🎧 Pink Floyd, "The Final Cut". As much as I have come to despise Roger Waters as an adult, when I was 17 he wrote this powerful anti-war record, which for all of RW's misguided and misinformed senior moments, still resonates. He re-introduces the Teacher from "The Wall" as a tortured vet, haunted by his deeply buried memories. Pink returns as well, still just a scared little boy trapped in a rock star's body. 1/2
At Water's direction and with Gilmour and Mason relegated to supporting players, it is PF's artiest record, and could be seen as a prequel to RW's "Amused to Death". Released 40 years ago this week. Turn out the lights, put on the cans, and lose yourself in this one.
There's a great in-depth article about the record here:
@John_Ripley Same here - a favorite PF record. I NEVER liked The Wall, so I didn't have high hopes for TFC. But I think I spent an entire week listening to it. It's been years, decades even, since my last listen. Now, even with much older ears, it's still pulls at my heart and my head, and of course the muso in me is just floored by its enormity. I mean, "The Gunners Dream"....damn.
@MPCavalier I'm really torn about this album. Both love and hate it. And then I get to Not Now John and it's like a body on life support coming back for one last glorious breath before collapsing.
@JohnRadcliff
That seems to be the prevailing consensus. It's overwrought, its subject matter had been beaten to death, and of course, "it ain't Pink Floyd." And it isn't. But compositionally I think it was a pretty big leap forward for Waters as far as complexity and arrangements.
@MPCavalier I bought this the day it came out, was not what my soon to be 19 year old being was expecting. At now just shy of 59, it has become one of my favorite Pink Floyd albums. Seeing him perform Two Suns in The Sunset last year was quite moving to me.