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User
Reviews 8
Approval 87%
Soundoffs 102
Album Ratings 2745
Objectivity 84%
Last Active 12-28-22 7:12 pm
Joined 11-17-15
Review Comments 2,018
| | Pink Floyd Albums Ranked | | 15 |  | Pink Floyd
The Endless River
There are many reasons why Pink Floyd are one of my all-time favorite acts, but one of the most important of those reasons is that no matter the era or no matter the stylistic direction at that time, they were always able to make that new direction work and give it significance in their discography. This allowed the band long-lasting and frankly stunning consistency. It took nearly 50 years and 15 LPs to finally come across with their first truly poor record in The Endless River, a meandering, long-winded experience that really should've stayed in the drafts. I get that this is perhaps a more cinematic brand of their psychedelic sound from decades ago, but it sounds so dated from the time it came out and its songwriting provides hardly anything of interest. If this is Pink Floyd's last album, it's undeniably a disappointing note to go out on, but this will never taint the rest of their more timeless material. | | 14 |  | Pink Floyd
More
Maybe in the context of the film would this project be better, but it's really disjointed on its own. The summary of this is as follows: some of it is pretty great, some of it is okay, and a good bit of it is just filler. Both the blues-inspired tracks and the psychedelic-oriented pieces can become filler; nothing is safe. This honestly sounds more like a debut effort than Pink Floyd's actual debut. | | 13 |  | Pink Floyd
The Division Bell
I couldn't imagine the hype around this when it was released. Waters and Gilmour temporarily settling their differences and making their first tag-team project since The Wall (15 years prior) must have had fans ecstatic. I was in a similar avenue after seeing relatively positive reviews for this thing, but I feel like this album fell quite short of those remarks. If I had to describe it, it's like taking the ideas from Pink Floyd's three decades worth of discography and forcefully cramming them all into one album. This isn't a necessarily bad record and the extra instrumentation on some tracks do leave some greatly unique impressions, but too much of the album sounds like a clashing mess of ideas that comes across as sluggish and somewhat tired. | | 12 |  | Pink Floyd
A Momentary Lapse of Reason
On the flipside of Roger Waters' "solo" effort, David Gilmour tries to one-up Rogers by making his own "solo" effort under the Pink Floyd name. Unfortunately for Gilmour, this went even more poorly received than The Final Cut, but I honestly see this as one of Pink Floyd's most over-hated releases. Sure, the songwriting's wishy-washy and perhaps a lot of Pink Floyd's recognizable sound is almost completely stripped away in favor of the 80's pop sound that David Gilmour inspired with the Kate Bush collaborations. However, I vibe with the album's general sound pretty hard and the top-notch production emphasizes the synergy between the synths and guitars to a T. It's not an essential Pink Floyd record by any means, but they definitely could've had a worse waning in the 80's. | | 11 |  | Pink Floyd
The Final Cut
Even after Roger Waters was given the songwriting focus on The Wall, The Final Cut shows his work when given the complete, no-holds-barred reigns. And... it's ok. The album's sentiment is admirable and I like the symphonic, sometimes jazzy touches on a few of the tracks, but I can't help but feel that this is Waters' attempt to recapture the glory of The Wall or just make a The Wall B-Sides project under Pink Floyd's name. This isn't bad by any stretch, but it's unfortunately an omen of the rather mediocre post-70's Pink Floyd material. | | 10 |  | Pink Floyd
A Saucerful of Secrets
Despite the previous album's high creativity, this sophomore effort seems even more ambitious with its compositions. However, I found that ambition to heavily sacrifice lyrical power with not a lot of return. Whereas The Piper... was more balanced in lyrical and compositional prowess, this effort essentially lets the keyboards take over, which was a bit disappointing in my view. Also, I thought the production was a little less balanced this time around where some instruments were much cleaner than others, leading to awkward clashes in sound quality. | | 9 |  | Pink Floyd
Obscured by Clouds
If The Wall wasn't divisive enough, I present the real red-headed step-child of Pink Floyd's golden age: Obscured by Clouds. Like More, this is a project in which I imagine the band struggled to have the creative control they're used to by the nature of it being a soundtrack. However, I much prefer this over More as an album due to more consistent songwriting themes and a better overall flow across the album. Most of the production is also quite nice, but there are a couple of songs where the production is unnecessarily messy. Although the band plays it safer than usual lyrically and structurally, it's relieving to see that they were able to keep their core sound throughout the album's majority. | | 8 |  | Pink Floyd
Ummagumma
Pink Floyd return to more experimental songwriting to result in a solid project. The balance between late 60's progressive rock, psychedelic rock, and full-blown experimental music is kept in check for the most part, though some of the sound collage stuff comes across as total filler. This is still a pretty underrated album nonetheless. | | 7 |  | Pink Floyd
Animals
Of the four "big ones" in Pink Floyd's discography, I always considered this to be the bright black sheep of the bunch. It's a much different-sounding record than anything they've ever done before. While the lyrics and story have a poignant presence on the album, it's the instrumental passages and jam-like sections that take up much of the album's runtime. Unfortunately, I think this creative decision bogs the pacing down of the main three songs pretty significantly despite the album itself having a short runtime. As amazing as a song like "Dogs" is, I think the band got a little ahead of themselves here. | | 6 |  | Pink Floyd
Atom Heart Mother
I think this is the album where Pink Floyd started to find the sound that would define their greatest works. The production and mixing on the drums were noticeably lighter and floatier while the keyboards were more carefully layered and relaxed than ever before. Thankfully, much like The Piper..., this was an excellent debut for that sound. The gargantuan, epic, yet patient title track is a wonderful showcase of Pink Floyd's sonic evolution. Although a couple of the later songs are weaker in terms of interest, they're very well-written for the most part. | | 5 |  | Pink Floyd
The Piper at the Gates of Dawn
The debut album from one of the most internationally recognized acts of all time is a magnificent start to the band's decade-spanning career. Syd Barrett's magic in the songwriting department is outstanding as each track just go from one unpredictable and otherworldly passage to the next. It's not perfect; some songs are a little too obnoxiously arranged for my liking and I think the overall atmosphere could've used a little more consistency or, well, sense. However, I suppose that this is the reaction they were kinda shooting for. Either way, it's a hoot of a record. | | 4 |  | Pink Floyd
Meddle
On Meddle, Pink Floyd essentially took what they did on Atom Heart Mother and improve upon every aspect of that project. The ambient sections that appear on the album's bookends are more colorful, more emotionally heavy, and more rewarding than any similar passages the band had performed at that point. After "One of These Days" is a series of delightful and frankly underrated cuts such as "A Pillow of Winds" and "Fearless". But we can't talk about Meddle without its voyage of a closer, "Echoes", which is still one of the greatest songs Pink Floyd has ever recorded. It's a magnificent psychedelic and progressive work built for an almost equally magnificent record. | | 3 |  | Pink Floyd
The Wall
The Wall, one of the most highly regarded and studied concept albums of all time, fully lives up to such a title. Roger Waters shines through as a masterclass songwriter, drawing parallels between his own life, along with the state of England at the time, to the Pink character and his own struggles. It's a dark, riveting narration in what's essentially the setting of an opera. Of course, the review can't go without mentioning "Comfortably Numb", which is unsurprisingly a top 5 Pink Floyd cut. I even had this record at a perfect score for the longest time, but upon recent relistens, I can't deny that there's a tiny bit of filler for an album that's an hour and a half long. Nonetheless, this work of art is an essential listen in Pink Floyd's discography. | | 2 |  | Pink Floyd
The Dark Side of the Moon
Upon my recent relistens of this album, I felt that perhaps these songs by themselves warrant lower than a perfect score. There's a lot of reused passages and a couple of instrumentals with not much progression. However, analyzing this album in that manner seems unfair as it was meant to be and was always best as a sprawling 43-minute experience. That role is what I feel this album pulls off with near perfection. Not a minute of this feels thrown away; the album fully engages the listener in its 70's world outlook in a rather otherwordly fashion. The following praise and iconography of this record were well justified and it's simply one of the best of its time. | | 1 |  | Pink Floyd
Wish You Were Here
Pink Floyd had much to live up to following Dark Side of the Moon. Following up and improving on that record seemed like an impossible feat. But somehow, someway, they managed to do so. What's even more fascinating is that they don't even pull from a singular previous sound to help define the record. Both parts of "Shine on You Crazy Diamond" sound like a perfect marriage of the scales that defined Meddle and DSotM. "Have a Cigar" is a fantastic mix of progressive rock and blues that feels heavily inspired by "Money" from DSotM. Even "Welcome to the Machine" is a fresh look for the band that would become foreshadowing for the themes of The Wall. Even though these tracks are much stronger individually than their previous masterpiece, this album is somehow competitive in terms of consistency and flow, too. This quite easily deserves the long-lasting critical and fan recognition it's garnered over the several decades it has shined. | |
JKing92
07.17.21 | Cool list. My own ranking:
Dark Side > Wall > Animals > Wish > Meddle > Saucerful > Piper > More > AHM > Momentary Lapse > Final Cut > Ummagumma > Division Bell > Endless River > Obscured | Elynna
07.17.21 | Sweet descriptions. I've only recently started a Floyd discog run for the first time and I'm enjoying it a lot. | Scoot
07.17.21 | animals is 1 for me, that album was stupidly ahead of its time | TheAntichrist
07.17.21 | 1 is 1, but 7 is too low | Gyromania
07.17.21 | Take your description for Animals and apply it to WYWH and you have my take on that album | porcupinetheater
07.17.21 | Wall’s way too high but that’s par for the course I s’pose, cool to see Ummagumma and Atom Heart Mother getting a little extra love
Pretty sure Waters had 0 to do with Division Bell, though | grannypantys
07.17.21 | way different than my ranking would be but I liked a lot of your reasonings
| Gyromania
07.17.21 | The division bell is so overlooked, it's such a shame. Album blows ummagumma and atom heart mother out of the water | rockarollacola
07.17.21 | 12 is 1 | BlazinBlitzer
07.17.21 | "Pretty sure Waters had 0 to do with Division Bell, though"
You're right, mb. Poor research on my part. I kinda assumed he came back for that album for some reason. | Scoot
07.17.21 | high hopes is the goat closer imo | BlazinBlitzer
07.17.21 | I think Echoes has my heart all taken up for that title. | sixdegrees
07.17.21 | Now let’s see childatheart’s ranking | bigguytoo9
07.19.21 | Animals is my fave for sure. | dedex
07.19.21 | "1 is 1, but 7 is too low"
^ word |
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