Pink Floyd: 'The Final Cut' - is it really that bad? 

I'm not sure I got a word of that.

The Falklands war is what prompted the writing of the new material on the album. The Falklands itself has nothing to do with Pink Floyd's death knell. That just happened to be the album the they were working on when the shit finally hit the fan. I think that answers your question. The Wall definitely reflected a good deal of Roger's thoughts and feelings but I think it contained plenty that was not focused on him.

I love love love The Final Cut.

@@classicalbum Waters is one of the greatest lyricists in rock history, but Gilmore's work on Comfortably Numb shows up on every list of "greatest guitar solos of all time". Just saying, Pink Floyd wasn't a Roger Waters vehicle. It was a band with more than one "greatest of all time" musician in it. Somewhere between The Wall and The Final Cut, Waters decided the guy who produced one of the greatest guitar solos in all history had nothing to do with the band's success. Megalomania is a funny thing.

It's still a good album with great guitar and quirky songs like 'Not now John', and the lyrics are great on this album, lots of historical politics and the beautiful "Southampton Dock" BTW I have a fantastic vinyl copy of the final cut, probably as it didn't get much play LoL

Except for 'the big truck.'

@@JoanneTelling1 ???

Yes now more than ever

It is a good song but would be a lot better without the screams.

Now more than ever I fear 😨

Right you are!!! This took up a place in my heart in 1987, and it hasn't ever left.

I agree, his vocals and lyrics on this album are great

I'm a late bloomer of Floyd, yeah I heard the hits on radio back in tha day hahaha, but I'm early 40s,so it was after Division Bell that I started getting into them and working my way backwards etc..Anywho-a buddy of mine back around 94-95,gave me this tape(still have it)I liked some of the songs on it,and obviously as I got older and knew more of the bands history, yeah I could see David's opinion of it,yeah I can see how there were unused 'spare bricks' from The Wall..but I honestly love some of the anguish that Roger and the boys came up with,Mostly Roger lol..but still!! I'm a loner,so the Title Track hits me hard..Not Now John is obviously a banger!!2 sun's in the sunset, what a beautiful portrayal of nuclear war.. Fletcher Mem.Home-Colonial wasters,of life and limb, is everyone in??awesome!! Oy!get ur filthy hands off my desert.. What'd he say?..🛩🛩FFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFHHHHHHHHHEEEEEWWWWWW...BOOOOOOOOOMMM💣💣💣💥💥💥💣🎆🎆..🎻🎻🎻..beautiful 'Massed Gadgets ' with that 1 😆🤣!! Ur possible pasts, good song,hurts cause yeah it makes me think of certain ppl I wish didn't have to depart my life.. One of the few-2nd part has that Run Like Hell tempo,very strong words no doubt.. I see why some ppl don't like it,but I got a few buddy's in their 30s who have a fondness for it too!so it's not all that bad!! 1 of the only faults I have with it,is the Fact that Rick's not there!!✌🍻✌🍻

Been listening to It since 1983 as well, and I think it is more relevant today, and not just because of the mediocrity of music today, but because the themes of the album are in full bloom, as sad as it is. Absolute masterpiece, a nouvelle vague film in music, in bleak and white.

"And as the windshield melts and my tears evaporate Leaving only charcoal to defend Finally, I understand The feelings of the few Ashes and diamonds, foe and friend We were all equal in the end"

correct

Rolling stone .....what's it good for? Birdcage liner......and not much else. Dropped my subscription over 30 years ago and haven't missed it since...

@@dancalmpeaceful3903 What are you talking about??? Rolling Stone gave it 5 stars.

Cheers to that! They even gave The Wall an uninthusiastic review as well.

The Wall and the Final Cut both suck.

Exactly!

​@@CoolhandLukeSkywalkrWell we know your nan does!

I wouldn't call it as good as Dark Side but, yes, it's as good as The Wall.

My I tunes shows how many times I played an album. The final cut was over 800 plays.

I'm the same way, I love this record and don't agree with the hate it gets.

Same here

This wasn't a Floyd album it was a roger waters solo album

​@@davidanderson9789 thats just what people say. But nick dave and roger are on it. Its very much Pink Floyd.

Great, unbiased breakdown. Couldn't agree more that, in the context of the rest of PFs catalogue, it doesn't quite get there for me. It does seem to fit better with Pros and Cons and KAOS and I do tend to think of it as a Waters solo album. Perhaps better even, than Amused to Death. To be fair, I also tend to think of Momentary Lapse as a Gilmour solo album and natural progression from his self titled debut and About Face. I do however think they got the band back together for The Division Bell. Even without Waters lyrics it sounds like Floyd musically and seems like more of a continuation of their 70s output then even The Wall.

@@davidanderson9789 Officially and legally it's a Floyd album, and that's why he's reviewing it as such.

@@frommetoyou1981 no….they were doing it to get paid……..last thing this thing is…..is a Pink Floyd recording….it’s Waters ego and fuck you to the rest of the band before what he thought was his breaking up of the band….as usual…he was and still is a wrong asshole…….he whined and cried about his daddy dying in the war…his country saved by evil aggression……then tells the wife of the President of Ukraine to give up to poor Russia…..what a true drek of a human being.

Fantastic album,raw full of great lyrics

I only realized as an adult that it was my childhood introduction to the concept of "political capital."

They do carry the thing op. It may not be art for the masses, but it is a great work of art none the less.

Agreed! An understanding of the 80s in Britain is essential

Totally agree with you on Animals The blu ray mix is excellent Have a great day Peac4

Its a Pink floyd album. Dave's guitar see's to that! Its my favourite Floyd album.

The reviewer points out that Pink Floyd have never played any of the Final Cut live. True, I'm sure, but the post Waters Floyd never play any of Animals either (Waters plays tracks from both).

@@jamesd7045 Les Claypool of Primus played Animals live. Les Claypools Frog Brigade. A really good album to hear Animals live.

@MADMAN MARK Thanks. I'll look out for it. When I saw Waters (2007? - Dark Side tour) he played Dogs and Sheep.

I agree. I saw Roger as my first ever show 16 years old Radio KAOS tour at Madison Square Garden and Pink Floyd a couple of months later same venue. Definitely a missing element. Though I had never seen the band with all 4 members I am sure together they sounded great live in person.

99 Red Balloons gets to the point much faster.

There's only one song with David Gilmour singing on the entire album, even though David Gilmour is the band's lead singer lol. I think there's only one guitar solo on it. It's 45 minutes of Roger Waters weeping into a microphone. It's lousy.

@@CoolhandLukeSkywalkr Yes, and one of the most underrated solos in Gilmour's catalog honestly.

@@user-otzlixr lead singer since 1968.

@@user-otzlixr Animals is when Roger Waters took the band over. Lol. You literally know nothing about Pink Floyd.

I said the same thing about Not now John being the only track FM radio played. I'm a former native new York city resident and if I remember correctly WPLJ might have been still playing rock until they went to crap there was WAPP and WNEW and WBAB in Long Island.

I was 15 when DSOTM came out. Now it was stunning. This was stunning in how mediocre it is. Left over slop from The Wall and very little input from the rest of the band. Should have been a solo album. It sure sounds like one.

Gilmour's solo albums dont say anything lyrically. In fact the lyrics are childish nonsense. Even Gilmour himself admits to being embarrassed as several songs he wrote in his first two albums. There are some good tracks on the first two albums, but generally you cant compare Waters with Gilmour in terms of putting together albums conceptually. Amused to Death is an absolute classic piece of work with the recently departed Jeff Beck sizzling with his solo work and sonic phrasing.

yes, i think of it not so much as a Pink Floyd album but rather a really good piece of music.

Amused to Death is definitely Roger's best solo album imo. The final Cut is on par with his other solo albums though.

@@PetraKann Rattle that Lock by Gilmour is one of my favourite albums of the past 10 years. The song about his mother's dementia is very relatable, given my own father's dementia. Anyway, Gilmour's solo albums usually get a spin at least a few times per week while I am out driving, whereas Waters' albums only get a spin once or twice per year. But yeah, I agree that Amused to Death is a good album.

Its not as boring as WYWH or Animals

TFC has it's moments but it's a Waters solo album all but in name with zero input from other band members.

Are you for real? 😂

I always find my idea of favourite floyd album changes over time. But floyd itself is like George Carlin-when you ask who is the best standup, it changes over time, but george is always in the top five. At one point I listened to Animals non stop. At one time I listened to TFC non stop, but not nearly as long. Meddle is about my favourite album, but I like Ummagumma just for its folksy funness.

Atom heart mother better than dark side? The wall? Really?

@@BrianClem Really. AHM has a sonic and vocal beauty and an atmospheric presence like no other Floyd album. Dark Side was one of the last Floyd albums that I heard, not one of the first. To me, it's an introduction to a great book. It's not the book. The book is what comes after. The Wall is part of that book, but for me, overall does not stack up to Animals and TFC (and Wish You Were Here, probably my fourth favorite) in terms of lyrics and sound quality. You can't beat Holographic sound.

Did the same thing you did... and we came to the same conclusions... at the end of the day... remarkable album.

Very true. In hindsight I don't mind Momentary Lapse too much, I found it interesting that with Radio KAOS the 'pink floyds' were about the only band doing really 'socially depressing' music. I'd heard at the time that Gilmour didn't even want learning to fly on the album because it was way too poppy but management insisted at at the time Dave was pretty amenable. It sounds very much like everybody trying their hardest to 'sound like Roger Waters' lyrically, which ended up making it even darker than Radio KAOS. But by that time I had all marillions albums and had pretty much switched over to that, it has the musical abilities of Genesis with the songwriting chops of Waters. Until it imploded too.

Well put.

Roger Waters best solo album? "The Final Cut", "Amused to Death", and his recent "Is This the Life We Really Want?"...that's a very hard choice...for me, anyway.

Idk i love his other solo work too waters is just great

Amused to death is a masterpiece as well

Surround sound...?

@@adamjames6683 Yes, the original vinyl album was the first to be recorded using surround technology. When listening with headphones, as well as the normal stereo left and right, there was also front and back, and even up and down. I don't know how it worked, but it did.

I can tell you that I've been listening to this album consistently since 1987, and I've never consciously noticed a billiards game being played. I will have to follow your advice! I love hearing new elements in Floyd that somehow eluded me.

@@johngrunwell6101 Check it about 1:50 on...

I agree re: Not Now John. Talk about "sticking out like a sore thumb"

@@c11p Heavy METAL Floyd..

My issue is its spottiness. Some songs are socially great, the personal ones are as much copies of The Wall as somebody said the music was "when he wails "will you take the children away...and leave me alone" I was thinking "didn't we already deal with this on the last album? The socially relevant stuff led into Radio KAOS adn Amused to Death, which is where Rogers skills really lie.

Agreed

The Wall had very little Gilmour writing contributions either.

Glad you enjoyed it!

Exactly

You and me both

I think thats the ablum that Dave infamous says that Roger was picking out the refuse from other albums and Dave's argument was 'if it wasn't good enough then, why is it good enough now?" But since Roger had the lyrics I suspect the next line was "well do you have some thing better?" And clearly he didn't, so there you go.

The problem I have with it is that Waters had to make it personal. I mean, is it necessary to drag in the ghost of his own father all the time? Would he even care about Maggie's War if his own father hadn't died in WWII? I mean, it's hard to tell how much of this is genuine anger that's relevant to what was going on at the time, and how much was repeated bitterness from an earlier, unrelated conflict...

@@SpaceCattttt Thats a very interesting point, although its also a little bit irrelevant. Gandhi was fighting for South Africa's independance, he was Indian so fighting for India. Although to be fair, Thatcherism really had little to do with World War 2. I think thats constantly an issue with an artist, paricularly one who goes into social commentary, the question arises as to how much they are 'using' an issue for inspriation. On a dfferent video somebody was maligning the lack of good music and many of us were saying there is LOTS of good music, in fact SO much its really hard to find. Storm says that about 'welcome to the machine', that Roger is biting the hand that feeds him, because of crourse Pink Floyd was an EMI employee since' Syds day, actually PF benefited for several unsuccessful albums from EMI sticking with them. Today they would have been dumped after MEddle and got NO marketing for Dark Side. My thinking though is that you have to transport yourself a century into the future and analyze it like that. Nobody knows squat about who even WROTE most protest songs, so their motivation is irrelevant. I've certainly said plenty that I think Roger certainly HAD brilliance, and people love his live shows, and I somwhat agree with his politics, but certainly don't get any moral cues from a guy with over a hundred million dollars, a permanent retirement of millions each year, and on his fifth wife. Until I find out he's pulled a Cosby though I won't take it out on his music. The MORE personal the better, as I just wrote elsewhere I agree with you more than disagree, I just wrote somewhere else that his line "will you take the chlldren away, and leave me alone' 'if I show my true self or whatever that line is, sounds like something that should have been in the Wall and left there. Now, as you say, it just sounds TOO personal and not even particularly lyrical. I tuess it MAY at least be original, which is something, but for Pink Floyd ANY repetition is simply not acceptabele. Thats the price you pay for being a GReAT band on a whole other level than most rock bands, you have to take that critcism at a higher level. I love The Strawbs, but when I listen to their cheesy stuff I'm not that critical because, well, its The Strawbs, its 'hardly Pink Floyd'.

It is a heavy album to digest, but there is no question Waters was the genius in Pink Floyd. Not taking anything away from the three others who are amazing musicians and who sprinkled gold-dust on Waters's sketches.

Have a look at the other comments beneath this video

@@classicalbum well my question has been answered…. In more ways then one so it seems…

Pink Floyd released better material when there was still some collaboration. Evidently "taking over" was not for the best, and The Final Cut isn't underrated by anyone. It's somewhere in the bottom half, where it should be.

I think it was a choice between The Wall and Pros & Cons. I think it is a Roger Waters album, but it lacks the melodicism and musical grace of classic Floyd- the music just provides a platform for Waters lyrics

@@classicalbum I agree. I think it's not a Floyd album because Floyd was always about the music, and there's not a lot of them doing that. No Rick at all, of course. A lot of orchestration or simple guitar strumming. The lyrical content is very strong and , on the odd occasion I listen to it, I'm affected by it. 'Enjoy' it ? Not so much, but affected, yes. Momentary Lapse is more about the music, but, as it's pretty much just Gilmour's music and there's even fewer Floyd members on it, I can't regard that as a Floyd album either.

@@classicalbum Because it's a solo album, yes. There is no Rick Wright keyboard material and no Gilmour rocky tracks or 6/8 songs. Yes he had some of this in 77, but it was still a choice later between this or Pros and Cons, because that's all any of them had. I know it's easy to blame Roger, he's hardly blameless, but the other three would probably admit they hadn't presented any new stuff. A bad time for Floyd fans :)

AMLOR was a stinker. TFC was and still is a great emotional and stirring though provoking record and is the last hurrah for PF.@@glerp10000000000

Love "Not Now John".....

It's not mine, but i can totally relate!

Agree