pitchfork is dumb (#34985859340293849494 in a series.)

This is one of the biggest selling albums ever; I can wait until the 11th graf to read how the guitars sound on "Breathe" or whatever

criiiiinngggge it’s really fucking sad how so many music writers don’t seem to actually like writing about music, a lot of the time I can’t even tell if they even like listening to music or are interested in it :(

― brimstead, Sunday, August 6, 2023 12:48 PM (twelve minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

Can't tell if this is real.

really hate when writers vaguely allude to things and link those vague allusions to wikipedia articles. happens at least twice in this

otherwise piece is fine, a lot of things i knew restated

Yeah I think it would be interesting if it tried to assess what it sounds like to listen to the album in 2023, rather than just tell you it’s (supposedly) about Watergate and recession, etc.

I didn’t read it, but I don’t think there should be any real rules or expectations on an essay about a 50 year old album

I'm actually really surprised this album had never been reviewed. I'd say that for all the extraneous stuff surrounding this album that makes it huge, it's imo such an intimate and lonely piece of music, it has this outsized reputation as a behemoth but I do find it closer in spirit to Tonight's the Night than it is to a lot of prog rock.

Dark Side is an album that's almost impossible to truly hear — 50 years of cultural context sit between you and it. I mean, I first heard that record probably 35 years ago, and at this point it's like Kind of Blue for me, I have so much of it memorized that I don't know if I could find anything truly new in it if I tried. That's probably why I listen to Animals and "Echoes" more, because I can still be surprised by those. But this piece is a really good exercise in thinking-about-Pink Floyd. And there are probably readers who've never heard the album who will be inspired to do so by reading it. Which is the goal.

Side note: Eric Harvey's Who Got The Camera? is one of the best music books I've ever read.

― but also fuck you (unperson), Sunday, August 6, 2023 12:57 PM (nine minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

All of this. And I just started Who Got The Camera? yesterday, and so far it's brilliant.

Like saying what this “should” describe or do is weird to me. If it was 20 grafs describing bass tone, that’s just as valid as a ‘70s politics exegesis because ultimately the only point of a review of a 50 year old album is to basically be a creative writing exercise

This is well-written but it's so corny at this point to connect everything Floyd back to Syd. What's next, a think-piece on Animals as the answer record to 'Effervescing Elephant'?
Also, neither Ummagumma nor Atom Heart Mother were concept albums, and the latter was a UK #1, hardly indicative of "paltry album sales".

...unless the concept for Ummagumma is "we already hate each other and won't play on one another's songs".

I kind of feel like any album where the artist gave thought to the track sequencing is a concept album.

I feel like any album where the artist determined track sequencing through D20 rolls is a concept album.

Wow, what a fantastic piece!!!

Kudos to Eric Harvey

i feel like i’m too much of a floyd fan to really criticize the voice this piece adopts or its constant dartings away from musical analysis into social context but the “us & them” paragraph is pretty emblematic of how little i’m getting from it, anyone who’s put themselves through the wall or god forbid the final cut knows what happened to waters’ dad. (and did you know there was another war going on at the time of dark side’s release.) if this is a creative writing exercise it comes off way too much like an excerpt from a very dry book

i did in fact enjoy the paragraph about the literal dark side of the moon bc it evinced some style. but whiney’s right, why do i even care, this can be whatever it wants to be bc it’s an album that’s been written about to death, it can even a recapitulation of the recent tweet war between waters and gilmour for whatever reason

They.. tweet at each other?

i did also enjoy how the wizard of oz digression revolves around the specific journalist who wrote about it instead of just being presented as a wacky coincidence that gained purchase with the most profoundly stoned of floydheads, and the way this furthers the metanarrative of technology restructuring our relationship with art and spectacle, yeah maybe this piece is better than i’m giving it credit for, i’m very tired

I didn't know it was Charlie Savage!

criiiiinngggge it’s really fucking sad how so many music writers don’t seem to actually like writing about music, a lot of the time I can’t even tell if they even like listening to music or are interested in it :(

― brimstead, Sunday, August 6, 2023 12:48 PM (twelve minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

Can't tell if this is real.

What do you have against bass tone?

Sorry if you mistook what I said personally or something

― brimstead,

Not at all. This thread has gone in fascinating directions today.

it was just unclear whether the post was sarcastic or sincere. i'm still not 100% but leaning towards sincere now

_attempts at making profound alienation sound beautiful that aren’t Dark Side or OK Computer inevitably fail._


Hmm idk about that

part of what is annoying about this record and this band is really encapsulated by that bogus statement— from day 1 of being aware of this album and Floyd in general, I read all kinds of things about them. “best psychedelic band” “great rock band” “politically and socially astute” “intimate”


and none of that hyperbole has matched up with my feeling while listening to the records.

a friend put dark side of the moon on during an early formative shroom trip and i asked him to turn it off cause did not sound remotely psychedelic to me

I'm way less a Floyd listener than most of you but I too find it an intimate record.

It always struck me (esp compared to adjacent albums, Floyd and otherwise) as a marvel of “clean production”, it sounds just miles ahead of any other contemporaneous album in this regard, even Steely Dan stuff

I should probably hear this album, I think the Wizard of Oz thing is all I really know about it. Enjoyed "Fearless" on the radio the other day and was surprised to learn who it was.

dark side is probably the least psychedelic-sounding floyd record, certainly their album most in debt to the sounds of contemporaneous r&b. for all its high concept lyricism and sound collages, its an astonishingly easy album to listen to. it’s languid and loose, lots of two chord minor two-major v7 progressions that invite improvisation, saxes and gospel choirs all over the place. there’s a reason it never left the charts

"Fearless"

one of the very best post-Syd tunes imo (it helps that david sings)

fearless rules.

great album, bust your windows what a classic, that should get best old music instead of this student poster crap

blame Clintonism, dear

this is the post-syd pink floyd that i have listened to more than any studio album. its just all so beautiful. this 2LP boot is cobbled together from different sessions. but i'm used to it.

https://i.discogs.com/8nggd6FvcTnZSE1Cvq7TGGgNGN66pxyJ3K1H8YqIJE4/rs:fit/g:sm/q:90/h:591/w:600/czM6Ly9kaXNjb2dz/LWRhdGFiYXNlLWlt/YWdlcy9SLTE5OTcz/MzctMTM4ODM1OTYz/MC0yMzAwLmpwZWc.jpeg

https://archive.org/details/pink-floyd-bbc-archives-1970-1971-london/02_The+Embryo_Pink+Floyd.mp3

ty!

https://archive.org/details/pink-floyd-bbc-archives-1970-1971-london/02_The+Embryo_Pink+Floyd.mp3🕸

1970 to 1972. love them. and david gilmour was such a hottie. (1970 to 1972 my fave grateful dead years too. strength upon strength. running on all cylinders. all that. youth. talent. luck. pompeii. before the drugs went sour.)

fwiw when it comes to the floyd worship culture on this board, i have no problem admitting that on my part it's half-jocular. i say "pink floyd rules" in the same way that i would say e.g. "megadeth rules" -- have not interest in declaring either band the "greatest" or "most advanced" or any other tired boomerism that the pfork article trotted out

i have played that 80s-era boot so many times and it staggers me every time by how great it sounds! the sound is unholy good on those sessions.

and david gilmour was such a hottie.

I keep reading this!

and Left otm: Jazmine Sullivan rules.

yeah budo jeru the "pink floyd rules" this was kind of a joke at first but then pink floyd does also does pretty much rule so it's sort of a loving half joke now plus saying "pink floyd rules" rules

i asked a group of writer friends who are all pretty music-obsessed (on a Discord) and they are in agreement with me— a fine band to which the hyperbole can never match.

also otm re: psychedelia, I truly think some of the journalism featuring talk of the music’s psychedelic elements was written by people who have never melted face off a hit of clean blotter.

who are your writer fiends? Name names

Is this thread now responding to some “if you don’t like Pink Floyd you don’t like music” straw man?

I am not sure what the debate is here, but re: BBC sessions this is essential:

http://www.profstoned.com/2023/02/pink-floyd-bbc-sessions-1967-1971-prof.html

a marvel of “clean production”

Yeah, this is where I fall, I think. It's like this impeccably crafted jazz-rock fusion (but not "fusion") that's mostly a joy to listen to (maaaaaan). It's simply too slick, too smooth to be psychedelic, imo; "Echoes" is probably the best or only example of Floyd pseudo-psych that is also pretty smooth. But yeah, on the rare occasion I play "Dark Side" (not because I don't like it, just because I have other things to listen to) I almost have to concentrate extra hard to get beyond the baggage, the familiarity, the ubiquity, to hear the album on its own terms, with a fresh ears mindset.

i don't think that's the point?

like, the 2 most important things about DSoTM

1. the audio feat of creating a pure black backdrop where the negative space around the parts is an infinite void

2. the cover art looks the way this sounds

Re psychedelia, there's the Butthole Surfers from 1983-1987, and then there's everybody else. Pink Floyd are far closer to Steely Dan than the Butthole Surfers. I would never call them a psych band (or a prog band, for that matter). They make really smooth, drifty/dreamy rock. And they rule.