Progressive Rock
No introduction needed for old man Roger. What does need saying is that he’s had the bright idea of reinterpreting Pink Floyd’s legendary album, “The Dark Side of the Moon” (1973). What could possibly go wrong?
The first thing to say is that I can just picture Mr Waters’s grandchildren:
—“Kids, let’s go visit grandpa Roger”
—“Ugh, dad, he never shuts up, he just goes on and on”
Well, that’s exactly what “The Dark Side of the Moon Redux” is: an old man nobody’s listening to, who just won’t stop talking. At least the cover is gorgeous and charming.
“Speak to Me” is grandpa droning on, which is essentially what you’ll find on every single track, since he sings terribly, as usual, and so he just talks and talks and talks through the whole thing. “Breathe” has turned tedious, played with little grace, trying to give it a more acoustic feel with string arrangements that do absolutely nothing for it.
“On the Run”: go ahead and toss out the joint you’d normally roll for this psychedelic moment on the original. Grandpa’s back again, nobody’s listening to him, but he won’t stop talking. And on “Time”, forget about doing the air drums you were used to in the intro, since he’s stripped it bare — but he does talk, of course. As for the rest of the track, it’s basically the same thing he did on “Breathe”; he doesn’t even try to do anything original.
“The Great Gig in the Sky”. The Inquisition would’ve put people on the rack for less than this. He’s basically committed heresy, blasphemy and apostasy by perpetrating this kind of musical insolence. Grandpa’s back again, talking and talking over the track’s background chords.
“Money” tries to give the original track a bluesy feel, but it’s basically just an excuse for him to keep talking over the background riff, with arrangements whose only charm is that, at 2:37, we get a fragment of the famous scherzo from Johann Sebastian Bach’s “Bourrée in E minor” — and that’s about it.
We carry on with “Us and Them”, but only because I’ve committed to writing this review. It’s not great, but it’s not horrendous either, it must be said. The original track was spectacular because it was produced with big backing vocals and a saxophone in the chorus that gave it real monumentality. Here he strips those out and it ends up flat — but given where we’ve come from, it’ll do, keep going.
“Any Colour You Like” adds the colour grey, or something close to funeral black. The narcissistic old man is back, talking over arrangements that recall the original track, and as for anything that might remind you of David Gilmour’s guitar solo, he just cuts it out entirely.
“Brain Damage” suffers exactly the same fate as “Breathe” and “Us and Them”; I’ll spare you the copy-paste. So let’s move to “Eclipse”, whose best quality is that we know it’s the final track. By this point we already know the epic scale and spectacle have been shelved, leaving us with weariness and apathy — which is exactly what it conveys.
Conclusion: I think it’s an abomination. It was more than enough that I had to listen to it. WATERS, RESIGN!
Note: To make up for it, I’ll bring you a review of something decent soon.
Writer: David Sàez