I have to assume Dave Gilmour sent his part in with the understanding that Ice-T would use the bits he liked best.
Which apparently, and understandably, was the entire thing. Having a Gilmour solo underneath the entire song was inspired, especially since he sounds absolutely invested.
So I'd known this existed for a while but hadn't watched it until just now and hokey smokes is it ever so much better than I'd anticipated. Roger Waters' voice sounds surprisingly supple, the band is expectedly red hot, and the graphics are not surprisingly top notch.
I was reading a discussion the other day about who the greatest prog keyboardist of the 70s was: Keith Emerson or Rick Wakeman? And what about Patrick Moraz? Where does he fit in?
I don't nearly enough about keyboards or Emerson to have any kind of an educated opinion. I know I certain prefer both Wakeman's and Moraz's playing, given that Close to the Edge is absolutely one of my favorite albums ever, and Fragile's not far behind, and for that matter, I have recently come to appreciate Relayer despite the fact that Bill Bruford doesn't play on it, but he didn't play on the two albums he made with Moraz and I like those too. Meanwhile, I've never had much desire to hear any ELP beyond what was frequently on the radio and didn't even enjoy that handful of tunes all that much.
Still, there's no question that when it comes to technique, Wakeman, Emerson and Moraz stand head and shoulders above the other most famous prog keyboardists, Tony Banks and Rick Wright, and that's assuming you even consider Pink Floyd a prog band. (You should.) Both are certainly fine players, but neither come close to the kind of technical excellence so freely displayed by Wakeman and Emerson.
And yet. For all their unquestioned chops, and for all I adore Close to the Edge and it and Fragile have enriched my life, I have never heard Rick Wakeman play anything as lovely, as melodious, as absolutely perfect for its setting as the solo Banks plays from 2:49-3:10, never mind Keith Emerson.
And we haven't even touched about the stuff he wrote with Genesis—which is to say, most of Genesis' output. (That's at least a slight exaggeration. Sometimes he only co-wrote stuff.) But, I mean, "Cinema Show"? "Apocalypse in 9/8"? "After the Ordeal"? I mean.
So. Best keyboardist? By most criteria, Banks isn't even close to being in the running. But I would surely pick just about anything he ever wrote with Genesis over not only just about anything ever written by Wakeman or Emerson, I'd pick just about anything he's ever written over just about everything written by those guys.
(Full disclosure: Rick Wakeman seems like he's been pretty much one of the coolest guys on the planet since at least Hunky Dory.)
I am so tired of this kind of pop culture appropriation and recycling. It's so often so damn lazy and then you've often got the hip snarky new version in your mind when you hear/see the original whether you like it or not...I was a fan, but I'm kinda over it.
And all that goes right out the window when it's as amazingly well done as this.
We've written on here several times before that we're big fans of artists putting their own stamps on covers. But that doesn't mean that's all there is to it. And as with so many things in life, just because you can doesn't mean you should.
Oh, I can hear what you're saying. But I'm afraid there definitely is some pain. And would we really say that's working good?
People, man. People. You see or hear the things others say and do and just shake your head, wondering how on earth they could be so foolish, ignoring—or trying to—how guilty you are of the exact same damn thing.
That Roger Waters wasn't fully cognizant of how integral David Gilmour's contributions to his artistic successes just boggles the mind. I can understand Roger being proud of his own lyrical prowess—and well he should be. I understand that Gilmour could be lazy, something David himself has admitted. I get that Roger wrote more and more of the music as well, and it wasn't entirely his own megalomaniacal tendencies (although those certainly contributed), and that by the time you've composed most of The Wall you're feeling pretty confident in your own abilities. I get that.
What I don't get is how someone can forget that they wrote this:
which is certainly a nice piece of writing, with good if not yet finished lyrics and a decent melody, but which musically doesn't sound any more advanced than the stuff he'd been writing three or four years earlier. And then the phenomenal guitarist/outstanding singer and excellent keyboardist/good singer and, yes, even the not technically accomplished but stylistically identifiable and tasteful drummer—your best friend—in your band turn it into this:
and you don't think, huh...maybe I've got a pretty good thing going, but instead, sod 'em—I'm going solo and I'll show them...I'll show them all!
32 years down the road and Roger Waters has yet to record a single song as notable as any of dozens he created in the last decade of the band. (Nor, for that matter, has David Gilmour or Rick Wright.) It's a thing that happens, when musicians begin to fancy themselves auteurs, and it's a shame. For them and for the rest of us.
Maybe I’m wrong, but I don’t think people tend to associate
the word “beauty” with the music of Pink Floyd too often. At least I don’t.
Pink Floyd is one of the greatest and most important
rock-n-roll bands in history for myriad reasons. That's a given.
The sheer audacity of Roger
Waters’ vision and propensity to not only aim for the fences so many
different times, but to reach them. David Gilmour’s jaw-dropping guitar ability. The fact that
Waters-Gilmour-Mason-Wright made one damn fine, tight and meticulously
instinctive band. And that unique atmospheric quality attached to so much of Pink Floyd’s
work—think of how recognizable and distinctive that decade-long thread running from Meddle through The Wall (and even through The
Final Cut) is. It’s hard to think of a band with a more identifiable sound
or feel, or a band more in command of that sound and feel.
But beauty? Sure, there’s plenty of it in their songs. Parts
of “Echoes,” the gorgeous guitar run in “Fearless,” Gilmour’s impeccable solos
that play out “Another Brick in the Wall Part II” and “Comfortably Numb,” the
sentiments of loss and regret that permeate every inch of “Wish You Were Here.”
It’s there. I’ve just never looked at a Pink Floyd song before and had my first response be, “That’s beautiful.” I’m more apt to be amazed, or floored, or sometimes
even bewildered or startled than to notice the outright beauty.
But it’s there.
And here’s a very, very deep cut from very,
very late in their career that clearly shows how capable these guys were of
creating something that, first and foremost, was beautiful. Even though, yes, David
Gilmour doesn’t play on it, and even though, unfortunately, Rick Wright was no
longer part of the band at this time. It still has the Pink Floyd name on it.
(Just like “Yesterday” has the Beatles name on it and is without question a
Beatles song, even though Paul is the only Beatle who's there.) And it’s still
a beautiful and moving little song.
Mayhap you agree? And
if not, well, listen anyway!
("The pie in the sky turned out to be miles too high. And you hide hide hide, behind brown and mild eyes.")
Although it sometimes seems as though it's not possible for a Pink Floyd song to fly under the radar, it's in fact very possible: few of the albums before Dark Side of the Moon are really well known even by a lot of Floyd fans, other than by name. I mean, sure, every serious PF fan is well aware of Piper at the Gates of Dawn, but without even a shred of evidence I'll state that I suspect few have heard it even once, much less ten percent as often as Wish You Were Here.
The same very much goes for their delightful soundtrack albums, Obscured by Clouds and More, and to a (much) lesser extent Atom Heart Mother and even Meddle.
Which is a shame, since they both are worthwhile albums—especially Meddle, of course—even if Atom Heart's title track is the weakest song on that LP.
I'm not sure this is the strongest, but it surely is daggum purty. (Nearly as attractive as the record sleeve.) Roger Waters' writing isn't nearly as sophisticated as it would become just a few years later, and his singing verges on being a bit precious, but the music's just lovely, and the lyrics casually introduce, long before Dark Side of the Moon, Wish You Were Here or The Wall, the insidious way insanity can creep into one's brain. Shades of Syd and crazy diamonds.
Okay, as long as we're on an acoustic Pink Floyd kick...
Going unplugged is not without its dangers. Sure, you could end up with a "Come As You Are" by Nirvana...but then again, you might end up with something as silly as Yes's unplugged "Roundabout" or as utterly heinous as Eric Clapton's emasculation of one-would-have-thought-impossible-to-emasculate "Layla"—conclusive proof, all on its own, that going unplugged is not necessarily always a good idea.
Now, having said that...
Judging by the remarkable effectiveness of this stripped down version, I would love for Dave Gilmour to do an entire night of Pink Floyd songs, largely or at least mainly solo. If he can pull this one off, I don't doubt he could do another two utterly riveting hours of Floyd and I surely wish he'd try.
Of the dozen or so versions of "Echoes" I've heard, I find precisely none of them more interesting than this brief snippet—and only an epic like "Echoes" could make a six minute rendition seem brief. Check out how chuffed the entire band is to be taking the piss like this—and how quickly it turns serious, if still joyful.
A note to the cameraman and director, however: if you'd included three times as many shots with Dave Gilmour and Rick Wright in the frame at the same time, it'd be three times better. You kept almost getting it right, but for the first half, at least, kept getting it just wrong instead. A pity.
