Pink Floyd “The Division Bell”
By any measure other than commercial success, Pink Floyd was a cult band. My case? To start, the fourth best selling Rock band of all time sold a quarter of a billion albums without the support of mainstream radio. During the three decades that they were significantly active, Floyd had exactly one top ten hit in The U.S. and two in England. Even Metallica, a Thrash Metal band, and AC/DC, whose first stateside hit was about murder for hire, had more airplay than Floyd. And yet, as massive and as devoted as their fanbases were, neither Metallica nor AC/DC sold as many records as Pink Floyd. Roger Waters, David Gilmour and company sold aircraft carriers full of albums despite unanimous critical derision. Despite impenetrable album themes. Despite their original lead singer descending into madness. Despite constant internal turmoil. Despite it all, Pink Floyd triumphed on account of a big tent cult—a diverse constituency of stoners, headphone audiophiles, guitar obsessives, prog rock incels, classic rock devotees, planetarium enthusiasts and—seemingly—anyone with an older brother born before the year 1970.
This grand and unlikely alliance catapulted Pink Floyd past The Kinks, The Who, and even The Rolling Stones on list of Rock and Roll’s commercial juggernauts. In spite of my mid-Seventies birthday, however, I managed to stay outside of the tent. Not because I don’t have an older brother (I don’t). And not because I don’t get stoned (not anymore). Andt not because I can’t play guitar (I can’t) or because I avoid planetariums (no thank you). I am not a member of Pink Floyd’s vast and enduring cult for the very simple reason that, in 1979, they scared the living shit out of me.
I’m honestly not sure how I first saw it. It was in the days before MTV, so it might at been on a Betamax player at my buddy Travis’ house—the kid whose Dad had a purple van with shag carpeting and piles of Zappa cassettes. Or, I guess, it could have been playing on a TV at Music Merchants, where my mom would occasionally go for the latest Midler and Streisand records. But, it was probably at my buddy’s house. And it was probably very late by five year old standards and it was definitely in his basement. And, regardless of whether it was in Travis’ basement (probably) or at Music Merchants (probably not), it was the six most terrifying minutes of my young life.
The video for “Another Brick in the Wall, Part 2” contains corporal punishment, browbeating school teachers, children turned zombie ghouls, children turned ground meat and—possibly worst of all—threats of withhold pudding unless we eat our meat. Meat which—again, just to be clear—consisted of ground up children. The school kids’ recitation of the chorus—deadpan and brainwashed—was eerie enough. But that video—the grotesque masks, the grisly teeth, the meat grounding conveyor belt—was truly the stuff of nightmares. Had I been a couple years younger, I’d have soon forgotten it. And had I been a couple years older, I might have quickly dismissed it. But, as a five year old, it haunted me for the next decade.
Which is why my reappraisal of Floyd was so grudging and gradual. Eventually, my terror faded and was replaced with overdue curiosity which was, in 1989, replaced with keen interest. That interest was not born from smoke steeped exposure to “Dark Side” or “Wish You Were Here.” And not from the discovery of any of their lesser known but still obsessed over Prog classics, or from any awareness of Syd Barrett’s tragic genius. No, my long overdue return to Floyd was inspired by a half-crazed, semi-suicidal, but charming as all get out, Australian-born cop with a giant mullet.
“Lethal Weapon 2,” starring Danny Glover, Joe Pesci, and, of course, the aforementioned, mulleted Mel Gibson, was the third most successful film of 1989. The film’s score heavily featured the saxiness of David Sanborn and the nimble, smokey blues of Slowhand himself, Eric Clapton. And though by that time, I had begun to exhibit Indie Rock tendencies, I simply could not resist the sound of that guitar—aching its way through the mystery of those gold Krugerrand coins and into Gibbs’ (Mel Gibson’s) throw my life away desire for Rika van den Haas (Patsy Kensit).
There was just something about that guitar. Maybe it was Gibson’s wry one liners. Or his hair. Or Patsy Kensit. But I’m pretty sure it was Clapton’s guitar—so clean, luxuriant, noirish, precise but also so free—that reminded me of something. And that something, I soon realized, was the guitar solo from “Another Brick in the Wall, Part 2.” And also “Comfortably Numb.” And also “Shine On You Crazy Diamond.” And also “Money.” Yes, I’m not too proud to admit that Eric Clapton’s theme for Martin Riggs in “Lethal Weapon 2” was sufficiently convincing to rescue me from the nightmares of my youth—and send me back to Pink Floyd.
And so it was finally, in my late teens, that I returned to Music Merchants, bought some tapes, popped them into the boombox—where I’d plugged those old Sennheiser cans back in—and rediscovered the magic of Floyd. Well, not totally. I still found “Ummagumma” and “Atom Heart Mother” terribly hard to swallow. And I still had a tough time following the plot of “The Wall.” But the way those guitars would emerge from the sky. The way the Moog and those designer synthesizers would hum the melody while floating like slow moving weather patterns. And then how Gilmour’s guitar would just cut through the clouds like a warm knife. The way his rhythms could be bluesy or funky while his solos were balmy and feeling while everything else was so cold and cerebral. It did not take me long to realize that, more than I was a Pink Floyd guy, I was a David Gilmour guy.
Which necessarily meant that I was not a Roger Waters guy. In retrospect, my stance has been much easier to explain. Today, Waters’ strident politics and his radical pettiness are as much a matter of public record as his evident genius. But even then, I had the sense that Roger Waters was the brains and David Gilmour was the heart of the operation. It goes without saying that I knew almost nothing at the time—as a teenager—and barely any more now—as a casual to the point of being lapsed, middle-aged fan. But that was the conclusion I drew based on the forms and tones that Gilmour could coax from his instrument. Of all the Progressive Rock bands—and Pink Floyd is absolutely (among other things) a Progressive Rock band—none were as consistently beautiful, melodic and gratifying as the one David Gilmour played for.
So, when Roger Waters left the band, I stood with Gilmour. I was well convinced that Waters was the guy with the ideas and the songs. But at the same time, it was the tone and the heart that redeemed Pink Floyd for me. As to whether—legally speaking—Roger Waters’ departure should have been the end of Pink Floyd was of no interest to me. But what was of interest was hearing David Gilmour, separate and apart from Roger Waters. Gilmour had released solo albums. And he’d written songs for Pink Floyd. But David Gilmour—alongside Nick Mason and Richard Wright and without Roger Waters—was something I had been wondering about for years. Ever since Waters had terrified me with those zombie school kids and knuckle-wrapping teachers, I wanted to be rid of him. And by the mid-Eighties, it seemed like I’d get my chance.
There was obviously one major problem: history. No band has ever succeeded with frontman number three. Van Halen. Genesis. Journey. They’d all tried and failed—miserably. After Syd and Roger, David would be Pink Floyd’s third frontman. And while it was obviously not the same—Gilmour was the opposite of an outsider and newcomer—it was fair to wonder whether Pink Floyd could ever be “Pink Floyd” without Roger Waters’ maniacal grandeur. For Floydians (which I was not at the time), the answer came soon, but perhaps not soon enough. Waters left the band in 1984, assuming his departure was implicitly the end for Pink Floyd. Gilmour and Mason, however, were less sure of the implication. Discussion ensued. Followed by negotiations. Followed by insults. Followed by lawsuits.
Floyd’s first post-Waters release was a fraught affair, mired by a tawdry divorce and burdened by unfair expectations. Despite the dirty laundry and despite the critical revulsion, however, “A Momentary Loss of Reason” still managed to sell ten million copies worldwide and yield a massive Rock radio hit (“Learning to Fly”). Musically, Pink Floyd’s thirteenth studio album possessed much of the spirit and sound of their titanic Seventies fare, just without the lyrical or ideological ambition. Where you landed on the results was largely a matter of your obsession with those earlier records and, more so, with Roger Waters. Meanwhile, Waters’ position was loud and clear: he thought the album was both awful and illegal.
For as much as it was a David Gilmour album “A Momentary Loss of Reason” was also a Roger Waters’ album. Every single review noted the absence of the band’s erstwhile leader, who was himself active and vocal in sharing his extreme derision for the project. And while it was commercially successful, the record was doubly taxing. In its aftermath, Gilmour and Waters slowly and painfully resolved most of their legal affairs but almost none of their enmity. Waters put out two well received but underheard solo albums while Gilmour mostly stepped out of the spotlight, raising a family, taking stock, getting divorced and falling in love again. For many years there was little hope, and no indication, of any future for Pink Floyd. But then, in 1993, on the heels of his second marriage, the ink having dried on his divorce and the papers long filed from his separation from Waters, Gilmour did something unexpected. He invited Nick Mason and Richard Wright—who’d been dismissed from the band during the making of “The Wall”—to get together, play some music, and talk about the power of talking.
The long, labored sessions, which spanned the best part of 1993, four recording studios and dozens of discarded tracks, became “The Division Bell,” Pink Floyd’s fourteenth studio album. The album’s title refers to the ringing that occurs after discussion, deliberation and debate and just before Parliament is ready to take a “yay” or “nay” vote. According to the band, the record is an ode to the idea of conversation. Its Storm Thorgerson-designed cover features enormous sculptures depicting two abstracted profiles which, in union, form a heart shape but, taken separately, appear separated by conflict. A striking, “classically Prog” image, the art contains so many possible interpretations it nearly boggles the mind. It could easily represent an internal battle between ego and id. Or it could symbolize divorce and reconciliation. It could be a comment on war and globalization. Or, as so many Pink Floyd fans have suggested, it could be stand ins for Gilmour and Waters—old friends, broken apart through miscommunication and incommunication.
Whatever the implied root problem, Gilmour insisted that the solution was conversation—that while talking might not fix everything, silence and distance resolve virtually nothing. Ironically, though not surprisingly, it is the music rather than the words that distinguish “The Division Bell.” Gilmour’s voice is comfortable and accurate but generally flat. As a singer, he lacks both the range and panache of Waters. And while he most clearly had big feelings post-divorce and pre-marriage, Gilmour never allows his political or literary ideas distract from his musical ones. As a result, “The Division Bell” becomes much easier to enjoy the less you concern yourself with its meaning.
Though its crawling gestation might suggest an aimlessness, I find “The Division Bell” to be of one piece. Gilmour is a master of cutting shapes out of shapelessness, of providing method to the malaise. And it is that tension between sonic abstraction and precision that distinguishes the record. “Cluster One,” which opens the album, begins simply with a magnetic pulse that sounds like a broken record loop before the synthesizers hesitantly emerge like alien spacecraft landing. But then, out from the nothing which becomes a barely, slightly something, however, we get Gilmour’s languid guitar. It starts with blues noodling and then a searching and—before you know it—he’s found a mood that strikes him and he carries on with it until it’s so lovely and right that it’s the only feeling you want.
Soon after the instrumental opener fades out, “The Division Bell” properly begins. “What Do You Want From Me” is both the most bracing on the record and the most derivative of the band’s former work. The hook and synthesizer and gospel choir are near clones for “Welcome to The Machine”—groovy, funky, soulful and unlike anything and anyone else other than, of course, Pink Floyd. Vocally, however, it’s a a strain for Gilmour, who struggles to achieve the provocation suggested by the song’s titular question. On the other hand, too much fury might only get in the way of the music’s formal pleasures. Regardless, this is as close as we get to Seventies Floyd, minus Roger Waters. And it’s very, very good. But perhaps not better than that.
From there, Gilmour, Mason, Wright and Co—producer, Bob Ezrin, and writer Polly Samson—float and jam their way through seasons of personal isolation (“Marooned,” “Poles Apart”) and global anxiety (“High Hopes,” "A Great Day for Freedom"). And while they almost always sound like themselves, past prime Floyd are still open to new (old) ideas. “Take It Back” is a classic, “Nineties Amnesty Rocker” that answers the question: What would U2 sound like without Bono? Elsewhere, “Keep Talking” features Stephen Hawking on the CallText 5010 and Gilmour with some Framptonian wah-wah—all while still retaining that extra-terrestrial opulence that the cult was built upon. It’s not not impressive. And, more to the point, it doesn’t not sound like Pink Floyd.
If “The Division Bell” is a minor Pink Floyd album, it’s only “minor” in comparison to their iconic work. Thirty years after it was released, it feels more pleasurable than at least half of their discography. If you were to strip the vocals away and describe it as “Experimental Rock,” I’d bet that the Pitchfork Sunday Review would throw a nine point something in its direction. In fact, I’d say it compares favorably to anything The Flaming Lips or Mercury Rev ever made. It would have made a fabulous score for “Lethal Weapon 4.” And, most importantly, it contains zero English zombie school kids and zero English ground school kid meat.