A Momentary Lapse of Reason Pink Floyd

OK, but doesn't hold a candle to the Final Cut. Learning to Fly, One Slip, On the Turning Away, and Sorrow carry the album. The rest is pretty dire, especially Dogs of War. The album's existence allowed me to see two Pink Floyd tours, so it has lots of merit strictly in that sense.

 

In some ways AMLOR has aged well in 30 years. It's quirkiness at release has smoothed out somewhat in three decades. IMHO

 

When I was in high school, I loved The Final Cut. I went back and listened again when the remasters came out...I couldn't get thru it. I also loved AMLOR, now I can only listen to certain tracks. The Division Bell holds up much better

 

A partial return to form after the dreadful Final Cut and the 50% filler album that preceded it. Most of the cuts were done even better on Delicate Sound and they completed the return to form with Division Bell which easily sands among their 10 best albums.

 

I always felt it was like About Face Volume Two...

 

Definitely a business decision to use the PF name.

 

It was also a big FU to Roger.

It never felt like About Face pt 2 to me. He definitely tried to make a more Floydish sounding album and he partially succeeded.

 

Hahahahahaha!!!

 

The boat and oars could almost topple an unsuspecting audience

 

Being a Floydian since late 60s I don't condemn any of their music.When 1st released in 1987 I literally wore it out.This is the one Floyd LP that must be played LOUD to fully enjoy.When dialed to 10 this Floyd rocks.Nothing but love for AMLOR.Peace.
Note:My choice for weakest LP is Waters dominated TFC.

 

May be I left many somewhat bemused by my previous post so let me explain if I may,

Reading the comment about ‘oars’ reminded me of that particular section of audio when experienced from the pitch of Wembley Stadium
where the boat with its creaking / splashing of oars sounded to be passing overhead front to back, which I thought very impressive for such a large venue (quite mind blowing).

The sound checks throughout the day (Lazy Saturday August 1988) gave clues as to what could later be experienced once inside,
at certain times during the sound checks the ground around Wembley Stadium would tremble like an earthquake.

Ah, the days before everyone in the audience had a mobile device to hold aloft, get a room = Room 101.

 

Not a bad record, but one that is ignorable more so than most anything else in the PF catalog.

 

When I first heard it I thought it was middling. After a few years I needed some new music and I bought it. I have grown to like it a lot.

Far better than The Final Cut, I think I like it more than anything that came after Wish You Were Here.

 

I loved the album when it was first released. I got the CD and LP the day it came out. I was 18 at the time and had only gotten into Pink Floyd about a year or two before. I was a Sophomore in college at the time. I played the snot out of that album. I agree with what others have said that it was an attempt to get back to the feel of WWYH. Animals, The Wall and The Final Cut are the albums where the words are the focus. This gets back to the Music first.

Yes, I know. Gilmour is not that great a lyricist and never claimed to be or wanted to be. Rick was okay but was beaten into submission by Waters early on. So they brought in some out side help for lyrics, and unlike some bands, they gave everyone publishing credit, even if they only provided an instrumental solo.

I like the 'space' that this record has. The songs have room to breath. I know it started out as a Gilmour solo record and that Mason came on early and they only got Wright in at the last minute and his contributions to the album were limited, but this feel more like a band project than the Wall and the Final Cut do.

It does suffer a bit from mid80sitous, but not nearly as much as Radio KAOS does. HUGE reverb on those drums.

I think start to finish it is a pretty darn good listen. The Division Bell has some better tuns on it, but it has more 'filler' than AMLOR does in my opinion.

I would slot this below WYWH, DSOTM and Meddel and probably Animals. but above The Wall, TFC and everything else except maybe PATGOD.

 

Better by far than any of Gilmour’s other solo albums, so a real triumph in my opinion.

I find it’s just a great album to listen to, when you just want to take some time away from real life.

 

Listening to it again this weekend, the individual songs are not great on their own, but as a whole it stands as a solid piece of work.

But why there is a track called "Round And Round"?

It seems to me not to be long enough to earn its own name, nor is it even a separate track on the original CD. I can only guess that it was part of another song that they melded onto the end of another.

 

It's not a great album, but it's at least listenable, and at times genuinely enjoyable, which ranks it ahead of The Final Cut for me. I think time has been kind to it, now that it has shed some of the baggage that I'm sure accompanied its release at the time.

 

The end of Yet Another Movie.

 

On The Turning Away
Sorrow
Learning To Fly

All classics!

 

I love the album and even the less obvious choices. Yet Another Movie, Terminal Frost, and One Slip were my favs when it first came out. The laser show that went along with One Slip was insane at the time.

 

I don't care a whole lot for "Dogs of War" -- BUT -- I suspect if the song had been released by some other sort of band, without the reputation of Pink Floyd (or expected gravitas of a 'Pink Floyd'-like band) -- I think "Dogs of War" might be a little better liked, in retrospect.

Not defending it deeply, but I think the song suffers from being associated with weight of the name 'Pink Floyd' associated with it.

 

I'm the free spirit who has loved Dogs of War since the first time I heard it. I don't know what people are thinking. This song fits perfectly into the Floyd canon. In a oeuvre that has constantly evolved since their first album, I don't get why people have to confine their critique of this song to a such obviously biased expectations. Everything about these lyrics speak to the kind of anti-establishment themes that were all over Animals as well as many a Floyd tune since Corporal Clegg. The music totally fits the vibe of dread that the song speaks to. And it couldn't better describe our political situation over the past 50 years. Get woke, Floyd fans. This is a GREAT song.

 

Great album, one of the best albums from the 80's.

 

I wasn't much of a fan of the album then...and I'm still not now. A Momentary Lapse of Reason seems too self consciously Pink Floyd - the saxophones, the backing vocals, the aural collages and sound effects - but Gilmour does have some wonderful moments, particularly "The Dogs of War" and "Terminal Frost".

 

The lyrics just seem very obvious, heavy handed and not that insightful, given some of the sharper political commentary that we got from the band in the past. It felt like they were self consciously trying to fill the Waters void here but they didn't have anything fresh to say. It saddens me a bit to say this because the lyricist, Anthony Moore, was capable of much better. The track "War" from his solo album Flying Doesn't Help had some great observations and real bite ("Violence completes the partial mind.")