Label: CBS/Sony Inc. (Japan), 35DP 53
Style: Art Rock, Progressive Rock
Country: London, England
Time: 43:31
Format: Flac Tracks 16/44,1 kHz
Size: 243 Mb
Rich pop stars often act in predictable ways. They buy large houses in the country, read the wrong daily newspapers, and vote Tory. Pink Floyd’s Roger Waters can be accused of a lot of things, but never of doing what’s expected. So Pink Floyd’s The Final Cut, the follow-up to the multimedia extravaganza The Wall, turns out to be a mini-epic written by Waters, subtitled “a requiem for the post war dream,” and includes the most vicious attack on Mrs Thatcher that the pop world has mounted. When Waters gets going he makes all that “stand down Margaret” stuff sound positively tame.
The lyrics are the most startling part of an otherwise messy, overblown, and awkward album that includes a few strong songs, some brilliant recording work (with whispers, footsteps or other effects mixed into songs with brilliant separation and clarity), and patches that sound like outtakes from The Wall.
The opening anthem, with its chorus “What have we done, Maggie, what have we done to England?” echoes the final song in The Wall and makes it sound as if he’s about to embark on a detailed analysis of the collapse of the welfare state. Instead, he returns to various well-worn Waters themes, from the second world war and the death of his own father (to whom the album is dedicated), to stories of war heroes becoming teachers, or songs of personal madness, interspersed with references to the Falklands and the blistering attacks on Thatcher.
The most vicious, The Fletcher Memorial Home (another reference to his father) imagines Thatcher, along with Haig, Begin and others, in a “home for incurable tyrants and kings.” The album ends, as you might have guessed, with a nuclear holocaust. The songs are mostly quiet, often with orchestral backing interrupted by David Gilmour guitar attacks. Floyd enthusiasts should note that the band are now a three-piece (Richard Wright has escaped over The Wall), and despite the title it’s not necessarily their final album.
(theguardian.com/music/2023/mar/17/pink-floyd-the-final-cut-reviewed-1983)
01. The Post War Dream (03:03)
02. Your Possible Pasts (04:30)
03. One Of The Few (01:13)
04. The Hero's Return (03:00)
05. The Gunners Dream (05:08)
06. Paranoid Eyes (03:44)
07. Get Your Filthy Hands Off My Desert (01:16)
08. The Fletcher Memorial Home (04:15)
09. Southampton Dock (02:12)
10. The Final Cut (04:45)
11. Not Now John (05:03)
12. Two Suns In The Sunset (05:20)
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