker would have made a particularly good Pink Floyd disc...
And hey, since this is a Pink Floyd thread... who else thinks that they don't even get as much credit as they ought to? They seem to be one of the most innovative bands of all-time. Franky, I am convinced that they invented both trance music and post-rock.
I'm not one to take such matters lightly, I usually scoff when people try to assign some obscure classic rock track from 1964 as the genesis of some genre of music which wouldn't even evolve for decades. "Oh yeah, Humble Pie totally invented death metal, man, have you heard I Walk On Gilded Splinters?" These kinds of claims are usually laughable. But in Floyd's case... Not only was Darkside a massively popular album that everyone heard, but you're just not going to find a more trance-sounding track within a decade of On The Run. Or at least I've never heard one. The electronica experiments of the day were largely elongated, raw, or experimental, while Floyd debuts this ultra-succinct, pristine little number that mirrors to a T all the stylistic attributes of trance music which wouldn't debut until the 90s. You could play On The Run at a trance club and nobody would question it at all.
The post-rock connection is just a tad sketchier, but you have the quintessential plodding drum track, the building up to crescendos, the chorus-eschewing instrumental atmosphere-focus, the lengthy tracks, the classical connection, noise experimentation, it's a pretty damn good match.
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They were at their best before they got really big. And yes, they were certainly floundering after Syd couldn't get it together anymore, but they pulled it together with Gilmour, found what they were good at(hypnotic basslines, orchestral maneuvers, and a concentration on tone and placement), and made some of the best music of their career.
