| Floyd fans not planning to enjoy the aural experience of the world premiere of Comfortably Numb still have two other new placebos to fill the gap created by the demise of their beloved band. Last month, an 84-minute DVD, The Dark Side of the Moon, was released by Eagle Vision. As the album of the same name still sells about 8,000 copies per week in the U.S. alone, and is one of the Top 10 selling CDs of all time with nearly 1,300 weeks on the Billboard charts, the DVD’s potential to delight is great.
While clips of a young, hairy and stoned-looking Floyd are sweet, the images of present-day Floyd as decrepit old men are shocking. Yeah, it happens to the best of us, sure, but for some reason it’s much harder to take Floyd looking old than, say, The Who in their similar video homage to Who’s Next? Then there’s the inane dialogue, in which notes and sounds are dissected and sighed over 30 years after the fact. Sure, there are some lovely bits where the players strum along and make comments, but this is a product for only the most brain-damaged Floydites.
Money – it’s a crime. And so is the other Floyd-related product that turned up in the in-box a couple of months ago – The Royal Philharmonic Orchestra Plays Hits of Pink Floyd. Yep, "Money," "In The Flesh" and "Shine On You Crazy Diamond" all devoured by strings and horns – though not that different sounding than some of Roger Waters’s solo albums. But there’s something really sinister about these nine tracks – as if they might be part of the muzak you hear in your dentist’s office that pushes you into a flashback from which you never recover. However, maybe that is just how Floyd vocalist Syd Barret would’ve wanted it. |
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