PINK FLOYD HAS A NEW ALBUM (AND SADLY, ROGER STILL ISN’T IN IT)

 “If one of us is going to be called Pink Floyd,

it’s me. It’s my pig up there, it's my plane crashing,

It’s their dry ice…”

                                                --Roger Waters, former Pink Floyd bassist/vocalist

          It has been confirmed that Pink Floyd (in my book the greatest rock band of all time) is coming out with a new album and it’s entitled  The Endless River, which recording started during The Division Bell sessions, the reason the late Rick Wright was still able to contribute.

          This should have been a really, really fantastic news  for the fans (which obviiously include me) if only Roger Waters is in the album.

          David Gilmour fans will definitely contest this but I am of the opinion that Roger Waters was the heart and soul and the creative genius behind Pink Floyd Without him, there would have been no Dark Side of the Moon, Wish You Were here, Animals and The Wall—these are all fantastic CDs and Roger Waters wrote all the lyrics in these albums, aside from composing some of the melodies.

          Van Gogh had his Starry night, Da Vinci had his Mona Lisa, Hemingway had his The Old Man and the Sea, Francis Ford Copolla has his The Godfather, Pink Floyd have these albums.

          And the lyrics have been a major reason why Pink Floyd’s music has been very popular and well-loved.

          Dark Side of the Moon, an album that tackles madness and greed among other themes, stayed in Billboard’s Top 200 album  chart for 741 weeks (that’s 14 years), a feat  which no other album, pop or rock, has duplicated nor surpassed.

         I’m not saying that Pink Floyd’s other albums (which include Meddle, Atom Heart Mother and The Final Cut) are mediocre. They are great, too. It’s just that the aforementioned four albums are where Pink Floyd soared and peaked musically.

         Pink Floyd fell apart during the ‘80s, after the release of their last album The Final Cut (which is basically a solo Waters album). David Gilmour (the group’s guitarist and a truly exceptional one and he also has a great voice)  was allegedly quoted as saying that “The Final Cut is a piece of sh-t and nobody bought it.” Don’t believe him, The Final Cut is a very good album, though a tad gloomy.

         Why did they break up? Creative differences, they say. Roger didn’t like what the other members were contributing and David  didn’t like what Roger was doing to the group. The irony of it was that when they finally broke up, David, Rick Wright(keyboardist) and Nick Mason(drummer) reunited and went out to perform as Pink Floyd singing Roger’s songs. Roger sued them to stop them from using the name "Pink Floyd" but failed. They subsequently released two studio albums, The Momentary Lapse of Reason (which is awful) and The Division Bell (which is bland and uninspired, at least to PF standards).

         Alas, without Roger’s input, the artistry, the angst, the magic, the trippy sound and the wonderful lyrics of Pink Floyd music are gone.

         Roger’s solo albums, The Pros and Cons of Hitchhiking and Amused to Death are better, although without the contributions from David, Rick and Nick (especially David), they fail to be the epic that the classic Pink Floyd albums are.

         After they broke up, there was so much bad blood between Roger and David that they refused to talk to each other for more than two decades.

          They finally made up and made the fans happy when they reunited briefly for Live 8 which occurred in 2005 and everyone thought Roger and David were friends again.

          And yet, Roger still has no contributions whatsoever for the incoming Pink Floyd album. What gives?

          So, which one’s Pink?

 from left: Rick, Roger, Nick and David

SIDE NOTE:  Ignore those allegations that Pink Floyd is a drugs-oriented group and that you need drugs to enjoy their music. Me, I don’t even smoke but I enjoy their music immensely.