Pink Floyd - The Division Bell
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Free Music Notes for The Division Bell
Free Music Review: The Division Bell
Hit: 5 Stars
I didn't think that Pink Floyd CDs couldn't get any better than DARK SIDE OF THE MOON & WISH YOU WERE HERE but, THE DIVISION BELL proved me wrong. I don't what took me so long to listen to this CD but, it was worth the wait. WOW!!!Free Music Review: Gilmore Finds His Voice
Hit: 4 Stars
David Gilmour's songwriting comes into its own on this album, which is their last to date. Soaring and cerebral, the album suddenly lacks a lot of that cynicism and bitterness that was a hallmark of the Roger Waters era, and takes on a more positive vibe. Despite having lost their primary songwriter, this album still fits in fairly well with the rest of the band's discography, and still sounds very much like we expect Pink Floyd to sound.Free Music Review: Pink Floyd - The Gilmour Vs. Waters Feud Continues
Hit: 5 Stars
After much legal wrangling David Gilmour put Pink Floyd back together with Nick Mason in the early 90's. They released the decent "Momentary Lapse Of Reason" album with Richard Wright returning to the fold for the tour. "The Division Bell" was the 2nd album from the 3 piece non Roger Waters era lineup. A lot of people tend to write off the Water less version of Floyd while another whole new generation of fans were turned on to Floyd with these two albums. Personally I have always really liked "The Division Bell" and think it is a very good album. The re-emergence of Richard Wright as a songwriter really ads to this album (he even sings "Wearing The Inside Out") and as on some of the early Floyd works he compliments David Gilmour's writing and playing perfectly. There are several songs about past band members including "Poles Apart" about Syd Barret and "Lost For Words" which is a blatant stab at Roger Waters. At the end of the song Gilmour sings, "So I open my door to my enemies, and I ask could we wipe the slate clean, but they tell me to please go f#*k myself" then Richard Wright sings the last line "You know you just can't win". In the CD booklet the lyrics appear next to a picture of a pair of boxing gloves. Great stuff that just helped to ad fuel to the fire that was the Gilmour vs. Water feud that lasted until the Live 8 concert in 2006. The biggest highlight on this album is the final song "High Hopes" which for me ranks right up with the best stuff Pink Floyd has done. The song is everything that is great about Pink Floyd. "The Division Bell" receives very mixed reviews from Floyd fans. Some love it and some loath it. For me I think it is a very good album and if this indeed the last statement from Pink Floyd it was a nice way to go out.Free Music Review: Great CD
Hit: 5 Stars
Great relaxation music. Never thought about Pink Floyd as something I would listen to. This is the stuff my kids listened to!!Free Music Review: Best Floyd album since Wish You Were Here IMHO and, sadly, their last
Hit: 5 Stars
Pink Floyd's most recent album (now, as of September, 2008, sadly Pink Floyd's last album) The Division Bell was released in April of 1994 (a full two full months before I graduated High School).
The Division Bell was the first new studio album for the band since their 1987 comeback A Momentary Lapse of Reason. The band spent four years on the Momentary Lapse project recording and touring (the tour ended in 1990).
The band were inactive in 1991 (apart from recording the soundtrack to the auto racing film they produced La Carerra Panamericana) and spent 1992 putting together the Shine On box set. It was during an American radio interview in late 1992 that singer and guitarist David Gilmour and drummer Nick Mason revealed that the band would finally begin work on a new album in 1993. Gilmour and Mason, along with a fully reinstated keyboard player Rick Wright (whom was a sideman on the Momentary Lapse album and tour) recorded The Division Bell throughout 1993 and January of 1994 at David's own houseboat studio The Astoria in London plus Abbey Road and Britannia Row Studios with David co-producing the album with Bob Ezrin.
When I first put this album on after buying it on street date, it reminded me of Wish You Were Here which is my favorite Pink Floyd album. This was the band's first theme album in years with its concept about lack of communication.
The opening "Cluster One" is a superb instrumental and one of their best ever. "What Do You Want From Me" sounds like "Have a Cigar (pt. 2)" and is a great song and David and Rick's music just being as great as ever. The haunting "Poles Apart" starts out being about Syd and his descent into madness while the second verse (Hey You!) addresses the demise of David's relationship with Waters (which would not resolve until 2005) and then ends with Gilmour's own self doubts about where he stands in the grand scheme of Pink Floyd and realizing in the end that his own personal life and love is where he keeps his sanity grounded. The Grammy winning instrumental "Marooned" is a lovely piece of music which is superb and Gilmour's guitar rising and falling like a solitary seagull. "A Great Day For Freedom" talks about the fall of The Berlin Wall and the fall of one's relationships. "Wearing The Inside Out" is Rick's personal aside about his own exile both physically from the band and mentally and featured returning sax player Dick Parry whom last played on Wish You Were Here and was Wright's first lead vocal on a Floyd track since "Time" on Dark Side 21 years earlier.
"Take it Back" is the closest Floyd ever came to a love song. "Coming Back to Life" is David's song to his now wife Polly Samson whom brought him back to happiness after all the traumas with Roger and the demise of his first marriage to Ginger in 1990. Polly was actually proofreader to David's lyrics on The Division Bell and out of kindness gave her credit (even if it was just for either proofreading or one phrase as he wrote the majority of lyrics on his songs alone). "Keep Talking" was the song that got loads of airplay on US FM rock radio when released and sounds like classic Floyd from Dark Side and Wish You Were Here era Floyd and still sounds great today. "Lost For Words" dealt with the demise and failed reconciliation with Waters (they finally reconciled in 2005). The closing atmospheric epic (which is now fittingly the final Pink Floyd song as of 2008 after the death of Rick Wright) "High Hopes" was the best Floyd track since "Comfortably Numb" which was lyrically somewhat autobiographical and was also about the things you gained and lost in life. Plus, Gilmour's classical and lap steel guitar work here is hard to put in words.
When the album was released (I bought the CD the day it came out and the aqua blue vinyl and cassette), it was an instant smash hitting #1 in its first week here in the States and stayed put for four weeks in the Spring of 1994 whilst the band toured in support of the album and sold close to four million copies in the US alone and many more worldwide.
The Division Bell is a great album and (is now, as of September of 2008 in the wake of keyboard player Rick Wright's passing) is sadly the final album from the band. IMHO, The Division Bell ended the band's career with a bang!
Hugely recommended!