Remix of A Momentary Lapse of Reason

[dropforge]

They could rerecord the whole album with a reggae sound.

I was thinking bossa-folk.

[JKL2000]

I'm thinking Learning to Fly with a Polka sound would be awesome!

[dropforge]

A trip-hop redo of "Yet Another Movie" would be nifty!

[JKL2000]

Really Skrillex should just redo the whole album.

[dropforge]

He's too niche. I'm thinking Kanye.

Or Macklemore & Ryan Lewis.

[MYSTERIOUS TRAVELLER]

I always liked One Slip, Take It Back and Blue Light (the latter gets points for having a real horn section on it, instead of having one of the Art Of Noise escapees who played on the record do something on the Fairlight). I suppose I see the point that he was using that rhythmic echo thing, which everyone associates with a certain Irish guitarist, but in fact Gilmour did it before The Edge (and for that matter the BBC Radiophonic Workshop did it before Gilmour or Waters).

Run Like Hell

actually...

One Of These Days

[LeFrog]

The reason a lot of 80's stuff sounds so "dated" has to do with the technology available. The big thing was, before 1978, if you wanted to get a particular sound, you were limited to the gear you had, the studio you were working at, and the professionals you were working with. By that last one, I mean the producer and engineer. It was about dialing in a guitar tone, a Hammond organ drawbar setting, a synth patch, etc, plus things like mic placement, and whatever "secret sauce" that your producer liked to toss on things. Sometimes might even be a particular studio, as you often read where musicians would say things like "Oh, Wally Heider's had the greatest echo chamber ever" or "You could get a bass sound at Electric Ladyland unlike anywhere else". But basically, it was down to the expertise of the people present and maybe possibly where you were working.

Even if you were trying to copy the sound of someone else's record (Bernie Krause said that when he and Paul Beaver would do sessions, people would ask for a synth sound they heard on a Stevie Wonder record or whatever), you might not be able to get the exact sound. Maybe it was because you didn't have Wally Heider's echo chamber, or the recording console at whichever studio in Nashville that had the frelled up channel (which is said to have inspired the first distortion pedal), or you didn't have someone who knew how to recreate the synth patch on Living For The City.

But around 1978, synthesizers started to appear that had patch memory. It was said once that when Sequential Circuits first started getting Prophet-5's in for servicing, they noted that a lot of people weren't bothering to program in their own patches. Either people couldn't be bothered to figure out how to store sounds and were just using the live control panel the way you would on a Minimoog or whatever, or they were just using the factory patches.

This ended up having a big effec ton the industry. Gregg Hawkes created the synth patch on Let's Go by The Cars on a Prophet-5, but when Roland put out the Jupiter-8, that was one of the stock factory patches. Anyone wanting to get that sound only had to put down the cash for a JP-8, and dial whichever number patch it was. And it was the same with other synths, I think Eddie Van Halen admitted he used stock patches on the Oberheim OB-Xa on the songs on 1984 where he used it (saying once "I don't have time to program stuff"). So you started hearing a lot of the same synth sounds.

Then, when effects processors came out that had patch memory, it got even worse. If you wanted the "Phil Collins drum sound", well, virtually every digital reverb had that programmed in. It was probably the default setting when you turned the damn box on. Pretty much any other sound that you heard on a record, that was created by effects processing was in there too (I'll come back to that in just a second).

In the guitar department, Tom Scholz put the Rockman out on the market (after Epic cut off his royalties because he was taking too long to finish Third Stage). So everyone started using that because you didn't have to worry about mic placement or whatever. You just had to EQ the hell out of the thing during the mix so you didn't have the "Boston" guitar tone (of course, for it to really sound like Boston, you'd have to play exactly like Scholz or Barry Goudreau, but that stupid "smaller than a peanut butter and jelly sandwich" box got you have way there, if that was what you wanted).

And likewise, if you wanted say the Trevor Rabin Owner Of A Lonely Heart solo tone, well, there again effects processor that came out after May 1984 had it programmed in. Some of them even had some clever reference to Trevor or the song title as it's name. If you wanted the Andy Summers stereo chorus guitar tone, you could get that too, at the touch of the button.

ANd then there was drum machines. Everyone had either a Linndrum (or it's predecessor the LM-1, which is what Prince used on most of his stuff) or an Oberheim DMX or one of the Roland boxes. Even today, you hear a lot of hiphop records that still use the Roland TR-808, or something doing a really good impersonation of one.

Don't even get me started on samplers and digital synths. For awhile, it seemed like every frelling record had that exact same Fairlight "orchestra hit" patch, and DX-7 "slap bass" and "Rhodes" patches on them. Oy! I think Tony Banks might have been the only person who didn't use the Fairlight orchestra hit at some point.

That's basically why everything sounded so dated int he 80's, because everyone had these tools/toys and either got lazy, or (perhaps just as likely) they had record company people breathing down their necks saying "WHy don't you do something that sounds like that Phil Collins record that was a big hit last month" or whatever.

Nice post

[GuitarGeek]

re: rhythmic delay effects

Run Like Hell

actually...

One Of These Days

ANd the BBC Radiophonic Workshop used it on the remixed version of the Doctor Who theme which debuted in 1970, predating One Of These Days by at least at least a few months, if not a full year. In fact, you can hear Gilmour playing the Doctor Who melody in live versions of One Of These Days so certainly they were aware of it.

[Jacob Holm-Lupo]

The reason a lot of 80's stuff sounds so "dated"

I hear what you're saying, but I also think it's important to remember that this is a highly subjective assessment. A lot of people don't think 80s sounds sound dated, some think 70s sounds sound dated - et c. Right now 80s sounds and production values are very much in vogue, with the whole synthwave movement and also lots of mainstream artists in both rock and pop areas re-discovering 80s sounds and techniques. So from their perspective 80s sounds are the opposite of dated - they are highly relevant.

Personally I embrace both things. I adore the ghostly mellotron and the phat mini-moog, but having grown up both in the 70s and 80s I also love 80s sounds. I love the gated drum reverb, I love the spaced out sound of wave synthesis and the metallic gloss of FM synths. I mean, shit evolves. By the late 70s everyone's ears were getting a little tired of the very saturated sounds of the 70s, and suddenly they wanted something sparser, more ethereal, more rhythmically concise. And I would argue that the iconic 80s sounds have just as much character as those of the 70s. I would never mistake a Fairlight sound for anything else. Those are classic, unique timbers. And, to get back on track, to me the warm, cinematic sound of the Kurzweil are one of the things that makes Momentary Lapse a classic 80s album.

[battema]

I hear what you're saying, but I also think it's important to remember that this is a highly subjective assessment. A lot of people don't think 80s sounds sound dated, some think 70s sounds sound dated - et c. Right now 80s sounds and production values are very much in vogue, with the whole synthwave movement and also lots of mainstream artists in both rock and pop areas re-discovering 80s sounds and techniques. So from their perspective 80s sounds are the opposite of dated - they are highly relevant.

Personally I embrace both things. I adore the ghostly mellotron and the phat mini-moog, but having grown up both in the 70s and 80s I also love 80s sounds. I love the gated drum reverb, I love the spaced out sound of wave synthesis and the metallic gloss of FM synths. I mean, shit evolves. By the late 70s everyone's ears were getting a little tired of the very saturated sounds of the 70s, and suddenly they wanted something sparser, more ethereal, more rhythmically concise. And I would argue that the iconic 80s sounds have just as much character as those of the 70s. I would never mistake a Fairlight sound for anything else. Those are classic, unique timbers. And, to get back on track, to me the warm, cinematic sound of the Kurzweil are one of the things that makes Momentary Lapse a classic 80s album.

+1 for me

[the winter tree]

I'm proud to be the only person in the world that likes "Dogs of War".

[JKL2000]

I'm proud to be the only person in the world that likes "Dogs of War".

I actually thought it was a fairly well liked song from the album.

[Kcrimso]

I actually thought it was a fairly well liked song from the album.

In the 90's there was some big poll where Dogs Of War was voted as the worst song Pink Floyd ever did.

[Interstellar]

The lack of love for "The Dogs Of War" has always surprised me, not because I love the song (I don't), but because I feel it helps fulfil the album's purpose : producing Floyd-like material with a then contemporary sound and an easy listening vibe. TDOW is the obligatory "harsher" song that tells people that, although Waters is not here anymore, there is still some bite in PF. The expected PF ingredients are here : vaguely political lyrics, with key words "Dogs" and "War", a bluesy Gilmour solo, a sax solo, a roaring Hammond organ, all wrapped up in a clean production. I think it is efficient enough but lacks depth and soul, as does most of this record.
That being said, AMLOR has its own sonic identity and its place in PF discography, and while I'd be interested in a new version with more guaranteed Wright and Mason presence, I respect the fact that it is a well crafted product of its time, whereas The Division Bell sounds like a nostalgia trip toward a "golden era" of Floyd's sound and sounds more sterile as a result. (All of this IMHO of course.)

[Score2112]

AMLOR is a bit dated sounding, no question, but the album has a huge nostalgic pull for me. Will never forget thre excitement I felt upon it’s release and the subsequent tour (the first Floyd show I ever saw, waited in line overnight for tickets). Promoted by this thread, I gave it a fresh listen, and a lot of it still holds up, esp YAM and Sorrow. Heck I even still like One Slip.

[dropforge]

I actually thought it was a fairly well liked song from the album.

Same here. Everyone I knew who had the album liked it.

[Jerjo]

I too get an extreme wave of nostalgia off this disc. Yeah, it sounds dated to my ears but damn, in 1987 it meant a return to something I thought I'd never hear again, especially after the tuneless Final Cut. An immersion collection would be nice. Then again, so would one of Animals and I don't hear anything from the Floyd camp about getting that done!

[3LockBox]

I have a brother that's 9yrs older than me and I grew up listening to Floyd, Zeppelin, Tull, etc. I gravitated toward Robert Plant solo more so than LZ as a teenager (though I eventually picked up LZ on CD as I got older). I had taped copies of the Floyd and Tull albums that mattered to my brother but when Crest of a Knave came out, then AMLOR, those were my albums the same way those first few Plant solo albums were mine. Yeah, the production on CoaK makes me wince at times (Plant's Now and Zen as well) but I don't get that feeling when I play AMLOR.

[JJ88]

Worth noting that there was material recorded earlier which was scrapped because it allegedly 'didn't sound like Pink Floyd'. Don't think any of this has ever been released or even 'leaked'.

[Interstellar]

Although I feel that the 2 Pink Floyd studio albums released in the 80s (TFC and AMLOR) were not created by a band but were basically enhanced solo projects by Waters and Gilmour, and although I find these albums frustrating in many ways, I think both albums had interesting sonic qualities and avoided the worst aspects of 80s productions. (By comparison, I feel that Waters' Radio Kaos has not aged very well in that respect).
Both have a kind of immersive quality that still feels "floydian" despite the lack of band interaction.

[Drake]

I too get an extreme wave of nostalgia off this disc. Yeah, it sounds dated to my ears but damn, in 1987 it meant a return to something I thought I'd never hear again, especially after the tuneless Final Cut. An immersion collection would be nice. Then again, so would one of Animals and I don't hear anything from the Floyd camp about getting that done!

TFC tuneless? The title track, Your Possible Pasts, The Post War Dream, Two Suns, The Gunner's Dream ... LOTS of tunes! :-)

[Kcrimso]

TFC tuneless? The title track, Your Possible Pasts, The Post War Dream, Two Suns, The Gunner's Dream ... LOTS of tunes! :-)

More tunes even than on A Momentary Lapse Of Reason! And better tunes!

[JKL2000]

TFC tuneless? The title track, Your Possible Pasts, The Post War Dream, Two Suns, The Gunner's Dream ... LOTS of tunes! :-)

I definitely prefer TFC to AMLOR.

[flytomars]

^ This, no question

[Tom]

I definitely prefer TFC to AMLOR.

They are flawed in exactly opposite directions. The Waters album is missing the musical richness that made The Wall the last great Floyd album. It is full of discontinuities, which is very consistent with the idea that the non-Waters members didn't participate much in the music writing.

The Gilmour album is a lot lusher instrumentally, but doesn't know what it all means. I have no real use for side one, which sounds like About Face played at 25 rpm. Side two is at least Floyd-worthy.

But yeah, The Final Cut is very flawed but matters in a way that Momentary Lapse doesn't.