When we talk about things that are subjective, such as what art is our favourite, there are no wrong answers. The whole thing is entirely subjective, and therefore, when someone says their favourite album, regardless of how much you disagree with them, you can’t go so far as to call them “wrong”.
That being said, even when we’re talking about something deeply personal and up for debate, like someone’s favourite album, there are certain records that are destined to come up—universal truths buried in mountains of opinion. And Pink Floyd lies at the heart of that truth.
It could be a fun game to ask a group of people what they think the best album of all time is, and then time how long it takes for someone to suggest one of Pink Floyd’s classics. Dark Side of the Moon and The Wall have cemented themselves as some of the most innovative and exciting records ever made. They don’t just sound good; they explore interesting concepts that expand the parameters of what an album can be.
At the heart of these records stands Roger Waters, one of the minds who helped Pink Floyd jump into the realm of elongated concept albums. Before they could do that, they had to write a song that Waters hated, one that prompted him to stop trying to put together a single and instead take his time and put together something much more complex.
When Syd Barrett left the band, Waters tried to pick up where he left off, and the result was subpar. He put together the song ‘Point Me At The Sky’, which he despised as it felt as though he was trying to copy Barrett’s tone of voice as opposed to finding his own. When asked about the song, he described it as “One notable failure when Syd left the band”.
This wasn’t the only early Pink Floyd song that Roger Waters ended up despising. After ‘Point Me At The Sky’, he found his tone of voice and realised what kind of music he was keen on making. This meant that with hindsight, he could see that with a lot of the band’s early work, specifically records like Piper At The Gates of Dawn, there wasn’t a lot of direction there. While this record remains a number of fans’ favourites, Waters attested that he wasn’t that keen.
“I don’t want to go back to those times at all,” he said when discussing the album. “There wasn’t anything ‘grand’ about it’. We were laughable. We were useless. We couldn’t play at all, so we had to do something stupid and ‘experimental’.”
Of course, it won’t surprise people to hear that while there were some early Pink Floyd songs that Waters wasn’t overly fond of, the majority of the band’s tracks that he despised came after his departure in 1985. Waters didn’t have a nice word to say about any of the songs on A Momentary Lapse of Reason or The Division Bell, as he essentially described them as David Gilmour’s poor attempt at mimicking Pink Floyd when they were at their best.
“With all due respect to the people who went out and bought those records, they are just rubbish,” said Gilmour when talking about his disdain towards the songs that were written once he left the band, “Particularly The Division Bell; it’s just nonsense from beginning to end.”
