Meddle

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Editorial reviews

Amazon.co.uk Review
For all that menacing, hatchet-happy growl at the beginning of Meddle's opener, "One of These Days", Pink Floyd really weren't about to "cut you into little pieces". Meddle did, however, show that the reigning British monarchs of 1970s-era psychedelia could rip into galloping jams. It also showed what its predecessor, Atom Heart Mother, promised--that the band could excel in long, breathtaking suites that revealed strains of late-classical music, Sun Ra-inspired space explorations, and a patchwork approach to colliding sounds that together took on acid-drenched proportions. And if all that isn't enough, "San Tropez" revealed a playful side of the band, playing footsy with loungy jazz and having good fun in the process. --Andrew Bartlett

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Description
MEDDLE was the first album to hint at the musical identity that would define Pink Floyd in the mid to late '70s. Whereas prior releases like UMMAGUMMA and ATOM HEART MOTHER announced the presence of new singer/guitarist/songwriter David Gilmour, MEDDLE represents the band's Gilmour-influenced evolution toward a sleek, epic, spacey sound. In "Echoes", an ambitious 23-minute soundscape, the pinging of a synthesizer greets the listener before Gilmour's warm, open guitar and gentle crooning gives way to a repetitious, workmanlike rhythm.From here, the music fades into an abyss of whale calls andeerie sonic reverberations.
Elsewhere, Floyd dabbles with straightforward cocktail-hour jazz ("San Tropez") and a twisted slow blues ("Seamus"). But it is "One Of These Days", MEDDLE's opening track and lone radio staple, that truly previews things to come. Roger Waters's bass, played through a Binson echo unit, establishes the song's manically hypnotic groove, as Richard Wright's synthesizer bursts in and out, Nick Mason's off-kilter drum fills get tossed around, and Gilmour's guitar dive-bombs through it all. These varied sound effects, packaged in a song that clocked in at less than sixminutes, were a precedent for the masterpiece that was two years away: DARK SIDE OF THE MOON.

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Customer reviews

review by: date: 2008-01-01 rating:
contains the single best Pink Floyd song of all time..
"Meddle" - the 1971 album - contains the bands signature piece "Echoes" : a massive, definitive space-rock-funk-jam that lasts about 22 minutes, is the perfect accompaniment to the end of "2001", and was undoubtedly the absolute, brain-mashing highlight of 2006's David Gilmour Tour : seeing it performed by the ersatz version of the Floyd - containing 2/3rds of the final touring lineup - on his 2006 tour, assaulted by lasers and smoke in the confines of the Royal Albert Hall was one of the musical highlights of my life. Nonetheless, we're getting off track : "Meddle" is a great record that is the first foreshadowing of the creative heights the band will achieve. A fine record worth buying.

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review by: date: 2007-11-26 rating:
Forget Dark Side of the Moon, THIS is the best Pink Floyd album!

Best tracks: "Echoes", "One of These Days", "A Pillow of Winds".

I'm listening to this after having just written a relatively unsavoury review of Pink Floyd's supposed masterpiece Dark Side of the Moon, and it does annoy me this gets a fraction of the attention of that sacred cow yet it's about three hundred times better. No banality, no self-importance, no Clare Torry warbling and making your ears bleed. True, there's no "Money", but Meddle is one of the very best Pink Floyd albums; weird, wonderful, beautiful and often very spectacular. Obviously the huge "Echoes" dominates proceedings, but let's concentrate on the fantastic first side to begin with. "One of These Days" has one hell of a groovy twin-bass line and fantastic guitar effects which build and build to a cathartic finale (that you can almost dance to....) that I wish could have gone even longer than it does. From the ashes of this thrilling opener is "A Pillow of Winds", is a bit like the whole of their soundtrack album Obscured by Clouds condensed into five beautiful minutes, featuring gorgeous, bucolic guitars and autumnal atmospherics. This features one of David Gilmour's sweetest vocals, the feel is so mellow and pretty you just can't help but be swept away by its calming breezes. "Fearless" wins me over ever so slightly less so than anything else here, but it's a real good one, with some real nice moments, and for someone who doesn't follow football, I even like the bit where Liverpool fans singing "You'll Never Walk Alone" at the end! A song like "San Tropez" is the kind of thing that would be regarded as too whimsical, too quirky, too...dare I say it....fun....for Pink Floyd to bother with after this album. Too bad. I like this, it's a good little song, it's nice, it's good, it'll more than do! They'd definitely go nowhere near the likes of "Seamus" after this either. Probably the slightest thing they've ever recorded, it's simply a blues-inspired howl about a dog. Aaaah. Despite being totally inconsequential, it's still better than 90% of The Wall, so there. So, all in all, side one of Echoes starts of amazing, continues to stay strong, and then mellows out with a couple of very pleasant fillers.

Now. Enter. Side Two. "Echoes" originally took up a whole side of vinyl back in the seventies, and it's a monster. Oddly enough, Pink Floyd sometimes get drafted in with the whole progressive rock scene along side the likes of Yes and Emerson, Lake and Palmer, yet unlike those two bands, Pink Floyd's music is all about linearity and simplicity. The only thing really connecting these bands is their size. "Echoes" however, IS a progressive rock song, one of the very few they ever created (this and the "Atom Heart Mother" suite, essentially) and it's a masterpiece. It's probably the best Pink Floyd song ever. Funny that, calling it a song. It's over twenty minutes long, goes through lots of changes and moods and is closer to being a classical experience than a song. Dreamy, eerie, lovely in places, deeply, wildly strange in others, thrilling and gripping in a few more and also proudly host to, hands-down, the best bit of any Pink Floyd song, ever. I'm talking about the mesmerising jam-section where the band play it all funky and loose for about four to five minutes. This bit sees the band's rhythm section stretch out and bliss themselves into oblivion in a way they'd never done before, and save the similarly funky mid-section in Animals' "Pigs (Three Different Ones)", never would again. And with its whale-call interlude about ten minutes into it, it's got the weirdest stretch of any post-Barrett song. The guitars are genuinely, spellbindingly terrific. The vocals are great. The whole thing's a classic.

Listen to Meddle. Forget Dark Side of the Moon. Did I say that this is one of the very best Pink Floyd albums? Scratch that; it IS the best Pink Floyd album.

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review by: Adam date: 2007-10-29 rating:
Echoes: The finest track
I think Meddle was the first album I bought as a teenager, and I've replaced my copy at least 10 times! It's the top of my list, because it contains the track Echoes, possibly the finest progrock track ever recorded (in my opinion). Everything about Echoes is perfect, from the opening to the close, it wouldn't stand the test of time should any part be removed. I've listened to Echoes at least twice a week for 35 years now, and I know I'll never tire of it.
It's simply the best song ever!

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review by: date: 2007-10-15 rating:
CD doesn't sound right
I like vinyl, but I'm not obsessive. I have some CDs that sound just as good to my ears as the vinyl version. But this is not one of them. This is particularly noticeable on "Echoes". The track sounds really good on the CD, but "Echoes" isn't just really good: it's phenomenal. The CD version wipes out most of the psychedelic nature of the song, which is what lifts it to such heights of brilliance on record. The opening pings, on my vinyl (despite a number of scratches) send psychedelic ripples through your brain; the opening pings on the CD just don't do that. David Gilmour's slide guitar on the opening two minutes or so has a beautiful, floating quality on the vinyl. On the CD it sounds like a pleasant melody and that's it. As to the rest of the album: "One Of These Days" I love, though - you guessed it - the CD loses a bit of the rawness (not as bad as on "Echoes", however); "A Pillow of Winds" is one of those wistful Gilmour numbers that I really like, not as good as "Fat Old Sun" but similar; "Fearless" is good, but why the football song at the end rather than a guitar or keyboard solo? "St. Tropez" is nicely sneering in its lyrics, but not a very pleasing tune (like some of Waters's later numbers); "Seamus" isn't a classic, but I still think that using a howling dog is amusing.


review by: date: 2007-05-05 rating:
One Sided Affair
Meddle was my first Vinyl Rock Album. Given to me as a gift with the message 'Side Two listen and enjoy'. Meddle is indeed an album of two halves. Side one is a comfortable intro with pleasant songs that are somewhat dreamy utilising a variety of musical styles but with no real memorable Floyd classics.

Side two however requires isolation from all natural disturbances such as partners, mothers, television or any other intrusion as `Echoes' is a serious piece of work. From the first `plink' on the piano one's imagination is taken into a stereophonic world of masterly musical paradise. This enigmatic harmonious masterpiece probably sealed Floyd's future creativity. There is a moment during the `electronic seagull' sequence that risks losing its integrity however from the ashes comes a magnificent guitar crescendo that lights the tinder box for the long and beautiful ending to a most magnificent piece of musical dexterity.

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