[rating=8.00]
A lot of people bag on Yoko on the bogus allegation that she broke up The Beatles. But Polly Samson is a rock ‘n’ roll wife far more deserving of your jeers for her role in transforming Pink Floyd into a big puddle of MOR goo that undercut the very fabric of the band’s rich history of psychedelic exceptionalism.
Longtime Floyd fans already took it with a baseball-sized grain of salt when we heard the news that David Gilmour pulled a major Spın̈al Tap move by commissioning his betrothed to co-pen seven of the 11 songs for their 1994 LP The Division Bell. And it was her interjection of this kind of New Age sentimentalism that has helped rechristen the band “Polly Floyd” in the eyes of many of their most ardent listeners. She turned them into James, for crying out loud.
Lucky for us, there is only one vocal song on The Endless River, the first Floyd album in 20 years. But that singular tune, “Louder Than Words”, is reason enough to be eternally grateful to whomever made the decision to make the group’s 15th and final studio LP a mostly instrumental affair. Especially after you catch wind of that wince-inducing opening line: “We bitch and we fight/Diss each other on sight.” Really, Polly? Really? Oh, btw, 1992 called about its street lingo, too.
However, “Louder Than Words” is the only hiccup on an otherwise masterful goodbye from this grand titan of AOR, who will be celebrating its 50th anniversary in 2015. The Endless River stems from sessions for an ambient companion disc to The Division Bell the group was working on but discarded for unknown reasons. And what was apparently left behind was this brilliant, shimmering fusion of the instrumental work from that 1993-94 era (“Cluster One”, “Marooned”) and the ethos by which they had conspired A Saucerful of Secrets in the wake of Syd Barrett’s departure.
Yes, there are moments here where you can clearly ascertain Gilmour’s kowtowing to Samson’s Broadwayification of the Pink Floyd sound across numbers like “Anisina” and “Talkin’ Hawkin”, but the interplay between these three friends and such longtime associates as Roxy Music guitarist Phil Manzanera and The Wall producer Bob Ezrin on bass rescues the songs from drowning in corn.
Yet for the most part, The Endless River is best viewed for what it was meant to be: a fitting tribute to the late Richard Wright, whose stellar keyboard work—the bedrock of the band, really—takes on the role as lead vocalist here. There will truly be no other like him. And the direction Gilmour and Mason took this—Pink Floyd’s true Final Cut—could not have been more perfect. –Ron Hart
2 Responses
The criticisms of Polly’s lyrics are fair… although some of the lyrics on the Division Bell I quite like. But I’ve always viewed her as a sort of “anti-Yoko.” Who knows what direction David would have taken the band without her input, although it’s pretty reasonable to assume that the music wouldn’t have been much different. It’s also reasonable to assume that several defining Floyd moments in the last 10 years, notably the Live 8 reunion and a couple of one-off appearances with David and Roger together more recently, might not have happened without her input and presence. I’ve always seen her as a sort of peacemaker, nudging David in a positive direction.
I hear what you are saying, Mac, a piece I wound up editing out of this piece, actually, is the direction Floyd could have gone in had Polly been out of the picture in the 90s….Imagine if Gilmour had linked up with The Orb back in 1994, or though a little far fetched, maybe tapping someone like Aphex Twin to produce the album….I could have seen Pink Floyd going in a direction similar to what Radiohead began to do in OK Computer by incorporating electronic music, which would have been really cool….plus I’m a big fan of Momemtary Lapse of Reason, and was always fond of Gilmour’s own lyrics, especially on his first two solo albums….