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Thread: The Wall... filler?

  1. #51
    I'm here for the moosic NogbadTheBad's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by ronmac View Post
    He's an artist. He doesn't need anyone to tell him how his work should be or shouldn't be. If he think it's done, it's done.

    I find it tragically ironic how so many around here want to tell an artist how his work should be, yet they bitch about it when the record companies do the very same thing.
    I have no problem with Waters doing it exactly as he wants to, I want all artists to do that. But as a consumer of that art I don't have to listen to it the way he wants, I can edit it any way I like as the customer.
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  2. #52
    ALL ACCESS Gruno's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by NogbadTheBad View Post
    I have no problem with Waters doing it exactly as he wants to, I want all artists to do that. But as a consumer of that art I don't have to listen to it the way he wants, I can edit it any way I like as the customer.

  3. #53
    Member Since: 3/27/2002 MYSTERIOUS TRAVELLER's Avatar
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    Filler is when an artist has a bunch of solid material but (in the days of vinyl) is left with a short side (less than 20 minutes... I know I know, the Italians don't care!) so they whip up something that gets them to a proper LP side timing. Since I don't see how Vera fits, I call filler
    Why is it whenever someone mentions an artist that was clearly progressive (yet not the Symph weenie definition of Prog) do certain people feel compelled to snort "thats not Prog" like a whiny 5th grader?

  4. #54
    Quote Originally Posted by MYSTERIOUS TRAVELLER View Post
    Filler is when an artist has a bunch of solid material but (in the days of vinyl) is left with a short side (less than 20 minutes... I know I know, the Italians don't care!) so they whip up something that gets them to a proper LP side timing. Since I don't see how Vera fits, I call filler
    When I saw Roger last year Vera was part of the encore.. leading into Bring the Boys Back Home followed by Comfortably Numb.. Wonderful ending to a concert.. as someone above already chimed in.. It all makes perfect sense..

  5. #55
    Quote Originally Posted by NogbadTheBad View Post
    I have no problem with Waters doing it exactly as he wants to, I want all artists to do that. But as a consumer of that art I don't have to listen to it the way he wants, I can edit it any way I like as the customer.
    Of course you can. And I never suggested otherwise, did I?

    I'm referring to the comments that "it should be this" or it should be that" or "he needed an editor." It's no different than record company execs telling an artist what to do with his art. It's arrogant.
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  6. #56
    Member moecurlythanu's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by Interstellar View Post
    When The Wall was released I was a kid, and my older brother, who was in charge of the record player, used to skip most of disc 2 (well, of course, Hey You, Comfortably Numb and Run Like Hell survived).
    Later I listened to the whole thing and thought it held together quite well, but understood why people like my brother disliked the rest of the material. I still feel that the ITAOT/ Nobody Home/Vera/ BTBBH section makes Comfortably Numb stand out even more. It builds a tension, a frustration that this song releases brilliantly. And there's still an underlying tension that builds up in the song itself until the final solo comes, so I wouldn't change anything.
    I think many people (possibly your brother included) have trouble with a lot of the material on this album because many of the songs seem like fragments and linkage between the "real" songs. Those people were looking for more "real" songs. I am not in that crowd. I wouldn't cut anything, but then, I don't even skip songs when listening to an album. I listen to the whole thing, unless it is 2LP/2CD, in which case I often listen to one of the two only.

  7. #57
    Highly Evolved Orangutan JKL2000's Avatar
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    RE: Vera Lynn, remember how the movie of The Wall began with Vera Lynn singing "The Little Boy That Santa Claus Forgot?" I think it's pretty clear that Roger Waters and Alan Parker both felt she was an iconic figure of the time and place with which The Wall dealt, and she was important to feature in their work. Just IMO, of course. I can certainly understand some listeners not being interested in that though.

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    Member Since: 3/27/2002 MYSTERIOUS TRAVELLER's Avatar
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    so... since the thread title mentions filler

    what are some other instances of Pink Floyd using filler material?
    Why is it whenever someone mentions an artist that was clearly progressive (yet not the Symph weenie definition of Prog) do certain people feel compelled to snort "thats not Prog" like a whiny 5th grader?

  9. #59
    Highly Evolved Orangutan JKL2000's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by MYSTERIOUS TRAVELLER View Post
    so... since the thread title mentions filler

    what are some other instances of Pink Floyd using filler material?
    This question doesn't really concern me much since so much of Floyd's best work is on unofficial, live recordings.

  10. #60
    Estimated Prophet notallwhowander's Avatar
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    I guess I'm all-in or all out with The Wall. Either I want to reckon with the entire mess as is, or I leave it be.

    I've left it be for a long time now. I think I've gotten all I needed to get out of it, really. But there was a time where I was getting a lot out of it.

    I usually avoid the term "filler" because it presumes intentions on the part of the creators. So it really is another way of saying, that I don't like or connect with this song.

    For instance, "Her Majesty" on Abbey Road has all the earmarks of filler, but I experience it as a playful endspiece to one of the best album-sides in rock history. So is it filler?
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  11. #61
    Member Since: 3/27/2002 MYSTERIOUS TRAVELLER's Avatar
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    my vote for worst filler piece by Pink Floyd goes to Alan's Psychedelic Breakfast. 5 minutes of bacon and eggs frying sounds... really?!
    Why is it whenever someone mentions an artist that was clearly progressive (yet not the Symph weenie definition of Prog) do certain people feel compelled to snort "thats not Prog" like a whiny 5th grader?

  12. #62
    Studmuffin Scott Bails's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by MYSTERIOUS TRAVELLER View Post
    so... since the thread title mentions filler

    what are some other instances of Pink Floyd using filler material?
    The Final Cut.
    Music isn't about chops, or even about talent - it's about sound and the way that sound communicates to people. Mike Keneally

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    Member Since: 3/27/2002 MYSTERIOUS TRAVELLER's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by Scott Bails View Post
    The Final Cut.
    now *that's* funny! and I agree
    Why is it whenever someone mentions an artist that was clearly progressive (yet not the Symph weenie definition of Prog) do certain people feel compelled to snort "thats not Prog" like a whiny 5th grader?

  14. #64
    Quote Originally Posted by MYSTERIOUS TRAVELLER View Post
    so... since the thread title mentions filler

    what are some other instances of Pink Floyd using filler material?
    Well, this is just my opinion, but:

    Take Up Thy Stethoscope And Walk
    The Grand Vizier's Garden Party (notable only because that's Nick Mason's first wife playing the flute)
    Alan's Psychedelic Breakfast
    Seamus
    San Tropez
    Several Species Of Small Furry Creatures Gathered Together In A Cave and Grooving With A Pict

  15. #65
    Quote Originally Posted by MYSTERIOUS TRAVELLER View Post
    my vote for worst filler piece by Pink Floyd goes to Alan's Psychedelic Breakfast. 5 minutes of bacon and eggs frying sounds... really?!
    I forget which band member it was who admitted that Alan's Psychedelic Breakfast was "an experiment that didn't work". Of course, that didn't stop them from playing it live.

  16. #66
    Member Since: 3/27/2002 MYSTERIOUS TRAVELLER's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by GuitarGeek View Post
    I forget which band member it was who admitted that Alan's Psychedelic Breakfast was "an experiment that didn't work". Of course, that didn't stop them from playing it live.
    how does one play cooking bacon and eggs live?

    and I agree with Seamus
    Why is it whenever someone mentions an artist that was clearly progressive (yet not the Symph weenie definition of Prog) do certain people feel compelled to snort "thats not Prog" like a whiny 5th grader?

  17. #67
    That's Mr. to you, Sir!! Trane's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by GuitarGeek View Post
    Well, the verse and chorus are two different parts of a song, so I don't know what you mean by "verse/chorus". I'm assuming you mean the bits that Gilmour sings. But the lyrics aren't any more repetitious than any other song. Lots of songs repeat the same words in the pre-chorus or the chorus, that's kind of what you have hear. I wouldn't change a damn thing about Comfortably Numb, except maybe extend the fade out so we can hear more of the ride out guitar solo (assuming there is more, for all we know the backing track ran out two bars after the fade out).
    I'm actually fairly poor as to music theory/science, especially so that I learned in the french/belgian way, where the notes are Do, Ré, Mi, Fa, Sol, La, Si and we're talking of refrain and couplet (which I think AFAIK, translate to verse and chorus), so please excuse my amateur take on music structures. To me verse-chorus means that one of them is the main body of the sung lyrics where 80% of the narration occurs (the part that is the couplet in french and that I assimilate to the verse in English), and the other is is the re-occuring hook with the catchy much-repeated shorter sentences, often containing the song title (which in french is called the refrain, and I identify as the chorus in my limited anglophone musical science/knowledge)

    This to say that both Roger and David get two sung passages each in Comfortably Numb, and the second of which are useless (IMHO), because they more or less repeat what was said in their first intervention. As such, I have no problems with Numb as it is now in its almost-7-mins duration, but in the frame of this exercice/thread, we're looking at shortening The Wall, from a double disc to a single disc affair, so we must be saving time to cram the more essential of The Wall's 80 minutes into some 40/45 minutes... And with its 7-minutes duration, Numb is a all-too sizeable chunk of the final 40-minutes we're aiming at... But cutting it down to 4 minutes, by suppressing Roger & David's second singing turns, we're achieving an appreciative time gain/save.

    You shouldn't read no more into what I was probably not expressing well enough.


    Quote Originally Posted by Vic333 View Post
    I haven't listened to it in years, but there's no filler on it. Sounds like people are confusing "filler" with "don't like that song".
    I'll give you half a point, because in this precise case, I tend to qualify Vera and BtBBH (I don't like either, BTW) as at least a detour in the storyline rather than as a filler

    Quote Originally Posted by arturs View Post
    I do think it is a coherent statement, though, and should not be trimmed.
    I can agree with this (TW is also much more coherent as a whole than The Lamb is, for ex), but MT threw in a thread about cutting it down to a single disc, so we're supposed to be playing along, when chiming in the thread.

    Quote Originally Posted by MYSTERIOUS TRAVELLER View Post
    Vera is filler... the concept of The Wall does not support that throwaway for me
    Vera on the studio album is a WTF track (as is BtBBH), but it makes sense in the movie (and therefore is certainly not a throwaway piece), which could show that whatever Roger didn't achieve in the studio (what he wanted to say), Parker was able to put in in images, as.....

    Quote Originally Posted by JKL2000 View Post
    RE: Vera Lynn, remember how the movie of The Wall began with Vera Lynn singing "The Little Boy That Santa Claus Forgot?" I think it's pretty clear that Roger Waters and Alan Parker both felt she was an iconic figure of the time and place with which The Wall dealt, and she was important to feature in their work. Just IMO, of course. I can certainly understand some listeners not being interested in that though.
    Thx, Jed

    Quote Originally Posted by MYSTERIOUS TRAVELLER View Post
    so... since the thread title mentions filler

    what are some other instances of Pink Floyd using filler material?
    TBH, the main flaw of your thread was the use of that word in its title

    A filler, IMHO, is the 90 seconds of "You'll Never Walk Alone" at the end of the Meddle song.
    Another faours filler passage is the endless repeating (easy 90 seconds) of the closing From Now On on Supertramp's Quietest Moments album.

    Quote Originally Posted by GuitarGeek View Post
    Well, this is just my opinion, but:

    Take Up Thy Stethoscope And Walk
    The Grand Vizier's Garden Party (notable only because that's Nick Mason's first wife playing the flute)
    Alan's Psychedelic Breakfast
    Seamus
    San Tropez
    Several Species Of Small Furry Creatures Gathered Together In A Cave and Grooving With A Pict
    I agree with this list, but the only one I will save from it with be Breakfast, because out of 9 minutes, 7 of them are delightful little jams (not the one that goes on toasts)

    The shower, coffee brewing and egg frying passages are just Momentary Lapses of Reason. (probably David's too )

    as for the feasability of playing over frying eggs, Floyd managed on stage just as strange (and stranger) with The Man and The Voyage.... My guess is that Breakfast was in that and the studio Gumma side line of experiment.
    I find it strange that everybody is able to forgive Floyd for "failed experiments" in Gumma, and TM & TJ, but not for Breakfast.
    Last edited by Trane; 12-01-2018 at 03:46 AM.
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  18. #68
    Highly Evolved Orangutan JKL2000's Avatar
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    Trane, I knew what you meant about the repeated verse/chorus and solo thing in Comfy Numb. It's basically the same "trick" that's pulled in Gilmour-Floyd's "Learning to Fly." "Ah, you thought that was the solo, but here's an even bigger version of it!"

    I'm actually ok with it though, as long as the solos are worth it, which they are in both cases. That said, I'm really not all that fond of Comfy Numb because I don't like the melody for the verses, But the solos are effective.

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    Moderator Poisoned Youth's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by NogbadTheBad View Post
    I have no problem with Waters doing it exactly as he wants to, I want all artists to do that. But as a consumer of that art I don't have to listen to it the way he wants, I can edit it any way I like as the customer.
    Quote Originally Posted by ronmac View Post
    Of course you can. And I never suggested otherwise, did I?

    I'm referring to the comments that "it should be this" or it should be that" or "he needed an editor." It's no different than record company execs telling an artist what to do with his art. It's arrogant.
    Hmmm.

    I think people on this forum tend to be critical about the material they admire the most which has a certain irony to it I suppose.
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  20. #70
    Quote Originally Posted by Poisoned Youth View Post
    Hmmm.

    I think people on this forum tend to be critical about the material they admire the most which has a certain irony to it I suppose.
    That's okay, we all also tend to be critical about the material we admire least, and the the people who like what we don't like, and the people who don't like what we love and so on...
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  21. #71
    That's Mr. to you, Sir!! Trane's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by JKL2000 View Post
    Trane, I knew what you meant about the repeated verse/chorus and solo thing in Comfy Numb. It's basically the same "trick" that's pulled in Gilmour-Floyd's "Learning to Fly." "Ah, you thought that was the solo, but here's an even bigger version of it!"

    I'm actually ok with it though, as long as the solos are worth it, which they are in both cases. That said, I'm really not all that fond of Comfy Numb because I don't like the melody for the verses, But the solos are effective.
    Well, I was answering GGeek, really... And to be honest, this is a trick I often dislike in prog bands (when using it), and I could point out to Genesis' YOSW and its insufferable second turn (but the first time around is awful as well)

    However, in the case of Numb, I would say that Waters sings the verse, and Gilmour the chorus, in which there is the song title... to me a chorus, by definition answers a verse. So David answers Roger.
    Not that big on Numb myself (or Brick2, FTM), probably due to overexposure reasons, but it's impossible to edit The Wall and keep both out.
    my music collection increased tenfolds when I switched from drug-addicts to complete nutcases.

  22. #72
    I'm here for the moosic NogbadTheBad's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by GuitarGeek View Post
    Well, this is just my opinion, but:

    Take Up Thy Stethoscope And Walk
    The Grand Vizier's Garden Party (notable only because that's Nick Mason's first wife playing the flute)
    Alan's Psychedelic Breakfast
    Seamus
    San Tropez
    Several Species Of Small Furry Creatures Gathered Together In A Cave and Grooving With A Pict
    I like all of these! Yes, even Seamus! I'd take an album made up of these over TFC.
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  23. #73
    Quote Originally Posted by notallwhowander View Post
    I usually avoid the term "filler" because it presumes intentions on the part of the creators. So it really is another way of saying, that I don't like or connect with this song.
    +1 The term "Filer" implies intent.

    Quote Originally Posted by notallwhowander View Post
    For instance, "Her Majesty" on Abbey Road has all the earmarks of filler, but I experience it as a playful endspiece to one of the best album-sides in rock history. So is it filler?
    Good point, but not really a good example. "Her Majesty" is too short to serve as filler. You probably know the story behind that. For those who don't, it was added by a studio engineer as a bit of a joke. They liked it there and left it in place. The song was originally intended to be part of the medley. The crashing note at the beginning of it is actually the final note of "Polythene Pam."

    "Any Colour You Like" would be one example that comes to mind.
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  24. #74
    Member moecurlythanu's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by MYSTERIOUS TRAVELLER View Post
    how does one play cooking bacon and eggs live?

    and I agree with Seamus
    The local diner does it every day.

  25. #75
    I always felt like the transition between Pink going AWOL on drugs in the hotel room (side 3) and The Trial section (side 4) was clumsy. I get what Roger was trying to say, but it seemed like he was trying to force a political metaphor into a story of a burned-out rock star.

    As I get older, the whole story seems whiny and self-involved. Roger at his best can offer an interesting perspective on things, but The Wall wasn't it.

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