Disco de Pink Floyd: “Division Bell”

The debate rages on--and is likely to continue for as long as original Pink Floyd fans face off against a new crop of younger kids who believe that post-Roger Waters hasn't harmed the band in any way. I find myself somewhere in the middle. Do I miss Roger Waters? Of COURSE I do, he is a musical genius (even if a bit arrogant) and you cannot lose someone of his talent and still remain the same. HOWEVER, no matter HOW you view his departure, the rest of the band has been able to fill that void with a couple of CD's (and a couple Live releases as well) that allowed Gilmour and others to shine in ways they never could in the shadow of Roger. Of COURSE, Pink Floyd will always be a better band united rather than divided much like The Beatles were better together than individually--but even without Waters their last couple of CD's were amazingly good...this one being the better of the two (although I would place 'On The Turning Away' at the same level as ANY previous Floyd song).

I have been in radio for years, and if the response to Pink Floyd's music by the listeners I have talked to is any indication, folks miss Roger, but they welcome (the majority anyway) Pink Floyd anyway they can get it, and view the band without him as still very worthy. I have had debates with my listeners sometimes for hours--some of them open minded, some view supporting Pink Floyd without Waters' as a traitorous act, well I consider myself a very open-minded person when it comes to music--ALL kinds of music, and 'The Division Bell' truly is a Pink Floyd album in all respects...not as good as 'The Wall' or 'Animals' or one of the all-time classics, 'Dark Side of The Moon' but STILL, a top notch CD with some masterful music performed by some of the best in the business. True fans will appreciate this album because no matter what your views may be, this is just good rock & roll music.

-DJ Jazzy Jeff

I remember being 12 years old and hearing my mother play a tape of this in the car a few months after its release. I remember being an immiture and happy-go-lucky Spin Doctors and Dave Matthews Band band jokingly mocking High Hopes with lines like "And the cement was harder. And bottles are plasticer." Now, I am a smarter 17 year old Portishead fan who has everyone of those cassette tapes Mom bought of Pink Floyd in his room. Of those tapes, I consider this album behind only Dark Side of the Moon and Wish You Were Here in quality. I am so glad to finally have it on CD. If it is not a "real Pink Floyd album" then that's even better! Now there are two bands who can change my mood with a song and drive me to tears and smiles back-to-back (Wearing the Inside Out and Take It Back.) It's too bad the last two Pink Floyd albums are the two most prejudged albums in rock history. I guess you know what Gilmour said "Sometimes you just can't win." Yes, I am fully aware of all of the co-songwriting credits. I see nothing wrong with that. They are just replacing a part of the band that left when Waters bailed. Is there anything wrong with the fact that Waters has secsion musician drummers on his solo albums? Both are merely to improve the work. 85% of the record was written by David Gilmour, his wife and/or Rick Wright ensuring it was not just a faceless bunch of individuals on each song and that is not how it sounds by a long shot. The advise from Lost For Words seems to go right along with the situation described in the second Roger-inspired line of Poles Apart. This album is a mature, grim, and strange journey and a wonderful oddity.

I have every Pink Floyd album going all the way back to Piper at the Gates of Dawn. Pink Floyd is one of the most innovative bands of all time. I have listened to The Division Bell many times since it was first released. The more I listen to it, the better it gets. What strikes me most is David Gilmour's outstanding guitar playing is still there, but his song writing is equally good. He's also got a great voice. I enjoyed A Momentary Lapse of Reason, but I think this one is Pink Floyd's best since The Wall. High Hopes, Coming Back to Life, Keep Talking, Take It Back, all great Floyd songs. I have come to believe that Pink Floyd was just as much David Gilmour as it was Roger Waters. I don't understand all the negative reviews saying this isn't Pink Floyd. As long as Gilmour is there, it's still Pink Floyd. They made their best albums with Waters and Gilmour, but Gilmour has really done a good job of keeping Pink Floyd alive. I think if any real Pink Floyd fan gave this an open minded listen, they would find that it is just as good as anything Floyd has done. My only complaint is that they haven't released a new album since. Great album.

Amid the ridiculous speculation of the sum of it's contributing band members, there lies a cohesive and thoroughly satisfying album. Elitist, so-called "hard-core", fans dismiss this in an effort to remain eternally contrary and retain their higher ground purist views - like they're part of an elevated understanding that most mere mortals couldn't possibly comprehend.

Really, get over yourselves and just listen to the music. Gilmour and Waters represented a "Yin & Yang" within the creation of some very memorable and well respected albums. Both were essential to each other in the creation of these albums, with the ever perpetuating myth of Waters dominant and all-consuming creative influence being like (over the many years that have passed) a bad game of chinese whispers. If anything, unlike McCartney and Lennon who both created vital post-Beatles music, all that history has proved is that Gilmour can survive without Waters and that Waters disappears up his own extremities without Gilmour.

I read a few of the one-star reviews for this CD and I just can't believe anybody would give this one star. My guess is that these are a bunch of Roger Waters fanatics who are pushing 60 and are harkening back to the days when they used to smoke a dube in the 70's and listen to classic psychadelic Floyd and try to figure out what it meant. I liked Floyd back in the day (late 70's and early 80's) and I thought their music was cool. But Floyd didn't need Roger Waters and this CD, their last, proves it. I listened to this on a tape that I made from a CD from the library back when it first came out. I bought it last year at a used book store on a CD and started to listen to it again a couple of weeks ago. This album is just great. I saw others calling it "pop" but it's not pop. It's more mainstream for Floyd but it's far from "pop" music. There are elements here that sound like old Floyd and yet a more mature, tighter sound. The recording is great, all of the songs are great (especially Keep Talking, What Do You Want From Me, High Hopes, Coming Back to Life and Lost For Words) Gilmour's electric guitar is great as always and is unmistakably David Gilmour. He has has some great acoustic work and rips the solo on High Hopes on a lap-steel guitar. This album shows a seasoned band looking back on their lives and giving some honest reflection about life. True,it doesn't sound like Floyd circa 1977, it sounds like a band that has evolved musically but still maintains elements of the sound that made them famous.

If you liked a Momentary Lapse of Reason at all you will love this work. I don't care what anybody says: this is Pink Floyd at it's best, with or without Roger Waters.