|
|
Date of Release Oct 30, 1971
Time 46:48 minutes
A Review of Meddle (Rolling Stone)
Pink Floyd has finally emerged from the Atom Heart Mother phase, a fairly
stagnant period in their musical growth, marked by constant creative
indecision. They tried to cover for it by putting a particular series of
subliminal sound effects on the 'Atom Heart' LP, and by dragging in huge,
unwieldy brass orchestra sections to their concerts. Nothing short of
disaster on both counts. Their new album, Meddle not only confirms lead
guitarist David Gilmour's emergence as a real shaping force with the group,
it states forcefully and accurately that the group is well into the growth
track again. The first cut, "One Of These Days (I'm Going To Cut You Into
Little Pieces)" sticks to the usual Floyd formula (sound effect-slow organ
build-lead guitar surge & climax-resolving sound effect), but each segment
of the tune is so well done, and the whole thing coheres so perfectly it
comes across as a positive, high-energy opening. Next, we have a series of
ozone ballads like "Pillow Of Winds" and "San Tropez".
Pleasant little acoustic numbers hovering over a bizarre back-drop of weird sounds. A clever spoof entitled "Fearless" leads up to a classic crowd rendition of Rodger's
& Hammerstein's "You'll Never Walk Alone", the perennial victory song for
the Wembley Cup Final crowd in England. And, to round off side one, a great
pseudo-spoof blues tune with David Gilmour's song Seamus taking over the
lead "howl" duties. "Echoes", a 23-minute Pink Floyd aural extravaganza that
takes up all of side two, recaptures, within a new musical framework, some
of the old themes and melody lines from earlier albums. All of this plus a
funky organ-bass-drums segment and a stunning Gilmour solo adds up to a fine
extended electronic outing. Meddle is killer Floyd from start to finish.
Jean-Charles Costa, Rolling Stone, 01-06-1972.
| ALBUM RELEASES |
| 1971 |
CD Mobile Fidelity UDCD-518 |
| 1971 |
LP Harvest 832 |
| 1991 |
CD Capitol C2-46034 |
| 1991 |
CS Capitol C4-46034 |
| 1995 |
CD EMI 7243 8 29749 2 |
|
| PERSONNEL |
| Roger Waters |
Bass, Guitar, Guitar (Bass), Vocals |
| Nick Mason |
Percussion, Drums |
| Richard Wright |
Keyboards, Vocals |
| Robert Black |
Engineer |
| Peter Bown |
Engineer |
| Pink Floyd |
Producer, Cover Design |
| David Gilmour |
Guitar, Vocals |
| John Leckie |
Engineer |
| Roger Quested |
Engineer |
| Hipgnosis |
Photography |
|
|
|
