Speaker 1low energy unfocused foggy you might be dehydrated whether it's hot yoga over 100 degree weather or too much sun gator light with a specialized blend of five electrolytes was scientifically designed to help move fluids into the body faster for rapid rehydration shop now at retailers nationwide gator light hydrates faster than water is it in you symptoms noted are signs of mild to moderate dehydration consult a health care professional if symptoms persist hello welcome back and the album years has reached 1987 and
Speaker 2this is part two of 1987 we've already done a lot of work on the album we've already done a lot of work on the album we've already done a lot of work on the album we've already done a lot of work on the album we've already done a lot original mix at least was was pretty much absent it was mostly drum machine yeah and rick wright was only brought in i think right towards the end to add some extra sort of overdubs to almost to legitimize it as pink floyd exactly um so you're right there is a sense that this is more of a david gilmore solo album certain than certainly than the next record the division belt which felt more like a band album it did this to me almost seems like a natural successor to say gilmore's previous solo record about face in fact a track like one slip actually sounds less like anything pink floyd had done before but actually has quite a lot in common with a couple of tracks on about face yeah and actually is is a track that sounds a little bit more 80s that the only other record that had been made before this in the 80s the only other pink floyd record made in the 80s the final cut was was almost deliberately shying away from electronics and technology wasn't it was very organic mm-hmm i enjoy it i mean you know i'm not going to say it's a masterpiece or one of my favorite pink floyd records but i i enjoy it because it's such a great this the sound of pink floyd is just so easy to sort of slip into isn't it it is
Speaker 3and i think waters does it as well on some of his solo albums it's kind of interesting isn't it there's pink floyd split you get two potential pink floyd albums around these times you know obviously i think amused to death and division bell to a certain extent are more successful for me division bell does sound like more of a band album and richard wright's input i think is really appreciated on on that album but yeah it's it is in some ways a creditable pink floyd forgery that could have fallen completely flat on its face but it does just enough not to it does enough to convince the fans it does enough to convince the general public because it sold very well and obviously the tour it spawned i think gave the band a great deal of confidence and of course the thing is that bands do split members do leave their albums in bands careers that perhaps only feature one or two prominent members or a different prominent two members you know beach boys are a great example of that how brian wilson rests control of one album but the irs of the band rests control of the next album and so on so in that sense it fits nicely into the pink floyd catalog and i think one of the things that helps that transition is the quality of the artwork i think that hypnosis storm thorgerson so it's probably not hypnosis about the stage but storm thorgerson so on they have packaged it in exactly the way a pink floyd album should be great
Speaker 2great cover yeah yeah i think you're right um it's interesting so let's talk about the other record from this year that came from the pink floyd axis which is roger waters radio chaos which i think is a less successful record yeah part of the problem i have with radio chaos is that it's not just about the album it's about the album itself and is that it's too short to really put across what i think he's trying to put across his 40 minute record and he's trying to tell this story about about i'm i'm kind of remembering it's been a long time since i heard the record it's about a guy that is in a wheelchair he's unable to speak he communicates through a kind of stephen hawking like vocal device his brother gets in trouble blah blah blah they move to la there's a nuclear war so much happens in this record across songs 40 minutes and musically quite lightweight songs as well i think it's the weakest thing
Speaker 3waters has done by a long long way for me um and i wasn't the greatest fan of pros and cons i mean i think it's a good record no i i like it but in some ways it does sound like the cast-off album from the era of the wall and final cut it sounds lesser to me slightly thinner in its production but i do like it um final cut as you know i think it's a good record and i think it's a good record no i think both of us consider it to be an extraordinarily strong album and i really liked um amused to death and the album he did recently with nigel godrich i think was was was good as well
Speaker 2pros and cons is my favorite well i mean it's it's almost up there with final cut for me and and you probably know the history it was written at the same time yes yeah and they chose the wall to record and pros and cons was i like you know yeah
Speaker 3i i like it and i think the overall concept is well rendered and once more it is a really convincing pink floyd universe and of course that's the thing isn't it that on pros and cons waters recreates that universe perfectly maybe the sound is slightly thinner with the absence of gilmore and the absence of rights textures but of course he wasn't on final cut he's got eric
Speaker 2clapton in on guitar which is not a bad uh not a bad substitute i mean i
Speaker 3sort of perfect weirdly enough i i think captain does a really good job on the album i preferred beck on amused to death and i kind of prefer gilmore just his his time and approach and yeah and this is gilmore's version of a pink floyd album and to be fair with both pros and cons and a moment of reason they could both be released as pink floyd albums and no one would think anything of it um both of them but i think you're right this year gilmore wins i think the
Speaker 2problem with radio chaos is also that this is the difference between pros and cons of hitchhiking the previous solo record and radio chaos is that radio chaos does attempt to go with the times in terms of the technology and it just feels a little bit forced there's no i don't hear any songs there really the songwriting rigor isn't there so it's all it's all kind of bells and whistles and and sort of window dressing yeah and it there's not enough musically there to kind of support this i mean a concept that kind of encapsulates everything from physical disability to to nuclear war to the how can you possibly deal with that in eight relatively slight by his time it's relatively slight pop songs and i
Speaker 3think as well it's just too complex concept full stop i think the beauty of pink floyd's albums is that their concepts generally tended to be almost mood like in some ways but also very easy to explain you know you can probably explain wish you were here dark side of the moon even the wall to an extent in a couple of sentences to somebody yeah you've struggled in about 50 sentences to get this across to me because i'm
Speaker 2not quite sure what it is about to be
Speaker 3honest nor am i i don't think
Speaker 2anyone is but i mean pros pros and cons of hitchhiking for example is also a concept record that kind of plays out in 40 minutes but it's essentially the concept is there's a bloke asleep and he's having this weird kind of surreal dream yes and that's it and it plays out in real time which i think is a beautiful kind of you know conceit to have the each track is timed is is named after the time of the night the part of the dream so like 5 17 a.m so it's happening in real time it's a lovely concept whereas this is as you say it's so ambitious it seems to be almost too big for its own boots in terms of what he's trying to encapsulate in this and also the conceit of having the radio dj the radio disc jockey there's so many things and it's almost like he's throwing everything at the wall in an attempt to distract you from the fact there
Speaker 3aren't any songs and it is the only time as you point out that he really embraced the era in a way i think that's quite fake because what i think distinguishes pros and cons and final cut is that in an era of big production big reverb these albums are classic and timeless in a floydian way of course they employ production techniques but they're very logical variations on what waters and floyd have done before whereas this sounds like he's attempting to embrace the zeitgeist and not quite managing it also i don't think right now we're going to be able to
Speaker 2roger waters does positive or optimistic i mean there's one track on the album the last track the tide is turning off live aid i don't think he does inspirational optimistic positivity it just doesn't sit well with roger waters somehow i mean he was obviously very moved by the whole like apparently very moved by the whole live aid thing but it does it almost doesn't fit him um to be to be positive and sentimental no and
Speaker 3a momentary lapse of reason while it's not got a clear concept it seems like it's got a clear concept it seems to buy into some way this idea that floyd always evoked alienation slightly troubled mentality isolation and the album manages to do that and also it does have quite an 80s sound actually you know there are techniques that floyd haven't used yes on the album yeah um some of the rhythms for example are quite unfloyd like i think this isn't a use of kind of marimba at one point you know or synthetic yeah one slip yeah i think it's one of the best tracks yes i agree with you it's actually bringing in a new voice to pink floyd and again a sort of 80s contemporary voice but it works you know obviously that the drum and rhythm production is a little thin i think but that's very much of its era you know in the way that cars records of that era always sound a little thin in some ways and
Speaker 2there's a couple of bona fide floyd classics on on the floyd record sorrow you know has become almost like a standard for them yeah and on the turning away the sort of power ballad a mid-80s power ballad it's quite convincing in a way i don't feel that way about the tide is turning on the roger waters yeah as a sort of convincing 80s power ballad my my feeling ultimately is that although pink floyd was very much a gestalt thing that they were much stronger together than they were apart generally speaking i feel gilmore has missed roger waters a lot less than roger waters has missed david gilmore and richard wright and the musicality that he's done because i think he is so limited as a musician and at the end of the day you can be the greatest conceptualist and the greatest lyric writer on earth if you can't write memorable tunes and you don't have the musicality to be able to arrange those tunes in a way that will appeal you're stuffed whereas actually you could have the worst lyrics in the world but if they're in the context an amazing piece of music it actually doesn't matter that
Speaker 3much yes of course it
Speaker 2doesn't matter that much how much do people really you know listen to lyrics at the end of the day in the concert and i'm not suggesting that david gilmore's lyrics are terrible at all they're not terrible they're not on the same level of roger waters lyrics but it doesn't matter so much but what does matter is when you're trying to make an album like radio chaos and you've really got no tunes and you've got nobody that's kind of sort of pushing you into more musical areas and trying to arrange the music in more interesting ways i
Speaker 3think you know that's it i think it's the it's the openness to being changed in some ways but waters clearly was open to being changed because the production is very contemporary so someone was having an impact on the album that isn't typically waters so in that sense he's he's been shifted but like you i think with moment that's the reason i remember buying it i think i've told the story before of you know i bought never let me down and moment on the same day well let's talk about never
Speaker 2let me down yeah our
Speaker 3price yeah and it being devastating at the time because to me i didn't have particularly high expectations i didn't have particularly high expectations i didn't have expectations but even those expectations were in some ways it
Speaker 2failed never let me down failed to live up to oh my god very very low expectations i was just gonna say
Speaker 3like you with motion that's the reason i wasn't wholly convinced but weirdly it's got a nagging insistence and i like it more than i did and i thought the new more organic version of it that was released a couple of years ago was pretty good so yes it's never going to be up there with animals dark side wish you were here the wall but it's not bad so are you saying tim
Speaker 2that a momentary lapse of reason and never let me down by david bowie came out on the same day because you bought them on the same day well i certainly bought them on the
Speaker 3same day so maybe they did come out on the same day
Speaker 2you wouldn't have hung around to buy david
Speaker 3bowie record i'd have been out i mean you know like a greyhound out of the traps yeah because running to warrington our price running from the village outside of warrington over the swing bridge the swing bridge that used to be the swing bridge that used to be the swing bridge that used to be vinyl albums hanging from it yeah by rope copies of egg civil service copies of eggs i never did that with civil service i couldn't have done
Speaker 2that you told me you might have
Speaker 3told you that as an
Speaker 2exaggeration you told me you lined a phone box in stockton heath yeah we lined phone boxes with a copy of egg record with copies of egg records i would never insult that your cousin gave me his virtually just gave me just tossed his whole soft machine collection in my with disdain he tossed it you take it i don't want this shit so i can well believe that you were lining telephone boxes with copies of egg you
Speaker 3were looking if they hadn't cooked
Speaker 2it so there you are rushing over the swing bridge rushing to the swing bridge to the art to buy your copy of a momentary lapse of reason and you've been saving up your pocket money all week like a greyhound out of the traps and never let me down by david bowie you're rushing back which one do you put on first then i run back you run back which one do you put on
Speaker 3faster which one do you put on first good question i think i might have put on the bowie first right and what was
Speaker 2your what sort of emotions did you go through as you were hearing because it's a rotten record isn't it it's rotten it
Speaker 3is rotten and this of course it's an interesting thing isn't it these two albums released on the same day the ones that gave me a terrible headache and possibly a six month depression they've both been redone over the last few years right so they've both been redone over the last few years right so they've this was on one of the david bowie box sets a producer and a few arrangers were doing uh very different alternative versions of never let me down saying well actually this album is misunderstood the songs are very strong david was actually operating at a very high creative level and it's never let me down with string quartets and a few more interesting atonal guitars it's so it's
Speaker 2slightly better but it's
Speaker 3slightly more organic polished turd there is an aspect i mean it's you know to be fair it's david bowie box set and it's a bit more organic but it's a bit more bowie i always love his voice but you know this is bowie at his least interesting most reduced he barely seems there it's behind the times of the 80s at that point in the same way that neil young's equivalent albums are you know contemporaneous albums yeah it was it was a savage disappointment and obviously also had the embarrassment of the glass spider piece the tour oh
Speaker 2and the tour as well and the tour
Speaker 3but there's a piece there's a spoken word piece which isn't quite the spoken word piece on diamond dogs and at least diamond it gets away with it partly because the album is great but also the overarching concept is more interesting glass spider is slightly incomprehensible folly really um which normally i'm all for but is it his
Speaker 2absolute career nadir this
Speaker 3and tonight are the career tonight see i i have
Speaker 2to be honest i've never heard never let me down i have heard tonight yeah tonight has loving the alien on it it must surely be better than never let me down by virtue of having that track on it
Speaker 3has the worst things he's ever done including the title track which is a version of a track i think you do with uh iggy pop might even be iggy pop written loving the alien was wonderful there's
Speaker 2nothing as good as that blue jeans are
Speaker 3great blue jeans in his own way like the video as well um and around that time he's writing some fantastic pieces absolute beginners is really good he writes for um labyrinth is all right the track he co-writes with pat metheny this is not american is absolutely gorgeous and then of course he also writes something along with roger waters um when the wind blows when the wind blows yeah and when the wind blows it's a really experimental interesting piece of music and maybe that's why i had my hopes up with this because he'd written this is not america absolute beginners when the wind blows things that i would put on a decent bowie compilation i suppose the thing with this album is none of it's truly truly terrible it's truly truly mediocre with the exception of the glass spider spoken word concert piece it's all mediocre nothingness that's a little difficult to remember it's a kind of 80s nothingness that's maybe three or four years technologically behind the times he doesn't feel like he's on it right okay
Speaker 2which is not what you expect in there
Speaker 3okay which is not what you expect in there
Speaker 2not what you expect from someone that always seemed to be ahead of the game in a way and anticipating rather than them following trends
Speaker 3yeah whereas the floyd was okay they're trying to do this they're trying to do that you know there there was a very strong element that this was a was a very well considered forgery at the time let's carry on
Speaker 2with this concept of 70s artists the difficult years the difficult 80s for 70s artists big generator by yes let's let's discuss these two together otherwise we'll never get on with it this topic big generator by yes and crest of a knave by jethro tell one of which i've heard one of which i haven't i haven't heard the jethro tell album i have heard the yes album i bought it at the time because i'd loved 90125 one of my favorite anecdotes and it's not completely accurate but let's just overlook the fact it's not completely accurate but i love this anecdote in the time it took yes to follow up 90125 with big generator eight songs 40 minutes eight songs the time it took them to follow that album up and record the follow-up the smiths formed released 20 singles four albums two compilations changed the face of alternative guitar music at least in the uk and broke up a whole career in the time it took yes to knuckle down and write eight songs to follow up their previous hit album yeah and it's not great is it it's mad in places i think it's not great
Speaker 3marginally better than 90125 oh it's nowhere near as good
Speaker 2as 90125 i think it's not great it's
Speaker 3not i think the title track is great and that whole demented midsection about the soft machine there's
Speaker 2some interesting ideas i agree with you the title track is the most interesting i like this track and i like shoot high aim low or whatever it's called uh which has got a glorious sort of uh harmonies on on the chorus and then there's a couple of attempts later on in the record to try and recapture some of their their progressive rock roots or just the
Speaker 3old you know i'm running i think it is and holy lamb which i think is the most interesting track i think it's the most interesting oh just very holy lamb is a very pretty ethereal john anderson ballad which sounds as good as many he's written i'm running almost kind of reclaims the territory of the first couple of yes albums it's a real anomaly on that record it has a kind of a 60s underground quality rather than your kind of classic progressive
Speaker 2it's and then there's a few aor sort of you know very fm rock aor sort of things which uh it's a bit of a mess to me i mean the
Speaker 3one thing i'd say is that 90125 is much more focused as an album overall but i think it's slightly less charming and a lot less mad i don't think
Speaker 2big generator is very good you know i think it's overwrought overthought overworked overproduced and actually sounds quite thin and it's interesting because trevor horn didn't mix it trevor trevor rabin mixed it himself so trevor horn as far as i understand kind of disappeared from the scene some part some way during the sessions i mean let's just say it's a bit of a mess i think it's a bit of a mess listen the whole landscape of music changed completely between when was 90125 82 what sounded uh like the future in 1982 83 83 beg your pardon what sounded like the future of music in 83 owner of a lonely heart sounds like the past but that's going on to what
Speaker 3we discussed in the first episode that for whatever reason the ztt sounded sort of dominated between 83 and 86 and suddenly in this year you know this is why act art of noise and big generator they really don't sound cutting edge anymore no right yeah that i completely agree with and it is you know it's an unfocused album and what you're hearing on this is where is 90125 is a curated producer's version of yes you feel that the band are a small part of this with this album it's a mixture of what the producer wants to do what the band want to do what maybe the label think it really sounds if it's you were saying over raw overthought it's under confident there's
Speaker 2there's some good stuff on it as i say i like the shoot high aim whatever it's called i'm gonna remember it's all low with it aim low yeah and the title track although it is kind of a slightly more avant-garde take of owner of a lonely heart even to the point that the main riff is the da da da da it's the same riff it took four years for them to make it which seems amazing to me but but of course it's a little bit of a mess but it's a little bit of a mess but it's a it's a little bit of a mess but it's a little bit of a mess but it's a little bit of a mess but of course would become more and more common as things moved into the future this kind of big gaps between albums would become more and more common but at the time as i say the idea that the smiths kind of formed and broke up in the in the time it took yes to record eight songs kind of tells you all you need to know really i suppose
Speaker 3the thing is that what i'd say with big generator isn't quite the disaster people say and they are i don't think it's a disaster i don't
Speaker 2think it's a disaster don't get
Speaker 3me wrong they're still in spot you know big generator is bonkers and then when you listen to a track like holy lamb anderson still pull off that soon style miniature ballad he's still got the voice they've still got some level of inspiration which is you know something other bands of that era were lacking at that stage so even that band that underpowered yes had some element of madness and inspiration i suppose yeah
Speaker 2and i don't think it's a disaster at all um i don't think it's great i don't think it's anywhere near as good as 901c5 oh yeah it
Speaker 3would be look it'd be probably my favorite i don't think it's a disaster at all um i don't think it's great i don't think it's 50th favorite album of 1987 and i never listened and i never listened
Speaker 2to another yes ever again after this so i right i don't know any other it put you off them for life it kind of did yes were never my favorite band or anything but i definitely enjoyed all their records and i bought drama when it came out and i bought 901 to 5 when it came out and i thought owner of a lonely heart was absolutely game-changing dazzling everything blah blah blah i bought big generator when it came out and that was it so crest of a knife by jess retell i don't know this record well it's
Speaker 3something of a retreat from the artwork to the music so i really quite liked it when anderson goes off and decides that he's thomas dolby you know on something like under wraps because again he always personalize it personalizes it i even you know like the electronic excursions on broadside and a you know this isn't a particularly broadside broad sword oh my god check out that's good boy era yeah 1982 owner of a lonely heart london town by the clash i i thought was all right so i kind of like the fact that they were changing during this decade a lot of fans didn't and i know the label and their management didn't you know they were uh in a in a way almost seen as being traitors for doing this but i liked it partly because it seemed genuine when you listen to an album like under wraps lyrically it's as intelligent and searching as as anderson ever gets there's a kind of an espionage theme and he clearly believes in it i think this is a great album and i think it's a great album this is the thing isn't it even if it's a failure and not the best work they've ever done it's great when somebody of a certain vintage finds a totally fresh vocabulary and they believe in it what isn't good is when people say i'm going to do this or do that in order to gain kudos or gain fashionable status or gain success and crest of a knave which fans like a lot the cover is almost a return to some of the classic um almost pageantry imagery and so on but it's and the album is much more a kind of a classic rock staple it's very much the return of the guitar and anderson's voice changed dramatically i think we've discussed this before that when he was singing on the a tour he had notes on his voice and he was singing in quite unusual registers i
Speaker 2think it was the under wraps tour yeah it
Speaker 3was the under wraps tour his voice went and it was just before this album and his voice is at times almost unrecognizable and at times it's like a pretty convincing dire straits album that's the odd thing you know i suppose in some ways he's not gone back to the jethro tull template of regurgitating a particular album particular sound because it has as i said this kind of dire straits certainly love over gold kind of influence and he's working within the parameters that his then voice could not a perfect album but it's a good album personal favorite but i know a lot of people really really like it but it is it's almost jethro tull returning to a kind of a classic rock status after being almost electro pop it sounds
Speaker 2like ian i mean i haven't heard the record it sounds like ian was still or the band was still kind of aware of what was going on around them and it's interesting you know if you look at the albums they made in the 80s so under wraps was kind of a response to synth pop and and here's another here's another example of the band kind of responding dire straits probably at the time was it brothers in arms kind of era yeah probably responding to the fact that this was the big record at the time and trying to channel through that yeah channel that through their own sensibility and to make a record that would appeal to that audience And I think Ian was always quite canny with those kind of things. Sure. Responding to the shifts in musical genre and musical tastes as the 80s went on.
Speaker 3It shows a very different side to Martin Barr. You know, he can be this kind of sensitive, not floresque blues soloist. I mean, he's a really good guitarist. He's an amazing guitarist. Anyway. Yeah, very underrated. Yeah, it's showing a different side to his playing. I suppose with this album, actually, I think you're right. They are responding to the times still. They're not entirely retreating and becoming a Jethro Tull tribute act. It's just I was never the world's greatest Dire Straits fan. Therefore, it's not necessarily for me. Whereas when they were adopting electro pop, I was a huge fan of the likes of Thomas Dolby and so on. So, yeah, I think it's a little bit of both, but I think it's a
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