Quote:
Originally Posted by duga
Yeah...it's his Daddy issues album. As if there weren't enough Daddy issues in the Wall.
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Well. The Wall had a compelling story, actual melodies, tons of great hooks and the rest of the band still contributed enough to make it sound like a Pink Floyd record. And like the best Floyd records the songs all merge together perfectly.
Also, while The Wall is somewhat autobiographal, it's also about Syd just as much as it's about Roger, and it's done in a way that the character of "Pink" could represent any troubled rock star, it has a more universial appeal because the themes of alienation is something anyone can relate with.
The Final Cut is just Roger ranting about his dead pop and politics and that's about the only substance it has.
Lyrically it's not a bad concept, it actually is an unofficial sequel to The Wall because the main character of the story is the schoolteacher from The Wall, who is a troubled war veteran.
But all the themes in The Final Cut, war, depression, capitalism. These were all tackled in previous albums and much more successfully. Basically Gilmour didn't want to make an album full of lame Wall leftovers, he wanted to compose new music but Waters just blew him off because HE was the lyrical genius. As true as that may be, what good are lyrics when there are no musical ideas to go along with it? And this really was the first album where he wouldn't let anyone else contribute anything, just a few guitar solos from Gilmour, which are unsurprisingly the highlights of the album.
Waters seemed to think he really was the band because he was the lyricist and the creator of the concepts behind each album. As if these were the only reasons the band was successful. Pink Floyd was at it's best when the actual musical ideas were being contributed by the entire band. That's not to say Waters isn't a good songwriter on his own, but he really dried up after The Wall.