Oakland's Vinyl Vault - Meddle

It's that time again, children!  Today we look at another great album, with an awful cover.  It's Meddle, by the Pink Floyd.

Release date: October 30, 1971
Singles: One of These Days

So before we get into the music, let's discuss the cover a little bit.  The image, if you couldn't tell, and I don't blame you if you couldn't, is a close up of an ear.  But not just an ear.  It's an ear underwater, and those ripples you see are caused by sound waves entering the ear. As a concept, this seems like it might make a cool cover.  Unfortunately, in reality it just looks bad.

But luckily for us, once you take the album out of its sleeve and put it onto a turntable, you forget all about the cover.  This album, for me at least, marks the beginning of the golden age of Pink Floyd, in which they would go onto make Dark Side of the Moon, Wish You Were Here, Animals, and The Wall.  In 1971, it had been roughly 3 years since Syd Barrett left the group.  On Meddle, David Gilmour, who essentially replaced Barrett, finally emerged as a creative force within the group.  The result was that Pink Floyd started making some really good music.  Unfortunately it would also lead to a power struggle between Waters and Gilmour that would eventually break up the group, but what can you do.

Musically, you get a lot of different styles on Meddle.  It starts out with the single, "One of These Days," which other than a bizarre spoken line by Nick Mason, is an instrumental.  That leads to a rare Pink Floyd love song, "A Pillow of Winds."  The album continues with "Fearless" and "San Tropez," a light and breezy number.  The first side ends with "Seamus," which features vocals by a dog, and is what many consider to be the worst Pink Floyd song ever written, but I actually kind of like it.

The back side of the album is what makes this a great album instead of a good one. "Echoes."  It's a masterpiece.  Whether or not you believe that it syncs up with the end of 2001: A Space Odyssey (it totally does), you can still have your mind blown listening to this song.  It is epic.

Rating: 3 black monoliths up - A great album to just sit and listen to (or watch a certain part of a certain movie with a certain song from the album).  Definitely a must-own for any Pink Floyd or prog-rock fan.

And now, because I can, and so you can judge for yourself, here is "Echoes" synced up with the end of 2001.  Enjoy!



Pat is crazy.