Customer Reviews

Which One's Pink?

5 star:		(3)
4 star:		(3)
3 star:		(3)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

I would love to give this book five stars. I agree with the thrust of the other reviewers. Phil Rose knows his stuff -- I say this as an amateur musicologist myself, who grew up analyzing Pink Floyd albums, sometimes sitting at the piano to perform 'The Final Cut' or 'Pros and Cons' in one sitting. Mr. Rose has tried, and mostly succeeded, to write an indispensable work for the more intellectual fans of Roger Waters's Pink Floyd.

However, readers deserved to be warned of, at least, the biggest flaw in this product: It is VERY POORLY BOUND. Pages began to fall out of this paperback during my first read. Because this is such a quality piece of writing, I want to consult it over and over again. Thus, the majority of pages in my copy are loose -- something like, pages 16 thru 54. Knowing this, would I not buy the book? No. It's essential. I just wish for a properly-bound edition. I'll gladly buy the work a second time, if it's not the piece of junk this paperback edition is.

Second complaint -- and this one is directed at the author himself: Phil Rose relies too much on the film version of The Wall, in his analysis of the actual music. This is unfortunate and misguided. We know Roger Waters is not satisfied with the film, that it is heavily-weighted with director Alan Parker's ideas, that there were conflicts about this, and that Waters hopes to re-cast The Wall as a lighter, more elevating musical. Parker's "Wall" is a non-dynamic "downer" which has probably caused more MISinterpretation of Waters's work than a generation of Floydophobic journalists were able to.

A separate sidebar on the film might have been appropriate, or perhaps just a reduction of film-related analysis. What's obvious is that Rose managed unassailable insight into the other four concept albums, WIHTOUT the guidance of a movie -- so why was it necessary at all to include the Alan Parker film?

I hope it's clear that I am STILL recommending you BUY and READ the book! But this is an academic work, not a fluff piece -- thus we owe it to the the publishers, the author, and the consumers to be vigorously honest about it's failures and missteps.

This book is very well articulated. It provides deep insite into the ideas and meaning behind Roger Waters and his conceptual albums while with pink floyd. This book is not for a casual reader, as it will go over many peoples heads. This book refrences many philosophers and psychologists in order to fully evaluate the conceptual ideas presented. A great read recommended for the musically informed closet intelectual

If you're interested in an intelligent discussion of Pink Floyd's concept albums, this is a great read. One negative about this book is how SMALL the actual book is. Another is that the author got some input from Roger Waters, but evidently not all that much input. Still, it does a good job of pulling from many other sources AND contributing original insights.

By God, this book will blow your mind if your a Pink Floyd fan. From unlocking all the ambiguity in the lyrics and music of "Dark Side of the Moon" to being able to completely comprehend the depth of "Animals" and "The Wall," Pete Rose's coherent writing is so interesting and concise that you will hardly be able to put this book down, except the times when your brain tries to recover from its understanding of the genius of Roger Waters. Also this book certianly engraves Waters' place as one of the top 5 lyricists of all time, if not the greatest simply on the merit of the intense detail and scope involved in his concept albums. Pink Floyd's albums are revolutionary, and Pete Rose's documentation of all of their intriguing fascists is too.

I bought this book for my son who always liked this group. When the book came I found I wad charged twice the amount of the book! And the book was so flimsy the pages want to come out and it's a néw book! I not at all happy with this whole transaction.

This book reads like a university text book. Its structure, language and didactically imperious style don't make comfortable reading.

The content is generally good and the musical analysis, although it will put non-musical people completely off, is fairly interesting.

Two points that diminish the quality of the book are:

(a) Rose's constant reliance on the same psychology writers. A breadth of commentators would advance the points better.

(b) Rose setting out his interpretations (some of them dubious) as axiomatic fact with no building of any argument. There can be no clearer evidence of this than his brief "interview" of Roger Waters in the appendix. Even after Waters emphatically denies any relevance of a link between two points, Rose continues to press the point.

Having made these negative points, this is a good reference book on Pink Floyd's work as long as you do not take it as one interpretation of many rather than the definitive interpretation or origin of the concepts and lyrics.

If you have the other Pink Floyd books, this one may be an interesting addition to your library, but it's not essential reading.

I bought this for my husband, because he enjoys Pink Floyd a lot. He has read it and will read it again. He says that it tells a lot of thinks and goes into depth about things he did not know before. This shocked me with the knowledge my husband had of Pink Floyd before reading, "Which One's Pink?". He is buying 3 more to pass out to some friends of his.

I just finished reading this book and it was very interesting. If you know all of the music it gives you a very good incite about the concepts of the music.
I have been listening to this music since I was a teenager and never realized all of the stories behind the music.
If you are a Pinkfloyd fan then this will be a good book for you.
I do not believe this is for the casual fan though.
Happy reading

I consider myself a huge fan of Pink Floyd, but this book was not interesting at all. Phil Rose takes it upon himself to talk about the meaning of specific notes and patterns in the songs. For example (paraphrased) it went from B to G, and although the listener expects the D it just goes back to the B. I suppose some might be interested in this, but it's not for me. I want to read about what the album means, and although he does go into this I would have to imagine there are better books out there for this purpose.

This book is defineatly a most thurogh book in that a majority of the sheep out there do not queit understand the works of Pink Floyd. The fact that every intricate detail complements the message is great. The exerpts from psycological literature definatly helps explain Waters and the story much needed to tell. The dipiction of Animals in the book is revolutionary, it made myself think how capitalism drives people to an almost passive way of being screwed by the pigs. You can see that politics, business, and organized religion all run its course in blinding the public. You can still see old imperalism rear its ugly head to this day, it hasn't stopped at the cold war it is still going on, the bureaucracy is still and probably always go on , it is time that all of us wake up and take the initiative to live for humanity, not greed, god, or ultamate power,