meddle warmthofrelease In Syd's day, as in Piper and Umma, there was clear creativity and playfulness and a world of potential god knows. But there was no focus, no maturity, no direction, nothing holding it together. By the time Waters really took control of the band and started in on these concept albums with all their gloomy themes, there was such an air of self importance about the music which made it less approachable, in my opinion. Wish You Were Here is still my sentimental favorite but I can only listen to it every once in a while. It just feels like Waters is forcing dissonance and criticism and gloom down my throat constantly, like David Byrne with a worse sense of humor. PEEPULL R DOGS alright mate pipe down. And there's the post Waters stuff. I won't pretend Div Bell or Final Cut are irredeemable, they're not. But in so many ways it felt like an attempt to reinvent a wheel from the previous decade which no one had really grown tired of. Meddle was the perfect middle ground. A happy accident, a truly collaborative effort from a band still trying to find their voice and style despite already having 5 albums. Echoes is the obvious standout, towering over the rest of the record. But there's so much richness throughout. One_of_these_days is such a great rock opener, it's really some of Gilmour and Rogers' best instrumental work. Fearless will get me emotional every time. And even Seamus is a really tasteful interlude of goofiness, where it would feel redundant to appear on something like Umma, it feels refreshing here. I really do think it's aged the best out of everything. At once their most progressive and approachable. Highly ambitious without the presence, nor the insipid misanthrope. Where most of Floyd achieves beauty in spite of itself, Meddle has a kind of cooperative purity to it, and is to me easily the most listenable and enjoyable record in their discography. 240426 what's it to you? who go blather from