Label: CBS/Sony Inc. (Japan), 35DP 53
Style: Art Rock, Progressive Rock
Country: London, England
Time: 43:31
Format: Flac Tracks 16/44,1 kHz
Size: 243 Mb
Rich
pop stars often act in predictable ways. They buy large houses in the
country, read the wrong daily newspapers, and vote Tory. Pink Floyd’s
Roger Waters can be accused of a lot of things, but never of doing
what’s expected. So Pink Floyd’s The Final Cut, the follow-up to the
multimedia extravaganza The Wall, turns out to be a mini-epic written by
Waters, subtitled “a requiem for the post war dream,” and includes the
most vicious attack on Mrs Thatcher that the pop world has mounted. When
Waters gets going he makes all that “stand down Margaret” stuff sound
positively tame.
The lyrics are the most startling part of an
otherwise messy, overblown, and awkward album that includes a few strong
songs, some brilliant recording work (with whispers, footsteps or other
effects mixed into songs with brilliant separation and clarity), and
patches that sound like outtakes from The Wall.
The opening anthem,
with its chorus “What have we done, Maggie, what have we done to
England?” echoes the final song in The Wall and makes it sound as if
he’s about to embark on a detailed analysis of the collapse of the
welfare state. Instead, he returns to various well-worn Waters themes,
from the second world war and the death of his own father (to whom the
album is dedicated), to stories of war heroes becoming teachers, or
songs of personal madness, interspersed with references to the Falklands
and the blistering attacks on Thatcher.
The most vicious, The
Fletcher Memorial Home (another reference to his father) imagines
Thatcher, along with Haig, Begin and others, in a “home for incurable
tyrants and kings.” The album ends, as you might have guessed, with a
nuclear holocaust. The songs are mostly quiet, often with orchestral
backing interrupted by David Gilmour guitar attacks. Floyd enthusiasts
should note that the band are now a three-piece (Richard Wright has
escaped over The Wall), and despite the title it’s not necessarily their
final album.
(theguardian.com/music/2023/mar/17/pink-floyd-the-final-cut-reviewed-1983)
01. The Post War Dream (03:03)
02. Your Possible Pasts (04:30)
03. One Of The Few (01:13)
04. The Hero's Return (03:00)
05. The Gunners Dream (05:08)
06. Paranoid Eyes (03:44)
07. Get Your Filthy Hands Off My Desert (01:16)
08. The Fletcher Memorial Home (04:15)
09. Southampton Dock (02:12)
10. The Final Cut (04:45)
11. Not Now John (05:03)
12. Two Suns In The Sunset (05:20)
