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Pink Floyd / The Great Gig in the Sky / The Dark Side Of The Moon (5) / Mar 1973

R.I.P. Richard Wright



I know I post this waaay late, being offline here all week, but what a bummer it was to see this come over the news wires on Monday. I always hate it when a founding/major member of a major band dies, and this is an especially heartfelt downer because this is the first time* since the death of Cliff Burton in 1987 that a member of one of my Top 10 has passed.

I didn't really think that we'd see any kind of reunion of Pink Floyd, live or (especially unlikely) on record, beyond that Live 8 gig, but just because of that and other unlikely reunions like Led Zeppelin, it kind of left me with a little bit more High Hopes that it could happen. But I guess this about settles it, because they've lost the jazzy and classical influence, and I don't think David Gilmour would do it without him. And David has seemed even more against it in recent years anyway. So I guess we/they should be glad they got the Live 8 thing done.

I didn't know until I was reading this week some more about the troublesome period when Roger Waters forced him out of the band that Rick was the only one who ended up profiting from the tour to support The Wall because he was only used as a hired session player, while the other three full-time members had to bear the net loss. Ah, karma levels the field again. The Final Cut, indeed!

I've said on more than one occasion that I'm not a fan of keyboards/organ in metal, but I certainly have no problem with them in hard rock and progressive rock, and Rick's style is the kind I love best, even in metal: complementing the songs, adding layer upon layer, textures, atmospherics, and taking solos only when the sound of the song is specifically enhanced by it.

In fact, it's probably his work that "makes the song" for me on Echoes, Time, Money, Welcome to the Machine, Sheep, Marooned, and especially the f'cking brilliant work on Keep Talking and Careful With That Axe, Eugene - can you imagine those songs without it? All of those are among my favorite PF tracks, and all of them would be worth far, far less without Rick's playing. Interesting work on Atom Heart Mother, too, which I just synchronistically highlighted recently as a favorite of 1970.

I always loved his vocals, too. Have a listen to Wearing the Inside Out...doesn't he sound like Eric Woolfson (The Alan Parsons Project)? That's a good thing: that mellow, smooth, dreamy, almost-whispering croon. Sweet stuff.

Enjoy the heck out of that great gig, Rick. We're sure as hell gonna miss you down here.

\m/ (†_†) \m/

*I know John Rutsey recently passed, and though he was an original member of Rush, I don't consider him a major member. Absolutely no disrespect intended, because the very first Rush album is one of my Rush favorites.

Pink Floyd keyboard player and founding member richard wright died on Monday after a short battle with Cancer, his spokesman said. He was 65.



Wright, singer, songwriter and guitarist Syd Barrett, guitarist Roger Waters and drummer Nick Mason founded the band that became Pink Floyd in the 1960s when they were students. pink floyd went on to become one of the biggest names in rock.

"The family of Richard Wright, Founder member of Pink Floyd, announce with great sadness, that Richard died today after a short struggle with cancer," his spokesman said in a statement.

"The family have asked that their privacy is respected at this difficult time."

wright co-wrote five songs on "Dark Side of the Moon," which was released in 1973, spent 14 years on the Billboard 200 album chart and is one of the best selling albums ever.

Wright left Pink Floyd after falling out with Waters during sessions for "The Wall." He rejoined the band in 1987.

(Reporting by David Clarke; Editing by Kevin Liffey)http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20080915/music_nm/wright_dc_4

Dneska po zhruba roce a půl (po 574 dnech) jsem dospěl na last.fm úspěšně k 25 tisícům nascrobblovaných songů... Ohlédl jsem se za tím, jaká jsou má nej, kteří interpreti, songy a alba u mě vedou.

Top artist:
1. Pink Floyd - 4164 songů
2. U2 - 2080 songů
3. Oasis - 1868 songů
4. Coldplay - 1559 songů
5. David Gilmour - 1402 songů
Celkem 314 interpretů.

Top tracks:
1. Pink Floyd - High Hopes - 272x
2. Pink Floyd - Money - 135x
3. Pink Floyd - Marooned - 116x
4. Pink Floyd - Cluster One - 115x
5. Pink Floyd - Take It Back - 113x

Top 5 "nepinkfloydovských" songů:
1. Colbie Caillat - Bubbly - 113x
2. Avril Lavigne - When You're Gone - 101x
3. Oasis - Wonderwall - 81x
4. Oasis - The Masterplan - 75x
5. Oasis - Don't Look Back in Anger - 73x
Don't Look Back In Anger je na 20. - 21. místě, na 5 "nepinkfloydovských" hitů připadá 16 skladeb skupiny Pink Floyd.

Top alba - celkem:
1. Pink Floyd - The Wall - 1345 songů
2. Pink Floyd - The Division Bell - 1330 songů
3. Pink Floyd - The Dark Side Of The Moon - 600 songů
4. Oasis - MTV unplugged - 562 songů
5. Roger Waters - Amused to Death - 392 songů

Zajímavosti:
- můj současný průměr je 44 songů denně -> 308 skladeb týdně -> měsíčně 1364
- můj současný průměr je 7 (a něco) songů Pink Floyd denně (51 týdně, 225 měsíčně)
- po sloučení všech interpretů skupiny Pink Floyd (PF 4156 songů + David Gilmout 1402 + Roger Waters 639 + Rick Wright & Richard Wright 186 + Syd Barrett 39) by mi vyšel celkový počet nascrobblovaných songů členů této kapely 6422 (denně 11, týdně 78, měsíčně 347)
- skladby interpretů Pink Floyd tvoří zhruba 26 % všech mých nascrobblovaných skladeb (samotné PF asi 17 %, David Gilmour asi 5,5 %, Roger Waters asi 2,5 %, Richard alias Rick Wright 0,75 % a Syd Barrett 0,16 %)

Track nr 1 - High Hopes od Pink Floyd

On this, my 38th birthday (birthday wishes to Roger Waters here), I thought it would be fun to revisit that great year of 1970 that brought us not only a whole bunch of great people :D but more importantly for the SotD Journal, so much great music!

Credit where it's due: This list of my favorite songs of 1970 was originally sparked by a timely entry earlier this week from the same guy that posted up that idea of using album market statistics and awards to compute a list of Top 20 Albums (a favorite of Grant's!) No worries, Grant, that one is totally subjective!

Below is my own submission to his call for our own favorite songs of 1970, slightly edited and with some additional commentary.

But I don't want to stop there¹! One day for 1970 isn't enough, so I thought it would be good to have a full week celebration of 1970: starting tomorrow and for each of the next 7 days, I will choose seven² of my Top 10 of 1970 as a SotD, and then cap it off with the first of what I have been talking about publishing for, well, a looong time: sablespecter's Album of the Year awards. If you've been a careful, longtime reader of SotD, I think I've actually said what my Album of the Year for 1970 is, and it shouldn't be hard to guess once you've reviewed the list below and consider my favorite artists. But I'll post it officially, and the rest of the AotY awards will follow.

------------------------------
Ah, 1970! A lot of spectacular things entered the world that year. (I did, too!)

The "Best of 1970" and my personal favorites may not be (and likely aren't) the same thing. This list is the best of 1970 in my own opinion. A couple of notes:

• This takes into account global release dates. Not everything was released everywhere at the same time. Readers of SotD know that I have always used the date that an album was first released anywhere as the date of reference.

• Be flexible with release dates, especially since we're considering songs as opposed to albums. Led Zeppelin provides a prime example: yes, Led Zeppelin II was released in October 1969, and "Whole Lotta Love" was released as a single twice that fall (uncut in October, edited in November), but it was one of the biggest singles of 1970. It didn't enter the U.S. charts until December and actually spent more weeks on the chart in 1970 than in 1969. And if you think globally, it was one of the biggest singles around the world in 1970, hitting #1 in at least three countries in that year.

• I have listed alternate arrangements/covers separately.

• I have generally tried to select no more than one song from an album, though in a few instances I just can't!

Favorites of 1970 (alphabetically, *denotes Top 10 selection):
• The Allman Brothers Band: In Memory of Elizabeth Reed
• Badfinger: Come and Get It (technically released before the album as a B-side to Rock of All Ages in Dec 1969...but be flexible)
• The Beatles: Let It Be
[Can I also include Don't Let Me Down? Damn Phil Spector for cutting it from Let It Be! (Although I do like what he did with the title track, which IMHO is superior than the "intended version" released on Let It Be...Naked.) "Don't Let Me Down" was released on the Hey Jude compilation a couple of months in advance of Let It Be anyway, but regardless, including it is probably being a little TOO flexible, since it was actually first released as the B-side to Get Back in April 1969.]

• Black Sabbath: Wicked World (only available on North America releases in 1970), *Planet Caravan (released in the UK in 1970, US 1971)
• Creedence Clearwater Revival: Run Through the Jungle
• Miles Davis: Bitches Brew
• Deep Purple: *Child in Time
• Derek and The Dominos: Layla
• The Doors: Peace Frog
• Funkadelic: Free Your Mind And Your Ass Will Follow
• Grand Funk Railroad: Sin's a Good Man's Brother
• George Harrison: *Art of Dying
• Jimi Hendrix: *Ezy Ryder
• Led Zeppelin: Whole Lotta Love, Immigrant Song (and it's single B-side Hey Hey What Can I Do), *Since I've Been Loving You
• John Lennon (with Plastic Ono Band): *God and *Working Class Hero
• Dave Mason: Sad and Deep as You and Look at You, Look at Me
• Paul McCartney: Maybe I'm Amazed
• Randy Newman: Mama Told Me Not to Come (or Three Dog Night - take your pick, though I prefer Newman's over 3DN's bigger hit version)
• Pink Floyd: Atom Heart Mother
• Santana: Hope You're Feeling Better
• Wishbone Ash: *Errors of My Way and *Phoenix
• Neil Young: Southern Man

Favorite Alternate Arrangements/Covers (original):
• Black Sabbath: *Warning (The Aynsley Dunbar Retaliation, 1967)
If you're listening on vinyl, best served paired with the preceding track Sleeping Village, which is how they're tracked together on the CD releases anyway.

• Creedence Clearwater Revival: I Heard It Through the Grapevine (Gladys Knight & The Pips, 1967; Marvin Gaye, 1968)

• Santana: Black Magic Woman (single version, or Black Magic Woman/Gypsy Queen from Abraxas) (Fleetwood Mac, 1968)
There's a reason Santana's version is the definitive IMHO: the added conga, timbales and other percussion, and Gregg Rolie's organ and piano, provide that awesome "voodoo" element, but in truth I actually prefer Peter Green's original. Especially done live, such as captured on Live At The Boston Tea Party...recorded in early February 1970!

\m/ (ò_ó) \m/

¹I've had a hard time staying timely and on track this past summer, whether because of an awesome-busy First Life summer, changes to the site & server problems here on Last, my own PC problems, whatever...sheesh. Now, I'm hoping the problems have been sorted out, and we're back to a bit more of a normal routine - though there is one crazy twist about to come (stay tuned Tuesday for the announcement of another of my "what-was-I-thinking?" ideas...).

I've been busy this week again, but using the offline time plotting & scheming. As we enter this, my favorite time of year, I am today bringing SotD out of Minimal Mode (hopefully for awhile), and have lined up what I hope proves to be quite an interesting editorial calendar for the fall & early winter blogging season!

²Of my Top 10 of 1970, one has been chosen previously as a SotD (just last month, in fact). Three artists contribute two songs, so I will choose just one from two of those, and one of them is a remake, so I will honor it specially.

Pink Floyd / If / Atom Heart Mother (2) / Oct 1970

Happy 65th Birthday to George Roger Waters! (...and #38 to me!)



The second side of their first UK #1 album featured a song from each one of the main songwriters, as well as closing out with a 13-minute suite arranged mainly by Nick Mason.

I thought Roger's song was the best selection for this time of year over any of his solo works, and especially good for our shared birthday, when I typically do a lot of introspective thinking:

"When that fat old sun in the sky is falling /
Summer evenin' birds are calling /
Children's laughter in my ears /
The last sunlight disappears /
And if you sit don't make a sound /
Pick your feet up off the ground /
And if you hear as the warm night falls /
The silver sound from a time so strange /
Sing to me, sing to me /
When that fat old sun in the sky is falling"

One of the final three songs recorded in August, they only performed it live once, before it was actually recorded for the album! Roger did perform it on his solo tours, however, as it fits nicely with the thoughts & moods of his solo albums, particularly The Pros and Cons of Hitch Hiking.

The first side of this album contributes one of my presonal selections for the Best of 1970!

\m/ (ò_ó) \m/

Catherine Wheel were a band founded by Rob Dickinson (cousin of Bruce Dickinson of Iron Maiden fame) in 1990. Their musical style can be described as alternative rock, but because of their trademark heavily textured and fuzzy "wall of sound," they are also considered shoegaze. Their material is rather similar to that of The Smashing Pumpkins, only better IMHO, because Rob's smooth, soulful voice is far more listenable than that of Billy Corgan. The band were active until 2000, releasing 5 studio albums and 1 compilation album. Their biggest hit was the lush and layered Black Metallic from their first album, which I highly recommend: Ferment.

I chose 2 covers from their 1996 compilation album, Like Cats and Dogs as a birthday shout-out to friend and prolific Last.fm contributor, sablespecter. The songs happen to be from artists we have in common in our Top 50 most played here on Last: Pink Floyd and Rush. The first, Wish You Were Here, is especially appropriate as September 6 is also Roger Waters' birthday! It's a suitably soothing take on the mellow original, with a lovely touch of harmonica.

The second cover, of Rush's The Spirit of Radio, appears as a bonus track at the tail end of a medley: Something Strange/ Angelo Nero/ Spirit of Radio. It's a lively and faithful rendition of Rush's version, but remains true to the style of Catherine Wheel. Enjoy!

The Final Cut by Pink Floyd

For all of the complaining three of Pink Floyd's members did about this album, it's actually quite good. More mellow than most of Pink Floyd's post-Dark Side of the Moon work, The Final Cut is a collection of war-related songs and basically a Roger Waters solo album. No real classics on here but as an album plays pretty well.