THE DIVISION BELL

For me this album will always be one that I will remember fondly but with sadness.

After a long gestation period they produced something that really did surprise me ... no blow me away if I am honest.

In all my discussions with Pink Floyd fans throughout my life their last album never gets mentioned much. It is always the three usual suspects but not always in the way that you might think. These would be Pink Floyd The Wall, Pink Floyd Wish You Were Here and Pink Floyd The Dark Side of the Moon. Of course the letter always gets the vote of their greatest album. Oddly this 'vote' is largely dependent on someones age as if the way heard in order then guaranteed The Dark Side of the Moon gets that vote. Oddly you can also guarantee one other thing here and that is that they did not like The Wall album?!

Now with me the first album I heard was Wish You Were Here and mainly and most notably as well as commonly was the first track Shine On You Crazy Diamond and that always has a special place in my heart because of that. Next up was The Wall and their 'best' album was only third on my list but then their was a great rush to not only hear everything else but OWN everything else. This kind of obsession had not occurred with me before with music and though it did and has again since it is very rare for me. When that was over with, apart for the albums More, Saucerful of Secrets and Piper at the Gates of Dawn, I then moved onto other things like bootlegs and rare editions and would cruise around record fairs with the shortest shortlist of all time, PINK FLOYD!

In my family their was another tiny shortlist containing just one entry and that was PINK FLOYD fans and with 4 siblings and 5 close cousins I was the only one. In fact my five cousins used to take the pi .. mickey and state that they were crap, INFIDELS!! The funny things is today I have two brothers who love them, one favours The Wall, and of my cousins I could not say but I never heard anything about them becoming fans so infidels still most likely.

Now the common thing I get asked by other fans I meet is the obvious one but in two forms of asking and what is you favourite album or what do you think is the best Floyd album. No answer, I always say to their confusion but I can tell them my three FAVOURITE ALBUMS! They look confused when I ask this and say what, as they always seem to want to hear the obvious which is always the one they favour, well so far amongst the fans I met and they expect Dark Side. When they ask me why I have no answer I say the following 'Well that is like asking me which one of my three children is my favourite?!' and they stop for a moment, pause in thought and then come across with a kind of realisation and ask me to explain...

For me Dark Side of the Moon, Wish You Were Here and The Wall are the three best. Whichever one I was listening to when I was first into them I would think 'no this is their best' on hearing one of the others I would think 'no, no this is their best album!' and so it went on. Eventually I came to the conclusion that I could not choose between the three and it was like deciding amongst children and I came up with that analogy. I get a smile and then laughter whenever I state that and the odd thing is I always smile as I explain as I know the reaction I will always get.

Now one of these particular friends did not like The Wall. He also thought he knew a great deal about the band and their music. He always maintained that David, as he like to be called, Gilmour WAS Pink Floyd and NOT Roger Waters. This was the other question I always get and I respond, NEITHER THEY WERE ALL PINK FLOYD but if you force me into a corner I will give you the answer of RICHARD WRIGHT!!

Shock on faces abound with that one and I then say, look they are ALL Pink Floyd. The album you crow on about is the one where they ALL WORKED TOGETHER, all four of them. But in those albums it was always Richard Wright tinkering around with keyboards and other things that started the piece and ended up the sound that becomes the back bone of the album. I then said to this guy that he said he did not like The Wall and yet that is the one album to which a particular friend disliked when I first met him and three years later a few months before we fell out he attended a Roger Waters concert for The Wall and loved the experience. he also stated that I should write a book about the band as he has agreed with all my views on the band and constantly amazed at the little things I know.

However I will state and as i explained to him it is not that I am anally into them, you would never guess I was a Floyd fan if you was sitting here in my home right now, but just its been a long time, you read many articles in magazines, newspapers and the Internet as well as any documentaries about them and ... well you pick things up.

The Division Bell was a return to many of the old sounds, save for track 5, and this was a surprise. In fact I played the track 6, Wearing the Inside Out, to the above names friend and I said the following 'would this sound THAT out of place on The dark Side of the Moon? He said, no. He was then amazed to find out who was singing the lyrics, of course it was Richard Wright.

But I spent many a year looking forward to the follow up to this track, which I kept hearing was coming, and it failed to materialise. I was never one to write letters to band managers or the artists themselves always prefer to think that they will get round to it when they get round to it. David Gilmour appearing in a Jools Holland program, Late Night or Hootenany I cannot recall, and Jools asked him the $64 Million question and he was cagey but said there WOULD be another album and fans would NOT wait as long as they did for The Division Bell...

That wait was from 1987 to 1994 so 7 years. Therefore a new album would be out before 2001 by his estimates?! Well even if it was a bit longer I would not mind as long as it was along the lines of The Division Bell I would be happy.

So when the really sad and very unfortunate news of Richard Wrights passing, I did not even know he had cancer, that wait ended and hearing me of Richard's involvement in a new Pink Floyd, which was more like the old Pink Floyd, also died with him and I knew then that this spelt the end of Pink Floyd. AT least as far as new material goes and without Richard it would not and never will be the same.

The man, and like all of them, was truly a legend and for me the heart of the band leading up from 1970 to 1975, despite not being a leader either naturally or otherwise. He was a nice, kind, quiet and well spoken man with oodles of talent and I am only sorry for his family at his passing and that certain hatchets got buried just in time is at least some consolation.

RIP Richard Wright