The Bell Division
| The Bell Division | ||||
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| Pink Floyd studio album | ||||
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Publication |
March 30, 1994 |
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| Label (s) |
EMI (Europe) Columbia Records (USA) |
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Format (s) |
CD, LP |
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Title (number) |
11 |
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running time |
65:56 |
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| occupation |
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Bob Ezrin , David Gilmour |
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Studio (s) |
u. a. Abbey Road Studios , Britannia Row Studios , Astoria Houseboat |
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The Division Bell is the 14th studio album by the British rock band Pink Floyd . It was released on March 30, 1994 in the UK and Europe and April 5 in the US .
The album, written mainly by guitarist David Gilmour and keyboardist Richard Wright, is thematically all about communication, but unlike Pink Floyd albums such as The Dark Side of the Moon or The Wall, it is not a concept album . It was created in various studios, including Abbey Road Studios ( London ) and David Gilmour's houseboat The Astoria . In addition to Anthony Moore , Gilmour's wife Polly Samson was also involved in the songwriting. Samson and Gilmour married in 1994 during the subsequent tour. Samson is next to the singer Clare Torry (co-writer on The Great Gig in the Sky from the album The Dark Side of the Moon ) the only female person who was ever named as the author of a Pink Floyd song. Richard Wright can be heard for the first time since the 1973 album The Dark Side of the Moon on Wearing the Inside Out as a singer on a song by the band. He is also featured as a composer for the first time since the 1975 album Wish You Were Here on five tracks , including the Grammy Award- winning instrumental Marooned .
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Emergence
In January 1993, Gilmour, Mason and Wright began working on new song material. These initially took place in the converted Britannia Row Studios . Although the group initially had doubts about working on new songs, the group's self-confidence soon grew, so bassist Guy Pratt was asked to join the recordings. According to Nick Mason, Pratt helped give a new mood to the songs that had already been worked out.
The recordings of some improvisations helped the band to work out new songs, so that after about two weeks about 65 songs were created. With sound engineer Andy Jackson and co-producer Bob Ezrin, the production was then moved to Gilmour's houseboat and recording studio Astoria . There the resulting songs were listened to and rated by each member, so that finally about 27 songs were shortlisted. Furthermore, some songs were discarded, others were merged, which resulted in 15 tracks after further selection, finally further decisions were made, so that finally eleven songs appeared on the album. To evaluate the songs, the band used a special point system in which each member rated the songs with up to ten points.
The majority of the songs finally selected were recorded in the Olympia Studios within a week; after a summer break, more songs were recorded on Gilmour's houseboat.
background
The album title is derived from the Bell (Division Bell) that rings in the Palace of Westminster (building of the British Parliament ) to call Members to vote. The title was chosen by the British science fiction author Douglas Adams , a friend of Gilmour's. As a birthday present from the band, Adams - who played a little guitar himself - was allowed to accompany the band on guitar on the following tour at a concert in London on October 28, 1994.
In addition to David Gilmour and Nick Mason , Richard Wright had returned as a full band member. The album is again strongly based on the "classic phase" of Pink Floyd. As with the previous album A Momentary Lapse of Reason , the opinion of the fans was divided: While many welcomed the return to earlier strengths, others complained about the lack of substance in the songs. The tour that followed was extremely successful and, after the A-Momentary-Lapse-of-Reason tour, set further standards for the conditions at the time in terms of light show, sound quality and stage performance.
The Division Bell's cover design was again done by Storm Thorgerson , who u. a. the album covers were from The Dark Side of the Moon and Wish You Were Here . On the photo on the title cover (depending on the type of view), the two depicted metal sculptures can be seen both as two people talking to each other and as a face. The two sculptures were photographed over several weeks in all weather conditions and time of day until Thorgerson was satisfied. In particular, the name of the band is stamped in Braille on the black tray of the original CD (to the left of the booklet in the front cover) .
On the piece Keep Talking , the physicist Stephen Hawking , who had to rely on the help of a voice computer because of a tracheotomy , can be heard at several points in the song, where he lectures on the importance of language and communication.
For the cover of the album, Ely Cathedral near Cambridge was shown in the background of the two heads . In the video for the song " High Hopes " from the same album, the cathedral plays an important role as a fixed point .
reception
After its release, the album topped the charts in numerous countries. In the sales charts the album reached number 1 in the UK, USA as well as in Germany, Austria and Switzerland.
Over 12 million albums were sold worldwide. In Germany alone 1.3 million albums were sold and the album was in the top 100 charts for almost 60 weeks. It also enjoyed great success in Italy, where it topped the charts for several months.
Despite the enormous commercial success, the album was panned by many critics. He was accused of being an unimaginative work with weak songs full of self-quotations. Robert Christgau rated The Division Bell "F" the worst possible rating, and The Rolling Stone Album Guide also judged very negatively stars with only one out of five.
The piece Marooned received a Grammy in 1995 for " Best Rock Instrumental Performance ".
tour
Just two days after the album was released, the Division Bell Tour began at the Joe Robbie Stadium in Miami. The setlist began with Astronomy Domine from 1967, followed by songs from A Momentary Lapse of Reason and the Division Bell album. Also represented were songs from the three successful albums The Dark Side of the Moon (which was also played in full on this tour), Wish You Were Here and The Wall . After the tour ended, the instrumental track Cluster One remained the only track on the current album that was never performed live by the band. The other instrumental Marooned was only played at two concerts in Oslo, Norway. The last concert of the tour took place on October 29, 1994 at Earls Court in London. The concert on October 20, 1994 was released on VHS as part of the live album Pulse and later also on DVD. For the CD version, recordings from various concerts on the European tour were used.
Track list
- Cluster One (Richard Wright, David Gilmour) - 5:58
- What Do You Want from Me (David Gilmour, Richard Wright, Polly Samson) - 4:21
- Poles Apart (David Gilmour, Polly Samson, Nick Laird-Clowes) - 7:04
- Marooned (David Gilmour, Richard Wright) - 5:29
- A Great Day for Freedom (David Gilmour, Polly Samson) - 4:17
- Wearing the Inside Out (Richard Wright, Anthony Moore ) - 6:49
- Take it Back (David Gilmour, Bob Ezrin, Polly Samson, Nick Laird-Clowes) - 6:12
- Coming Back to Life (David Gilmour) - 6:19
- Keep Talking (David Gilmour, Richard Wright, Polly Samson) - 6:11
- Lost for Words (David Gilmour, Polly Samson) - 5:14
- High Hopes (David Gilmour, Polly Samson) - 8:32
Quotes
“The album feels much more home-made, very much as a band playing together in once space. I think that Rick felt significantly more integrated in the process this time, compared to Momentary Lapse. It was nice to have him back. "
“The album looks even more hand-made, like a band playing together in one room. I think Rick [Richard Wright] in particular felt more integrated into the process this time around than compared to [A] Momentary Lapse [of Reason] . It was nice to have him with us again. "
"Just rubbish ... nonsense from beginning to end."
"Just garbage ... nonsense from start to finish."
Individual evidence
- ^ Post Rock - Royal Mail and Pink Floyd issue special souvenir stamp sheet ( Memento of July 15, 2011 in the Internet Archive ) May 3, 2010
- ↑ Rock On The Net: 37th Annual Grammy Awards - 1995. Retrieved October 30, 2018 .
- ^ Jacopo Caneva: Magnets and miracles. Loneliness and nostalgia in Pink Floyd's lyrics . goWare, 2018, ISBN 978-88-6797-976-9 ( google.de [accessed July 4, 2020]).
- ↑ VinylFantasyMag: "The Division Bell" - last Pink Floyd album in a deluxe box set. May 23, 2014, accessed on July 4, 2020 (German).