MORE THAN A MOMENTARY LAPSE OF REASON: ROGER WATERS ALWAYS WAS A CRAZY S.O.B FOR NOT LIKING THIS

https://youtu.be/DEf0iT6r7z4?si=h9BNC9_YRTs3O6s-

This album commercially was a mega-hit, it contained two hugely successful singles at the time of its release as well as 2 minor hits
so I guess you might ask why am I sticking it on Lost Treasures.

 
The reason is because the album has been maligned by so much of the band's fan base since 1987 and one disgruntled former member of the band who purely out of sour grapes and spite has never been able to bring himself to admitting what a great progressive rock album it is. 

I`m talking about Pink Floyd`s Momentary Lapse of Reason, a mature and contemporary comeback for the band after the wild experimental output of the 70`s and the 1983 Roger Waters dominated album `The Final Cut`. 

It is a lost treasure because it has been dismissed as being a pissweak "David Gilmour solo album" in disguise. 

Pink Floyd`s most celebrated line-up was
Roger Waters on bass/vocals, David Gilmour on lead guitar and vocals, Nick Mason on drums and all kinds of sound effects and Richard Wright on keyboards and all kinds of sound effects as well. 

Pink Floyd in the 70`s were technically musical wizards, I have always wondered how much better off they would have been without the self anointed leader of the band Roger Waters. 

He was (and is) a great bass player but lets face it, Waters can't sing for shit. Imagine what a great song `Run Like Hell` off THE WALL would have been had Dave Gilmour sung it instead of the out of depth Waters.

The song has great dynamics but it is let down horrendously by the the crappy singing of Waters. He likes to see himself as the greatest progressive rocker of all time, I see him as being a very ordinary one who wrecked many a promising Pink Floyd song simply because of his power mongering within the band and not wanting to allow the other band members artistic freedom to contribute equally to each song. 

The best of the 70`s albums is the more Gilmour influenced `Wish You Were Here` by quite a long way, for all its state of the art polish what many prog rock fans regard as the ultimate experience, DARK SIDE OF THE MOON, is distinctly lacking real substance on most tracks, kind of like the empty feeling you get after listening to Boston.

Slick, crisp, perfectly produced but lacking real balls and substance. Waters was the main cog in the chain for the bizarre ANIMALS album from 1977, apart from the occasional inspired solo it`s hard to hear Gilmour in the mix and even harder to hear anyone else above the rantings of Waters.

 

THE WALL is considered to be the best Floyd album, out of a double album I think there are eight genuinely good progressive rock songs on the album, I will leave a synopsis of the individual tracks for another time because I want to write a blog just on 70`s prog sometime and THE WALL will feature in that, along with some hardcore stuff like Rush. 

All in all, THE WALL is okay but lets be honest, grossly overrated. It was written almost entirely by the mad hatter Waters and I figure the few good songs it has on it are either flukes or ones with a bit more Gilmour than the rest.

I have always said that THE WALL was at least partly copycat Queen, try and tell me that Waters didn`t listen to Bohemian Rhapsody or A Night At The Opera before devising the concept for THE WALL. 

You wont convince me otherwise. Anyhow after the 70`s ended and the acrimony between the band members of Pink Floyd reached a critical level just before and just after the release of THE FINAL CUT in 1983, the others besides Waters, led by David Gilmour, said enough was enough and basically told Waters to go and shove it up his bottom. 

A court case ensued, where Waters contested the other band members right to continue the brand name of Pink Floyd without him. 

In the end, it was three against one and the law found that a new Pink Floyd, finally free of the artistic strangulation of Roger Waters, could trade as a entity.

With Richard Wright only playing a part time role in the recording of the long awaited comeback MOMENTARY LAPSE OF REASON, officially speaking Pink Floyd for a time was a 2-piece of David Gilmour and drummer Nick Mason, with studio musicians filling in the breach. 

The 1987 album is pretty much a David Gilmour solo album, that can't be denied, but in place of all the incomprehensible and abstract mumblings of Waters and the reedy detached blues rock of yesteryear is a much more wholesome hard rock influenced set of songs and a much more accessible songwriting style on offer. 

For the first time in his career, at least in Pink Floyd, Gilmour was allowed full range to sing his heart out without being held back by the jealous and control freak attitude of Roger Waters. 

Apart from the rather tiresome and formulaic `Dogs of War` and the two dumb interludes `A New Machine Part 1` and `A New Machine Part 2`, MOMENTARY LAPSE OF REASON is brimming with classic songs and prog rock in general. 

The opening instrumental `Signs Of Life` is an achingly grand song built on a foundation of keyboards and gradually allowing Gilmour to build up to a climax on guitar, the two megahits off the album, `Learning To Fly` and `On The Turning Away` have just the right blend of progression and sophistication, the latter being one song which Waters has dismissed as junk in the years after it was released. 

Waters must be nuts for thinking that, it truly is a great rock song and Gilmour never sang more beautifully.

The rollicking `One Slip` which is the title track in disguise, is probably as close to hard rock as Gilmour ever got.

 
The Genesis sounding two tracks in one `Yet Another Movie/ Round and Around` is better for its muse rather than Gilmour's more muddled vocal. 

The instrumental `Terminal Frost` gets the
album back on an even keel after the filler `A New Machine Part 1` sets it back a bit, but any misfires on the album are all forgotten about after listening to the hair-raising guitar solo opening to the final track `Sorrow, a song which goes on to become an 8-minute long broadscape sound masterpiece. 

For the life of me I don't know why Roger Waters despises this album so much, it probably is because he is sour grapes and he wasn`t a member of the band anymore when it was recorded. 

I don't know why any Pink Floyd fan would dismiss this album as being just a Dave Gilmour wannabe album either. 

They must all be smoking too much pot. I`m not a big Pink Floyd fan, but I like this album because it`s more straightforward `normal` rock, with just the right amount of progressive elements. 

I know Waters and most Pink Floyd fans will disagree with me but to me this is the only Pink Floyd album that you can listen to from start to finish without being aggravated.