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

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 bands 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`ve been
without the self annointed leader of the band Roger Waters. He
was (and is) a great bass player but lets face it, Waters cant
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 influ-
enced `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 dis-
tinctly 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 bi-
zarre 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 8 genuinely good progres-
sive rock songs on the album, i`ll 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 OK 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 3 against 1 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 cant be
denied, but in place of all the incomprehensible and ab-
stract 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 song-
writing 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 jealousy
and control freak attitude of Roger Waters. Apart from the
rather tiresome and formulic `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 dis-
guise, is probaly 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 Gilmours
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 for-
gotten about after listening to the hairraising guitar solo open-
ing 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
dont know why Roger Waters despises this album so much, it proba-
ly is bacause he is sour grapes and he wasn`t a member of the band
anymore when it was recorded. I dont know why any Pink Floyd fan
would dismiss this album as being just a Dave Gilmour wannabe al-
bum 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 straight-
forward `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.