Part of a series of interviews, reviews, news articles that chart an alternate path for Pink Floyd, beginning with...
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Melody Maker - October 21st 1979
PINK FLOYD - THE PROS AND CONS OF HITCH HIKING (Harvest)
Given the lacklustre, knee biting mentality of the recent crop of punk-derived groups - emphasis on the common denominator of 'derived' - you can be forgiven for weaning yourself back onto the music your school-inflicted persona once mournfully swayed to merely a decade ago, even within the reaches of psychadelic exuberance. The keeper of The Pink Floyd Sound without reservation or trade of wonderfully told storytelling for unabashed whinging - as explained later - still remains with Syd Barrett, seemingly unable presently to operate in a day to day life, let alone the parlour of musical creation. With his early departure from the founding line-up of Pink Floyd, the band was given a brisk hand-me-down with the introduction of David Gilmour. A blues-adoring, jawline-strutting guitarist who can effortlessly outplay himself on a decade matured legacy of increasingly conceptual, increasingly singularly themed albums.
Though with that, lies the truth all concerned tried to keep bouyant from. This is the Roger Waters band née experience. He writes the lyrics, he creates the concepts, he whinges with impeccable timing and ignorance of his peers and finally, with an inevitable sense of timing as we hurtle into the 1980's, Pink Floyd really has became part of its own self-inflicted joke.
The Pros and Cons of Hitch Hiking is a wholly owned Roger Waters mid-life crisis from start to finish with little, if any, remnants of the almost tactical stereo cannon blasts that signalled their genre and live arena domination with The Dark Side of the Moon. The album begins with a hastily assembled audio collage, giving clue to a nightmare that our brave protagonist lurches out of and into the loving arms of his dear... wife? partner? bird? Who cares, the album relies on a shockingly narrow selection of melodic appeasements, well I may as well not lie, sound 'bites' that are meant to link each theme, each song to one another. This works in principle if you are reciting the collected works of George Orwell's ad man, but it's not the muster of a band that opened the decade without the knowledge that a song doesn't have to be sixteen minutes in length (without a tea break). You can tell I'm procrastinating, I am, The Pros and Cons of Hitch Hiking is a horrible long-player with weedy, rattling production, bitingly lurching and morose lyrical content and virtually free of bluesy, or even influential guitar backing and organ playing from Messers Gilmour and Wright. There is need for the ability to outrank your peers in times of crisis, but Roger Waters really has took the piss this time in the post-'Animals' era. Did he lose the plot trying to reach out to hundreds of thousands in culturally absent stadiums? Or was this his plan all along?
Come back Syd, your band, no, your country needs you.
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OOC - The Pros and Cons of Hitch Hiking was the alternate concept piece considered by the band before they settled on 'The Wall', which went on to be one of the most successful albums of all time. Roger Waters went on to record Pros and Cons as a solo album in 1984.
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Melody Maker - October 21st 1979
PINK FLOYD - THE PROS AND CONS OF HITCH HIKING (Harvest)
Given the lacklustre, knee biting mentality of the recent crop of punk-derived groups - emphasis on the common denominator of 'derived' - you can be forgiven for weaning yourself back onto the music your school-inflicted persona once mournfully swayed to merely a decade ago, even within the reaches of psychadelic exuberance. The keeper of The Pink Floyd Sound without reservation or trade of wonderfully told storytelling for unabashed whinging - as explained later - still remains with Syd Barrett, seemingly unable presently to operate in a day to day life, let alone the parlour of musical creation. With his early departure from the founding line-up of Pink Floyd, the band was given a brisk hand-me-down with the introduction of David Gilmour. A blues-adoring, jawline-strutting guitarist who can effortlessly outplay himself on a decade matured legacy of increasingly conceptual, increasingly singularly themed albums.
Though with that, lies the truth all concerned tried to keep bouyant from. This is the Roger Waters band née experience. He writes the lyrics, he creates the concepts, he whinges with impeccable timing and ignorance of his peers and finally, with an inevitable sense of timing as we hurtle into the 1980's, Pink Floyd really has became part of its own self-inflicted joke.
The Pros and Cons of Hitch Hiking is a wholly owned Roger Waters mid-life crisis from start to finish with little, if any, remnants of the almost tactical stereo cannon blasts that signalled their genre and live arena domination with The Dark Side of the Moon. The album begins with a hastily assembled audio collage, giving clue to a nightmare that our brave protagonist lurches out of and into the loving arms of his dear... wife? partner? bird? Who cares, the album relies on a shockingly narrow selection of melodic appeasements, well I may as well not lie, sound 'bites' that are meant to link each theme, each song to one another. This works in principle if you are reciting the collected works of George Orwell's ad man, but it's not the muster of a band that opened the decade without the knowledge that a song doesn't have to be sixteen minutes in length (without a tea break). You can tell I'm procrastinating, I am, The Pros and Cons of Hitch Hiking is a horrible long-player with weedy, rattling production, bitingly lurching and morose lyrical content and virtually free of bluesy, or even influential guitar backing and organ playing from Messers Gilmour and Wright. There is need for the ability to outrank your peers in times of crisis, but Roger Waters really has took the piss this time in the post-'Animals' era. Did he lose the plot trying to reach out to hundreds of thousands in culturally absent stadiums? Or was this his plan all along?
Come back Syd, your band, no, your country needs you.
---
OOC - The Pros and Cons of Hitch Hiking was the alternate concept piece considered by the band before they settled on 'The Wall', which went on to be one of the most successful albums of all time. Roger Waters went on to record Pros and Cons as a solo album in 1984.