Customer Reviews

The Division Bell

5 star:		(287)
4 star:		(99)
3 star:		(43)
2 star:		(23)
1 star:		(26)

 

 

I don't normally do album reviews, but after reading all the wiki entries and so-called reviews of the Division Bell, this boy ain't gonna shut up anymore.

Once and for all, ladies and gentlemen, please get over Roger Waters' departure. It's so old and tired to read review after review that has nothing more than the feel of being written by Waters himself. I love Waters with Floyd, of course, but if the man can't get his crap together and play nice with this epic group, then he deserves to sit in his puddle of re-re-re-re-resurrecting the Wall over, over and over. That kind of behavior is a sad vision of someone becoming a parody of himself.

From start to finish, the Division Bell is every bit the decades-length masterpiece that is Pink Floyd. Period, end of story. Any nay-saying is just simply Twinkies hitting Gibraltar.

The last time I listened to it, I turned out the lights when "High Hopes" came on, and was thankful for an empty house and a loud stereo so that I could enjoy this epic all over again. The album, to me, is simply haunting in the best way possible, making me long for something so real and so fictional all at once that my breath is taken away.

Before I go into the ground, I want the funeral parlor to play "High Hopes" at whatever memorial service I have, big or small, ashes or bones, wind or stillness.

Those are the best words I know to give for a review here on such a great album, one that will forever be cemented in my top five, if not top three.

Stop taking a dump on it, put your hang-ups and nonsense aside, and play it again.

Breathe, folks.

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

The Division Bell features David Gilmour, Nick Mason and Rick Wright coming together and recording a very unified and reflective Pink Floyd album. All three with bassist Guy Pratt were the primary performers on the album produced once again by Gilmour and Bob Ezrin.

The album's primary theme is the breakdown of communication between people. The opening track Cluster One is a eerie and atmospheric collage of sounds and music. What Do You Want From Me features Gilmour's howling guitars. Poles Apart is a etheral and somber song. Marooned is a instrumental reeking of atmosphere and ironically earned the band it's first grammy award. Take It Back is a earnest and anthemic song about man's relationship with the earth, Lost For Words is apparently about Roger Waters, and the closing song High Hopes is a powerful and uplifting song about one's past, present and future.

The Division Bell may not be a true return to epic the albums of their past but it a welcomed return for Pink Floyd as a true working unit and showing that their music can stand up on it's own and not just in the shadows of their past.

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.

My favorite floyd album, and i own them all. Why, The Division Bell, because it is lyrically up their with DSOTM as well as musically. But in some ways probably better though. Gilmours guitar solos are spine tingling and lyrics are unmatched. I owned this album many years before i relized what these words he was speaking really meant, and trust me, if you have ever been in a serious relationship you will probably relate to this album. I listen to it at least twice a day. 5 stars out 5, it ROCKS!

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.

The Division Bell is Pink Floyd's crowning glory in their long and storied evolution. Many Floyd fans seem divided between the David Gilmour or Roger Waters camps & I would have to say that I am firmly in Gilmour's, ('cause I too am a guitarist?) I listened to Floyd all through my teens, mainly Ummaguma, Atom Heart Mother, Obscured by Clouds and Meddle & we loved their spacey jams, different melodies and interesting lyrics. Of course Dark Side of the Moon and Wish You Were Here and undoubtly two of their finest works and need no introduction. As The Wall was Waters epic creation, he didn't merely do it by himself, though he seems to think so. Gilmour's unmistakeable guitar licks are every bit as memorable and defining as Waters lyrics and concept. Some people think Animals is a good work, but I find it and The Final Cut rather boorish & uninspiring as Waters seems to want to lay out his tired agenda on the fans (and his band mates)and by wanting all the credit. His lyrical & musical talents are indeed remarkable, but it seems that individual egos in a mega band will eventually pull it apart.

The Division Bell shows that the "Waters-less" Pink Floyd is every bit as dynamic as ever (of course they said the Floyd was never going to make it after Syd Barrett left too). I came to discover the Division Bell by the way of the Pulse concert video. For whatever reason I had lost track of Floyds music for many years and started regaining interest with a recent purchase of Wish You Were Here, wanting to learn the title track. Like millions of other Pink Floyd fans across the globe it was hard not to be drawn into a keen interest in their music and their history. I read up on them deeply, but more importantly by listening to an array of their works it is not hard to like the Division Bell. Who says Gilmour can't write lyrics? His songs with Richard Wright and others are both musically and lyrically moving and beautiful. There is every bit of the aritistry and characteristic Pink Floyd sound of the Wall years and tours, only better. If you chose to read into some of the lyrics you might find some past issues being dealt with, but thats not the focus of the work. Songs like "High Hopes" and "Coming Back to Life" are great pieces and the album flows with exceptional character, vibrancy and and cohesion. Gilmour's guitar work shines in many facets - gritty & tasteful distortion lead guitar, suttle runs & licks and nice acoustic guitar work. Richard Wright on keyboards obviously plays a great part of the overall sound, just as he did with earlier Pink Floyd works. He contributes both on writing some of the music and lyrics. "Keep Talking" is a tune that seems to revive the theme of insanity or madness or just personal confusion that has been around Floyd's music for long time, yet it still rings fresh & true.

Much of the Division Bell is on the Pulse concert video and it is to me one of the most moving concert videos I have ever seen. The Pulse production seamlessly blends Pink Floyd from many eras - "One of These Days" (Meddle), Shine on You Crazy Diamond" (Wish You Were Here), Another Brick In The Wall, the entire Dark Side of the Moon album PLUS the new songs off the Division Bell. In classic and epic Pink Floyd style this concert gives an incredible light and video show. It shows more importantly, however, it is a sincere professional endeavor, by showing Glimour, Wright and Nick Mason (on drums) having fun playing great Pink Floyd music, regardless of who wrote which tune. Those 3 are still a big part of the the Pink Floyd sound and the productions of Pulse and the Division Bell are deep and rich. That they are not saddled by so many of the past hangups and by putting out these two very good productions shows them to be just as vibrant (or more so, really) than the ugliness of the late Waters years. There doesn't seem to be that nagging agenda of cynicism and unresolved issues of those years.

The Division Bell is a refeshingly exciting work from a band that has gone through many things in some 35 odd years. I find it soulful and moving and it does what a great album should do by evoking many moods and feelings.

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.

Since it just happened again, I decided I finally have to write something. If this album were released today, it would go platinum overnight. What has been happening over the past two years is that whenever I have company, co-workers dropping by, neighbors, etc, -they all say," what album is that playing,"" can I hear it again,"" go do what you were doing I just want to listen to this again "" can I borrow this CD" This CD, start to finish is magnificent. Fantastic album. Everyone ends up with a copy one way or another. Everyone says they play it repeatedly. So that is my experience with this CD. I have a copy in my car and another in my house. The thing is when it came out in 1995 it did well, but it is even better now. This album is magic.

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.