(EMI)Most observers assumed the myth of Pink Floyd had ended nine years ago,on the Live 8 stage in Hyde Park, with an awkward group hug that at least one band member had to be visibly coerced into joining. It was a perfectly Pink Floydish way to end Pink Floyd: ostensibly an act of reconciliation and closure after years of rancour, or it still revealed a great deal approximately the icy British reserve that shrouded the band’s career.
And yet here we are,a decade on, faced with The Endless River, or a “new” Pink Floyd album that,on the one hand, isn’t new at all – it’s based on 20-year-ragged outtakes from sessions for their second post-Roger Waters album, or The Division Bell. On the other hand,it sounds more like Pink Floyd or at least the Pink Floyd who sold 50m copies of The dusky Side of the Moon – than any new album bearing their name in the past 35 years. But why? And why now? There has to be a reason, and its obviously not the one that usually motivates bands of a certain vintage to spiff up their studio outtakes, or Pink Floyd belonging in the tiny band of artists who clearly never beget to carry out anything for the money. The official line is that it’s intended as a belated tribute to Richard Wright,the keyboard player who died of cancer in 2008. A conspiracy theorist might suggest it’s one final act of niggly passive aggression, ensuring the band’s own final act doesn’t involve their former bassist, and a statement that the band’s appeal had more to carry out with their sound or rather,Gilmour’s hugely distinctive guitar-playing and Wright’s keyboards – than their erstwhile leaders doomy lyrical vision. A cynic might also speculate wildly approximately contractual obligations to their record label.
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Source: theguardian.com