Pink Floyd - The Division Bell (1994)

Dan:

I remember resisting the purchase of The Division Bell, Pink Floyd's 14th album. It came out at a bad time for me, as I was in the midst of a professional move from Miami to Atlanta. I questioned how much more could Pink Floyd have left in them. Wasn't A Momentary Lapse of Reason enough of an encore to a great franchise? Of course, anything Pink Floyd released sold like crazy; I just wasn't sure I wanted to be a part of it. But eventually I succumbed to temptation and now, with 30 years of hindsight, appreciate it much more than I did before. 

The Division Bell followed the same formula as A Momentary Lapse of Reason. The core trio of Richard Wright, Dave Gilmour, and Nick Mason was augmented by a large cast of contributing musicians and technicians. Roger Waters was again missing in action, replaced by Guy Pratt on bass.

Division Bell has a nominal theme of mutual understanding, signified by titles like "Poles Apart" and "Keep Talking." But the theme was not a straitjacket in the way the themes of The Final Cut and The Wall were. Indeed, my favorite track on The Division Bell is Gilmour's confrontation with his audience, asking "What Do You Want from Me?" It's a song whose lyrics perfectly fit the sound of the band, as Gilmour advises the audience to sort out their personal issues elsewhere: "I'm not the one you need." 

"High Hopes" is a song yearning nostalgically for days gone by when "the grass was greener, the light was brighter, with friends surrounded, the nights of wonder." This longing for a simpler past contrasts with the song's portrait of current challenges:

Encumbered forever by desire and ambition

There's a hunger still unsatisfied

Our weary eyes still stray to the horizon

Though down this road we've been so many times

Most of the songs on Division Bell address issues relevant to career success, relationships, and resilience in ways that earlier Floyd albums did not. The departure of songwriter Roger Waters is, of course, a main reason for the shift in content. Part of the reason is also the songwriting of Gilmour's wife, Polly Samson, who co-wrote several songs on the album with him. Gilmour's later solo albums - On an Island and Rattle that Lock - would include more of Samson's songs. Her contributions to the Gilmour legacy are similar to Susan Hoover's creative storytelling in Camel, the band led by her husband Andrew Latimer.

Gilmour and Samson's best co-written song on Division Bell is "A Great Day for Freedom." It reflects on the positive outlook following the fall of the Berlin wall and the liberation of countries formerly ruled behind Russia's iron curtain.

On the day the wall came down

The ship of fools had finally run aground

Promises lit up the night

Like paper doves in flight

But the optimism changes to resignation that oppression continues and personal relationships remain vulnerable despite the promises that lit up the night:

Now life devalues day by day

As friends and neighbours turn away

And there's a change that even with regret

Cannot be undone

Now frontiers shift like desert sands

While nations wash their bloodied hands

Of loyalty, of history

In shades of grey

As I reflect on such lyrics, I must express gratitude to Gilmour and Samson for the song and the whole album, which contains gems like this throughout. So much for discounting Pink Floyd!

Steve:

Much like Dan, I was slow to get into The Division Bell at first, for many of the same reasons. In retrospect, however, this is a much more fully realized album than its predecessor, A Momentary Lapse of Reason. Whereas the latter was essentially a Dave Gilmour solo album blown up to Pink Floyd proportions, The Division Bell provides as good an example as I can imagine of what Pink Floyd should sound like in the 1990s.  

Recalling both Wish You Were Here and the preceding Momentary Lapse, the album opens with a mood-setting instrumental, "Cluster One", an excellent piece in the "Shine on You Crazy Diamond" mode. Immediately following this with "What Do You Want from Me" seems slightly ironic in this context, as Gilmour tries to shake his audience out of their unreasonable expectations of him, all to a tune that somewhat resembles "Have a Cigar". It's a great song - very powerful music with potent lyrics.

My favorite piece comes next, "Poles Apart", a song directed at Gilmour's estranged ex-bandmate Roger Waters, giving a vivid account of Waters' final days with the band consumed by megalomaniacal alienation:

Hey you

Did you ever realize what you'd become?

And did you see

That it wasn't only me you were running from?

Did you know all the time but it

Never bothered you anyway?

Leading the blind while I stared out the steel in your eyes

The music has a compelling vocal melody, interesting musical contrasts (including a strange middle section), and an invitingly chiming guitar lick to frame the verses.

After that, the main highlights include "Wearing the Inside Out", Richard Wright's first lead vocal with the band since "Us and Them" (from Dark Side of the Moon, 1973). This song reminds me of Wright's solo album, Wet Dream, but with the full Floyd treatment including guest saxophone by Dick Parry, who had been so prominent on "Us and Them" all those years ago. Co-songwriter Anthony Moore provided the lyrics, which seem custom-made for Wright, as he wearily sings of his efforts to let himself be heard again after decades of silence.

In all, The Division Bell fully justifies its place in the Pink Floyd canon, regardless of your feelings for or against Roger Waters' place in the band. While I would have preferred Roger continue to work with the band, it wasn't in the cards, and Gilmour and company put out a strong final Pink Floyd album where the songwriting and  lyrics (Roger's forte) were up to the band's high standard. 

The story doesn't quite end there: The Endless River (2014) was comprised mostly of instrumental pieces realized in the rehearsals for The Division Bell. It served as a posthumous send-off for the departed Richard Wright.

Pink Floyd - A Momentary Lapse of Reason (1987)

Dan:

I reasoned wrongly that Pink Floyd was pretty much finished after releasing The Final Cut four years after The Wall. The Wall had exceeded my expectations and was so unique that it succeeded in spite of itself. I "got" The Final Cut, both literally and figuratively, but the heavy hand of Roger Waters and the lack of subtlety or nuance made it a chore to listen to. Plus, I thought the album title was a signal that it was going to be the band's signoff. That was not to be.

In 1987, Pink Floyd released A Momentary Lapse of Reason, which seemed like a comeback album to me. Roger Waters had left the band, thereby relieving much of the tension between him and David Gilmour. With Gilmour, Richard Wright, and Nick Mason operating as a trio aided by 16 (!) contributing guests, Pink Floyd were a long way from their early days jamming as a quartet. The band had become a touring stadium-filler with all sorts of special effects flying into view and a sound loud and clear enough to reach the last row of the upper deck. 

The live shows also included numerous guest musicians and did an amazing job of performing new material from Momentary Lapse while honoring fans' wishes to hear favorites from earlier classic albums, mostly Dark Side of the Moon, Wish You Were Here, and The Wall. A 1994 concert was memorialized on the Pulse CD and DVD, which show how the new and old material were programmed. 

Momentary Lapse included five great songs by Gilmour. "On the Turning Away" and "Sorrow" are my favorites, followed closely by "One Slip," "Terminal Frost, "and "Learning to Fly." "Turning Away" offers hope that people will not "turn away from the weak and the weary." The phrase "where the speechless unite in a silent accord" always gets me, as does the closing stanza:

Just a world that we all must share

It's not enough just to stand and stare

Is it only a dream that there'll be

No more turning away?

Anyone coming of age in the 60s, as Pink Floyd did, can relate to the hope of one world in harmony, even if it may only be a dream.

"Sorrow" is introduced by one of the most incredible instrumental moments since Dark Side of the Moon. Gilmour amps up his Steinberger GL guitar piped into the band's sound system inside the Los Angeles Memorial Sports Arena, yielding an extremely deep, cavernous sound. The closing verse offers little hope to the plight of the modern world:

There's an unceasing wind that blows through this night

And there's dust in my eyes that blinds my sight

And silence that speaks so much louder than words

Of promises broken

Obviously, lyrics like these make Momentary Lapse one of gravest albums produced by Pink Floyd. Gilmour knew that whatever he composed and placed onto an album would be heard by millions of people. The issues addressed are important ones that he chose to feature on his worldwide platform. 

Steve:

The re-launch of Pink Floyd in 1987 following Roger Waters' departure came as something of a surprise, not least to Roger Waters himself. Having considered the band "over", he soldiered on with his solo career (his second album, Radio KAOS, was released the same year as Momentary Lapse), and David Gilmour had also made strong efforts to bolster his own solo career. Gilmour's About Face (1984) had been a moderate success and a very accessible album, but it didn't sell in Pink Floyd numbers by a long shot. Another Gilmour solo effort eventually gained enough momentum to justify the use of the Pink Floyd name once Nick Mason and Richard Wright offered their contributions. Many Floyd fans (including Waters himself) have argued vehemently online and in print that the Floyd without Waters was a sham, but I'll refrain from turning this post into yet another installment of The Pros and Cons of Bitching About Pink Floyd and focus on the music the new band gave us.

I was a freshman in college when Momentary Lapse was released, and as a confirmed Floyd fan, I was all too happy to scoop it up at my first opportunity. Although the booming production, prodigious use of outside musicians, and employment of modern synthesizers dates this album a bit, on the whole the songs are very good, and sound pretty great as well. "One Slip" (co-written by Gilmour and guitarist Phil Manzanera) has always been a favorite, with its techno-chug providing a lot of propulsion and its thoughtful lyric about a hasty marriage that is immediately recognized as a mistake. I see a sonic connection between "One Slip" and Gilmour's prior solo single "Blue Light", a rare but successful attempt to make the Floyd sound danceable.  

"Sorrow", the closing track, is another highlight. It marches along at a medium tempo that imparts ennui and determination at the same time, and features strong lead guitar accents from Gilmour, including a wall-shaking (especially live) guitar intro that Dan refers to. Initiating a trend that would characterize every subsequent Floyd or solo Gilmour album, Momentary Lapse opens with a mood-setting instrumental, "Signs of Life". Such tracks were always effective, offering a quietly dramatic introduction to albums. Less typical is the album's other instrumental, "Terminal Frost", which offers a Floydian take on either soundtrack music or lite jazz, but actually reminds me of "The Working Hour" on Tears for Fears' Songs from the Big Chair.

The release of A Momentary Lapse of Reason precipitated a years-long legal battle between Roger Waters and the rest of the band, a sad chapter in the band's history. The parties have only occasionally been on speaking terms ever since. As much as I regret the tainting of the memorable story of my favorite band of all time, I'm glad to have this album and its follow-ups, as they contain some very good music and gave me an additional taste of Pink Floyd long after they'd been assumed dead and buried.

Pink Floyd - The Wall (1979)

Steve:

Pink Floyd's The Wall was quite an oddity when it came out. I was already a fan of the band's work, so I listened with interest. As a 10-year-old, I had trouble following the story being told in the album, so thankfully Dan gave me a rough summary. As this dense art rock album was making the rounds among excited Floyd fans, another strange thing was taking place: the hit single "Another Brick in the Wall Part 2" was constantly on the radio, and the "we don't need no education" lyric became the equivalent of a "meme" for that era. It made for a strange juxtaposition - a serious, heavy concept album buttressed by a popular and danceable hit single. If nothing else, that song ensured that virtually everyone knew about The Wall in one way or another.

When the movie of The Wall came out in 1982, Dan took me to see it, and it was my first R-rated movie. Given the cinematic treatment, the album's themes of insanity, violence and misanthropy were presented in a shockingly nightmarish way to my young eyes and ears, and I do remember being frightened by certain scenes in the film. This did nothing to dull my adoration for the album (and the film), as it only added to the gravity and intensity of the story told in the songs.  

Although most Pink Floyd fans rate The Wall highly in the Floyd's discography, the virtues of its narrative structure and heavy subject matter are still a matter of debate. For example, although few can find fault with the excellent first side of the album, which flows exceptionally well and has no weak spots, by the time sides three and four roll around some people find the album a little tedious - especially the melodramatically orchestrated "Trial" that Pink, the protagonist, subjects himself to. It's one of the parts of the movie that scared me, thanks to Gerald Scarfe's grotesque animations.  

But in the final analysis, a classic album is still a classic album. The Wall is deeply entrenched in rock history as well as popular culture, and any flaws it has are all part of the package, take them or leave them. Besides, the relatively slow and less accessible portions on the second half of the album are appropriate, given that at this point in the narrative, Pink has "gone off the deep end". And even in the depths of his demented murk, the Floyd offer two of their most-loved songs, "Comfortably Numb" and "Run Like Hell". Of course, you also have to swallow the horrifying fascist nightmare of "In the Flesh" and "Waiting for the Worms". Not an easy listen, but that's the nature of the beast. If given the chance, I wouldn't change a thing.

Dan: 

Having now been busted for taking impressionable underage children to see The Wall movie, I feel somewhat guilty to put Steve through it. It wasn't just Steve but his friend Tim as well. Poor kids - warped for life! But I jest. I thought the experience would be good for three (including me) Pink Floyd fans to see, but I admit that the film goes a bit too far and could have been less graphic. Mea culpa. 

Diehard Pink Floyd fans should be accustomed to Roger Waters' need to vent his every emotion. I gather he was not fond of school or World War II, and he had issues with parents and bandmates. The Wall's extreme dramatization of such issues is a bit grandiose, but I'm willing to tolerate any serious artist's need for expression. That is, as long as David Gilmour gets to play chorus after chorus of "Comfortably Numb." 

Other bits I like: the nostalgic bow to Vera Lynn, a British singer known for her patriotic songs during World War II; the shocking opener "In the Flesh?" (not the fascist nightmare song without the question mark); and the finale "Outside the Wall," which acknowledges the pain inflicted on all the bleeding hearts and loved ones who support "mad buggers" like Pink.

All alone or in twos

The ones who really love you

Walk up and down outside the wall

Some hand in hand

And some gather together in bands

The bleeding hearts and the artists make their stand

And when they've given you their all

Some stagger and fall

After all it's not easy

Banging your heart against some mad bugger's wall

Pink Floyd - Wish You Were Here (1975)

Dan:

How do you follow a mega-hit album? Make another mega-hit album. That's what Pink Floyd did with Wish You Were Here, two years following Dark Side of the Moon. I remember buying the CD version of WYWH about 1985 - my very first CD purchase. In those days we marveled at the absence of surface noise and were told that CDs provided "perfect sound forever." At Sound Advice in Miami, a salesman made a point of stomping on a demo CD to impress customers that it did not affect play. Such was the hype of digital compact discs.

Of course, a lot of the hype was nonsense. Scratched CDs did skip. "Perfect sound" failed to survive simple comparisons with vinyl, revealing "digititis," a grainy and ear-fatiguing characteristic of early digital discs. But that did not deter their promoters from demeaning "scratchy, dusty old records" in order to sell the new digital medium. 

Forty years later, vinyl rules again. CDs are largely missing in action, supplanted by vinyl reissues and online streaming and downloads. Today, my copy of WYWH is a rip from a deluxe Analogue Productions SACD edition, which I later sold to a guy in Spain. It is a much better version than the one I first bought. I also sold my German vinyl pressing because I like my rock music in portable format to hear at the gym or in the car.

I've so far dodged the usual analysis of the music, mostly because everybody should already be clued into this wonderful record. It's constructed around the nine-part "Shine on You Crazy Diamond," an elegy for Syd Barrett. "Welcome to the Machine" and "Have a Cigar" serve as an interlude to the main theme, forming a second related theme critical of the music industry: ("Which one is Pink?" asked the obtuse producer on "Have a Cigar").

Obviously, Pink Floyd had matured into the top band in progressive rock and beyond. With almost guaranteed sales, they could craft whatever they wanted to do musically into beautifully produced albums and live performances. 

Probably everyone has a story about their discovery of Pink Floyd. Few bands transcend normal criteria of excellence; the Floyd are one of them. 

Steve:

Wish You Were Here was such a strong follow-up to Dark Side of the Moon that fans are evenly divided on which is the better album. It's a vastly different album too, making its popularity all the more impressive. It was during the making of this album that the band began to seriously fragment, leading one member to quip in an interview (paraphrasing) "it should have been called Wish We Were Here." Clearly, it was difficult work, but the band, still in that sweet spot of commercial and critical success enjoyed by few others outside Led Zeppelin and the Beatles, pulled through.

Interestingly, a good portion of what would become the Animals (1977) album was already written and performed live by this time, and the less conceptually minded David Gilmour argued to put these songs on one side ("You've Got to Be Crazy" aka "Dogs", and "Raving and Drooling", aka "Sheep") while putting "Shine on You Crazy Diamond" on the other side. But Roger Waters prevailed, and instead spread out the "Shine On" suite across two sides, with three newer pieces forming its creamy center. I agree with Waters' decision - the sequencing lends weight both to the suite and to the pieces in the middle. Not to mention that the most famous of these tunes, the title track, has an excellent segue from its windswept outro to the ominous bass theme of the second half of the suite.  

I remember hearing this album on Dan's stereo not long after we'd discovered Dark Side of the Moon, but I was not aware it was his first CD as far back as 1983. I don't recall CDs entering our household until 1985, when Dan got his first CD player and (what I recall as) his first CD, Avalon by Roxy Music. Soon after, I got my first CD, Candy-O by The Cars. I was already a big Pink Floyd fan by that time, but I think the first Pink Floyd album that I actually owned was Meddle, which I got because Dan didn't already have it. 

[Dan's comment: Steve is probably correct about the dates; my brain is older than his and I have more I have to remember. I've changed my part of the post from 1983 to 1985. I'm sure no one reading this post cares anyway.]

Pink Floyd - The Dark Side of the Moon (1973)

Dan:

There's hardly any room for additional commentary on Pink Floyd's classic The Dark Side of the Moon. So I'll just relate the story of my first encounter with it. As we moved from Pittsburgh to Miami in August 1977, we learned that Elvis Presley had died. Rock and roll had certainly moved on from the Elvis years, as the entries of our blog document. I had only begun to appreciate the significance of progressive rock and did not think of it as a genre. But that was soon to change.

One day, probably in early 1978, I was home listening to the noontime album on FM but got distracted. From another room I could hear the sustained low chords introducing "Time," which I had never heard before. I'm not sure if I rushed into the listening area or not, but I did hear the announcement at the end of the hour that the album just played was, in fact, The Dark Side of the Moon. 

I decided to get more rock albums into my jazz-heavy collection. So I went to South Miami and found copies of Dark Side in a pile next to piles of Billy Joel's The Stranger and Steely Dan's Aja. I figured the ones piled up were newly released and therefore the hippest choices. But the reason Dark Side was stacked up was not because it was a new release (like the other ones were). It had been selling in huge numbers since its release almost five years earlier! Duh.

This story illustrates just how clueless I was - probably the only 34-year-old person who had not yet heard such a famous album. Little did I know I would be blogging about it 35 years later. 

By now I've listened to and/or owned virtually every Pink Floyd album (thanks to my boy Steve). Only The Final Cut (1983) was a disappointment, but I probably gave up on it too soon. Even the novelty numbers from The Piper at the Gates of Dawn and Saucerful of Secrets have an enduring charm about them. I will always remember singing "Bike" with the whole family in our flat in Copenhagen in 1982. Steve was 12 years old at the time. No wonder he turned into a prog connoisseur!

The Dark Side of the Moon deserves all of the accolades it has received since its release. It's magnificent.

Steve:

I was in elementary school when Dan started playing the hell out of this album in our house. We had lots of fun going to Sound Advice (a hi-fi store in Coral Gables, Florida) to sample new stereo gear and speakers, and it was common for customers to bring along their own albums. The Dark Side of the Moon was a perfect subject for such tests, as was Aja by Steely Dan. The album seemed so cutting-edge in those late 70s that I recall being genuinely surprised to learn that it was released in 1973 - a lifetime ago in my personal timeline as a pre-teen.

This album's impact on Pink Floyd's career should be obvious by now - I almost consider pre- and post-DSotM Floyd as two separate bands - but it also had a seismic effect on popular music itself. Similar to Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band, this was a rare time in popular music where the cutting edge of music coincided with mass popularity; Dark Side of the Moon remains one of the best-selling albums of all time. Albums like this still do occur, but it's a wonder when they do. Both the music itself and its societal impact should be taught in schools.

Pink Floyd - Live at Pompeii (1972)

Dan:

There are dozens of versions of Pink Floyd's concert in the Pompeii amphitheater in 1971. It was originally released as a VHS movie and there are many unofficial versions. The version I have is audio only and came from Steve's box set of The Early Years, remixed in 2016. I'm impressed with the sound of the reissue. The cover art I chose for this post is one of many created for bootlegs, so don't go looking for it in the box set. 

Basically, the songs here are from the band's early 1970s concert repertoire, some of which also appear on Ummagumma. The Early Years set includes a few additional tracks from Pompeii plus scads of other great Floyd material.

But we're just writing about the Pompeii concert here. I've seen the film and it's interesting because the band plays to an empty al fresco amphitheater. The music is therefore not like a live show but rather an outdoor studio setting. (Maybe they got the idea from the rooftop concert by the Beatles in 1969?). Regardless, the performance is wonderful to hear, even without the visual ambience. It captures the classic version of the band well before Dark Side of the Moon was on the radar screen.

Steve:

I watched the VHS version of Live at Pompeii many times, both by myself and with friends, especially in my college years. That era of Pink Floyd was definitely among my favorite things to listen to (it still kinda is), and the movie sounds excellent and gives great camera angles showing the band in action. The most exciting part for me was "A Saucerful of Secrets", whose chaotic middle section featured the whole band going nuts: Richard Wright delivering clusters of discordant sounds by playing the piano with his forearms, Nick Mason rolling around on the drum kit in a gradually accelerating 6/4 pattern, David Gilmour making every sound he can conjure from his effects pedals, and Roger Waters beating the hell out of his gong.  

In 2019, I got to see Nick Mason's Saucerful of Secrets, a touring band focused on the pre-DSotM Floyd material, and it was incredible to see this material performed in the flesh. Mason himself made an announcement prior to playing "A Saucerful of Secrets", revealing that this tour had helped him finally realize his abandoned wish to crash that gong himself - Roger always called dibs, and you know how Roger is.

The other obvious highlight of the movie/album is "Echoes", a track that has remained a lifelong favorite since my youth. Along with "Tarkus" and "Close to the Edge", "Echoes" is one of a handful of long-form prog tracks I would recommend to anyone curious about the genre. The movie version, like other live versions I've heard, ramps up the intensity of the studio version, making it superior in the performance sense if not in audio quality.

My main beef with the Live at Pompeii franchise is that the version on the DVD release, and all subsequent issues, presents the Director's Cut, which shows less of the band and more shots of Pompeii itself and other artsy scenes. Also, the original VHS contained some footage of the band in the studio recording Dark Side of the Moon in between the concert selections. While those latter shots were admittedly pretty slow and unexciting (Pink Floyd were mellow and softspoken to a fault in real life), I really miss them in the Director's Cut. Still, this is nitpicking from a fanatic, so take it with a grain of salt. Pink Floyd's Live at Pompeii is a must for any Pink Floyd fan, either in its audio-only or its movie version. 

Pink Floyd - Ummagumma (1969)

Steve:

I have gone on record before claiming that Pink Floyd could do no wrong. I've since clarified that statement to mean "Pink Floyd with Roger Waters....", but that may still leave some readers gaping at me in disbelief. Pink Floyd, especially during the years 1968-1972, were experimenting so boldly (some would say recklessly) that there were bound to be failures among the triumphs. Ummagumma, more than any other Pink Floyd album, puts my claim to the test.

Ummagumma was the first pre-Dark Side of the Moon Pink Floyd album I ever heard. Dan had a copy on his shelf, and my natural curiosity was drawn to it immediately, from the striking cover art to the very structure of the album (a live album and a studio album, with the studio album split into four segments to showcase solo projects) to the mere presence of a song whose title is so long and ridiculous it can't help but garner attention. For the live portion, this album cover was the first place I ever saw the name Syd Barrett and heard a song of his ("Astronomy Domine"), and the remaining three live tracks were my first impressions as to what Pink Floyd sounded like live. Strange stuff, and a bit alarming if you're not prepared. I found this out years later when my college roommate and I had some guests spending the night, and I put on music to go to sleep to, as I often did, and Ummagumma was my selection. Imagine the horror my guests felt when the scream in "Careful With That Axe, Eugene" came on. They still mention it to this day. Oof. My bad.

The studio record is mostly brilliant, as long as the critic's term "self-indulgent" is not an immediate turnoff for you. Richard Wright wins 1st prize with his 4-part "Sysyphus", a keyboard-based composition that sounds like one of Keith Emerson's fever dreams. Roger Waters contributes the ridiculous long-titled track (fun if perplexing) and a great acoustic ballad. David Gilmour turns three separate ideas into a questionable "suite" called "The Narrow Way", but all three parts are solid if incompatible. Nick Mason's composition closes it out with an eye-opening tour-de-force totally redefining percussion's role in rock music. "The Grand Vizier's Garden Party" keeps me on the edge of my seat, improbably building its dramatic heft with every new wave of sound.

Actually, "The Grand Vizier's Garden Party" is a snoozy drum solo with electronic effects, and it's a bit of a drag. But let's pretend it's awesome so I can rescue the integrity of my "Pink Floyd can do no wrong" statement. 

Dan:

Ummagumma is an album that could only have been made in the late 1960s. It's experimental, self-indulgent, and spotty. Albums later became much more disciplined, if only for commercial reasons. I'm glad that the reins were loosened for the important prog bands of the time, especially Pink Floyd.

I bought the album after viewing a film that included at least two of the cuts off of the live record: "Careful with That Axe Eugene," and "Set the Controls for the Heart of the Sun." The film I saw was probably studio material that was added to the film Pink Floyd at Pompeii, shot in 1971. It was partly scenes from the studio and partly dreamy scenes such as aerial shots over what looked like mangrove swamps. Those memories are definitely faded since I probably saw the film in 1972. Regardless, it made a big impression on me. The scream on "Axe" was amazing to see performed live, but the quiet "Set the Controls" was equally profound. Those long-haired young men in the film were probably the coolest hippies I ever saw. 

On the studio LP I like "Grantchester Meadows," "Sysyphus," and "The Narrow Way." I don't challenge Steve's assessment of "The Grand Vizier's Garden Party." I would always trust his opinions on all things prog.