Floyd's overlooked '77-released album.
927562
Mostly why people don't like this album is because it's only 5 tracks long. BIG DEAL. That's because the songs are long. I love this album! I got it for x-mas and love it.

1. POTW 1: Great intro to a good album. (5/5)

2. DOGS: Great 17 minute song. Probably the best on the album. (5/5)

3. PIGS (three different ones): Awesome! bashes a woman who tried tos stop pornography. Gotta love the line "you f**ked up old hag, ha ha charade you are"! (5/5)

4. SHEEP: Great song about how hardcore fans sometimes stalk them and annoy them. (5/5)

5. POTW 2: Great ending! (5/5)

If you are a die-hard Floyd fan, you must buy this!
1438387
'Endless River' is a reflection of 'The Division Bell'..it out and out echoes their last album and draws a lot of similarity towards the 'Dark Side of the Moon',sometimes Stephen Hawkings 'Keep talking' and sometimes 'The Wall' as well..It is better to know the history of this album before being judgmental and name Floyd as repetitive or monotonous. It is a project made by compiling over 20 hours of unused sessions from the development of 'Division Bell'. To me, it is Gilmour and Mason's fine gift to Richard Wright and finer gift to the Floydians. Mind you, only 'Louder than words' has vocals.
972610
There are very few bands that can maintain popularity among diverse groups and diverse social scenes. Pink Floyd is one of them. They are even more popular now than ever before, and The Wall is one of their greatest  accomplishments. Very few albums have every been this ambitious, telling an  epic tale througout 26 tracks and two Discs. The boldness was rewarded, as  this is still an album that hold true for todays times and todays rock and  roll artists. The nightmarish 'wall' that rocker 'Pink Floyd' builds, and  then destroys is something that many greats of the last decade have  encountered. Of course aside from the social relevence, it is a danged good  album. While it does have its major radio hits, Brick in the Wall (Part II)  and Comfortably Numb the biggest among them, the album really has to be  listend to in order, the whole thing. This really tracks the depression and  maddness of 'Pink Floyd', and allows us to get into the head of a rock and  roll star, the pain behind the fame. While obviously not everybody wants to  do that, it is a trip that anyone who listens to lots of rock should take.  The album is disturbing, there is no doubt about that, but it is meant to  be disturbing, is some ways similar to punk, but do not be deceived, this  is not a punk album. So while this is not for everyone, it is still a great  album, up there with Dark Side of the Moon (still Floyd's greatest), and  other achievements such as The Beatles Sgt. Peppers Lonly Hearts Club Band.  A fully earned 5/5 Stars.
1979748
This double album represents the band at a turning point in their career. Their previous official album, A Saucerful Of Secrets, had found them recovering from the trauma of losing their principal singer, songwriter and lead guitarist, and against the odds, coming up with a winner.

The sci-fi leanings of Syd Barrett's Astronomy Domine had been matched with Roger Waters' compositions Set The Controls For The Heart Of The Sun and Let There Be More Light, and Richard Wright had contributed two whimsical pieces, Remember A Day and See Saw. Their new direction, however, was determined by the closing track in which they were given the freedom to do whatever they wanted, A Saucerful Of Secrets itself, a 12-minute epic combining four separately composed instrumental pieces, Something Else, Syncopated Pandemonium, Storm Signal,  and Celestial Voices. It set the pattern for the new Pink Floyd.

The idea of this double album was to wrap up their old repertoire with a live album of stage favourites, while launching their re-invented selves with a second studio album in which each of the four members would contribute a quarter in the form of solo performances or constructions.

The Pink Floyd had already launched new material in their More Furious Madness From The Massed Gadgets of Auximenes concerts, but for the Ummagumma sets stuck to familiar material. Recordings for the live album were made at 3 locations - Bromley Technical College, Bromley Common, Kent (26 April 1969); Mothers Club, Erdington, Birmingham (27 April 1969 - a gig I attended) and the College of Commerce, Manchester (2 May 1969). The Bromley concert recording was not used whilst it appears composites from the other two appearances were edited together to form the four song track list of the Live Album. "Parts of Saucerful on Ummagumma came from the Birmingham gig, which we put together with the Manchester stuff," said Richard Wright of the process. The plan rather backfired as the Live Album proved so popular that the band were obliged to continue to play them in their sets thereafter.

The Studio Album proves the adage that the whole is greater than the sum of the parts. Rick Wright's Sysyphus suite is portentous and somewhat overblown and Nick Mason's Grand Vizier's Birthday Party fares less well. Roger Waters has two pieces, of which the pastoral Grantchester Meadows is the one to which I most return, and both of which provide the lightest and most humorous touches to the record. David Gilmour asked him to write some lyrics for his own piece and Roger Waters probably did him a favour by refusing since The Narrow Way must have shown him that he could write his own lyrics as it was one of the first of a long line of work from his pen. It was either brave or indulgent for the members of the band to expose their strengths and weaknesses in this way, but it cleared the way for more fully realised work by the whole band such as 1970's ambitious Atom Heart Mother, and the superb Echoes on 1971's Meddle
2541065
For the first time in eight years, Roger Waters has finally released something substantial, a double live album culled from performances on the 2000 leg of his In The Flesh tour. So how does it stack up? First of all, any release from Roger Waters is just fine in my mind, as the man is a absolute genius; but then, I have a rather biased view of Roger and his music. But even from the perspective of non-fans, this is definitely an excellent live album. First, it sounds fabulous- James Guthrie, longtime Floyd producer, did a great job with reproducing the feel of a large concert venue without sacrificing the quality of the music itself. Secondly, the tunes themselves are extremely well performed, as benefits Roger's perfectionism, but unlike previous tours, he allows his band considerable freedom to rework some of the numbers, thus allowing old concert standbys like "Another Brick In The Wall" and "Money" to sound exciting (the extended soloing on the former is particularly welcome, given the constant airplay the original version receives).
This CD is worth buying for multiple tracks, but at the very least, you should get this to hear numbers like "In The Flesh," "Dogs" and "Set The Controls For The Heart Of The Sun," which the current incarnation of Pink Floyd will probably never perform again. Roger breathes new life into these old classics- he takes a sardonic and tongue-in-cheek attitude towards the vicious lyrics of "In The Flesh," while "Set The Controls" is presented as a more modern rock song (instead of the psychedelic epic that it was in the seventies) and "Dogs" far surpasses the already incredible studio version.
The band does an excellent job of reproducing old Pink Floyd classics, certainly more so than the David Gilmour-led Floyd can do in this day and age.  It's also refreshing to hear Roger sing songs like Shine On and Brain Damage; he clearly still cares about them and that emotion is evident. Gilmour's presence is only really missed on Wish You Were Here, which Roger's voice does not sound very natural on, and Comfortably Numb, which is certainly one of Gilmour's showcase numbers.
Roger's solo material is another highlight of the album; while I wished that he could have toured Amused To Death as a whole after releasing it in 1992, the selections here are just great, especially Perfect Sense. It's also too bad that more material wasn't showcased from "The Final Cut"- the version of "Southampton Dock" found here is so good that I wonder what Roger could have done with songs like "The Gunner's Dream" or "Two Suns In The Sunset." Finally, we have Roger's newest song, "Each Small Candle," and quite frankly, if all the songs on his upcoming solo album are as good as this, I'm eagerly awaiting it.
Of course, it's not perfect- I do wish in some places that Roger had relied less on the backup singers, good as they are. I want to hear Roger sing his material, not someone else! Also, a lot of Roger's comments have been edited out (listen to the bootlegs for a comparision), and this is especially missed before "Each Small Candle." Finally, some of the Floyd material is sloppily played- the two songs mentioned above plus most of the Dark Side of the Moon material. Even so, "In The Flesh" grinds the two Dave Gilmour-era live albums (Delicate Sound of Thunder and PULSE) into the dust. It's great to hear a live Pink Floyd/Roger Waters album that does justice to such great music. Highly recommended.
1501608
Haunted by tragedy and dogged by bitterness and egomania, Roger Waters has made a tempting target for critics.  It's been tempting to think he got what he deserved for breaking with the Floyd and finding that his own name recognition with fans was comparatively marginal.  But this album and tour show why many more-than-casual Floyd fans prefer Roger to a Gilmour-led empty shell of a band.

The rationale for this tour was that Waters had never before put together a comprehensive look at his career, and as such this album does an excellent job.  The selections span pretty much the whole of his career with the Floyd as well as most of his solo works, and they are played in a way that sheds new light on his vision.

Waters's problem in the past has been that, although he was the creative drive behind the Floyd, he was not its main vocalist nor its most distinctive lead player.  Thus to David Gilmour and company have gone the bulk of the touring spoils, and that must have burned Roger up.  Here he does a very good job of making up for his weaknesses by finding himself in better voice than he was on the KAOS tour, employing more interesting lead players than he did back then, and being truer to the original recordings on the Floyd tracks.  His strength that the post-Waters Floyd has not come close to touching has been his grandiose theatricality, and the individual and provocative nature of his vision.  Those are both on display in abundance here.

David Gilmour is unquestionably a great musician, strictly speaking a better musician than Waters.  But what has made Waters matter more is that he is a much more interesting person (a bit like Lennon compared to McCartney).  Waters is always provocative and there is a stubborn integrity to his insistence that each individual must be accounted for in the macro-level (often war-like) world of politics.  After the release of "The Division Bell" Gilmour, sitting poolside, responded to a reporter's question about the album by shrugging and saying "It's just pop music."  What a lot of us like about Roger is that such an answer is inconceivable to him.
1397751
Whatever you think of Roger Waters, Pink Floyd was clearly never the same after his rather acrimonious exit.  Having won the right to continue using the band's name, David Gilmour, Nick Mason, and Richard Wright recorded and released A Momentary Lapse of Reason in 1987.  It's a far cry from the incredibly successful concept albums largely controlled by Roger Waters (e.g., The Wall, Dark Side of the Moon), and it has its inherent imperfections, but A Momentary Lapse of Reason is still an impressive album featuring some great musical moments and awesome Gilmour guitar riffs.

Freed from the controlling influences of Waters, David Gilmour dominates this album - he wrote or co-wrote every track, took up the mantle of lead singer, and did much to prove himself the greatest guitarist in the business.  One can read certain things in the album title and some of the songs (e.g., Sorrow) about the whole Pink Floyd turmoil of the previous years, but the main problem with this album is its seeming lack of a unifying theme.  There is unquestionably a great deal of intensity in the words and music, but there's no real depth.  To me, the whole album has an artificial feel to it - especially compared with the Waters-dominated Pink Floyd releases.  There are no bad songs on this album (although some Pink Floyd fans don't think very much of The Dogs of War), but few seem to work up any real emotion.  One can get a feel for this in the opening instrumental track; there may be Signs of Life in the initial sounds of plodding movement through water, but these are lost in a cacophony of artificial voices speaking unintelligibly in the background.  I have to admit that I don't always understand what Gilmour and the guys are trying to do in some of these songs.

Learning to Fly is somewhat pop-oriented track that succeeds quite well, but the first real magic is to be found in the song On the Turning Away.  This track about man's lack of concern for his fellow man also features some amazing guitar work by Gilmour.  Gilmour's finger work basically carries the second half of the album, one rendered somewhat obscure by the long instrumental Terminal Frost and its musical A New Machine bookends.  The album closes out impressively, though, with Sorrow.  This is the most emotionally compelling song on the album, and it opens with David Gilmour doing what he does best.

I can see how some Pink Floyd fans don't really care for this album.  It's very different from what had come before, and the song lyrics don't really compare to those written by Roger Waters.  Still, this is Pink Floyd - maybe not the Pink Floyd we wish we still had, but Pink Floyd nonetheless.  David Gilmour, Nick Mason, and Richard Wright revived this group when many thought it was dead and buried, and their own distinctive musical creations introduced a new generation of fans to the magic that is, was, and always will be Pink Floyd.
1243288
Pink Floyd be damned!! THIS is the album to listen to and admire on vinyl.
Charly Garcia doing British progressive 70's rock and succeeding at it.
1511384
I have not heard anything from this era of Floyd since the 80's with various bootleg recordings.  The sound quality is superb considering that they are originally analog recordings of 20 years of age.  The performance  is excellent with guitarist David Glimour leading the charge (Roger does  most of vocals and seldom plays bass.)  As with the studio recording, when  its good, its incredible (confortably numb, Another Brick in the Wall, Hey  You, Run Like Hell etc,) and when its bad, its mind numbing.  It's  certainly not the caliber of Dark Side, Wish You Were Here, Meddle and  Animals but its certainly better than the studio version. What people tend  to forget, is that pink Floyd was a great live band from the very begining  and that Roger got burned out from touring (just read the liner notes of  the limited edition) and infect they became a studio band.  It is a  definite must have for anyone who has the studio album.
3782751
Great live album from the genius behind Pink Floyd! About 90% of the music is from the Pink Floyd catalog but it does feature some of his solo material as well, including a brand new track "Each Small Candle". The members in Roger Waters' band do a decent job in substituting the absences of David Gilmour, Richard Wright & Nick Mason.
He performs many of the popular Floyd songs out of Dark Side Of The Moon, Wish You Were Here, Animals, & The Wall: "Breathe (In The Air)", "Time", "Money", "Brain Damage", "Eclipse", "Shine On Your Crazy Diamond (Parts I-VIII)", "Welcome To The Machine", "Wish You Were Here" (too bad he didn't include one of my fav Floyd tunes in "Have A Cigar"), "Pigs On The Wing (Part I)", "Dogs", "In The Flesh", "Mother", "Another Brick In The Wall (Part II)", "Comfortably Numb", "Amused To Death", and more!
Overall, this is a very solid live album and is much better than Pulse! A must for any Pink Floy fans!!
324670
Great Albums. A must for Die hard Pink Floyd Fans. It is def not for casual listeners as it is mostly instrumental. Shame they could not get Roger Waters involved to write some lyrics. That would have put the icing on the cake.
4505732
Released in 1969, this experimental album consisted of solo works by each member of the band along with a disc of live material.  I think that of the pre-Dark Side of the Moon albums, this may be the most difficult to listen to for most folks, although I really do like this album and appreciate the fact that the band was experimenting with different approaches to composition.  The lineup at this point included Rick Wright (organ, piano, mellotron, vocals); Roger Waters (bass, vocals); Nick Mason (drums and percussion); and David Gilmour (electric and acoustic guitars; vocals).

The solo works are quite different from one another with Rick's moody keyboard opus demonstrating his fondness for Stockhausen and featuring some very dissonant and atonal sections.  Dave's piece was a bit more of a straightforward rock piece and very good, although he has been quoted as saying he did not like it very much.  Nick's drum piece is excellent and demonstrates just how creative a drummer he was (and still is) - for those of you that are curious, his track is not just a drum solo, but a very interesting "sound collage" with drums.  Roger's pieces range from the pastoral (Grantchester Meadows) to the downright bizarre (Several Species Of Small Furry Animals Gathered Together In A Cave And Grooving With A Pict).  The latter piece is purely a sound collage, with little in the way of what one would regard as melody, harmony, etc.  Still, it is interesting nonetheless.

The live disc is what I used to get excited about and features excellent versions of A Saucerful of Secrets and especially Careful with that Axe Eugene - the screams are positively hair-raising.  The energy of the live performances is pretty intense and the brooding and creepy mood of tunes like Set the Controls for the Heart of the Sun is something that never fails to excite (or frighten depending on your perspective).

This remastered version is pretty good and features a mini-poster along with the two CDs packaged in a green cardboard case.  The sound quality of the studio pieces is not bad, although the sound quality of the live disc is a bit grainy - very listenable though.

All in all, this is a good album by Pink Floyd that features the group experimenting through their solo works, and demonstrating what an exciting live unit they were.  In fact, the live set is an excellent document from this early phase of Pink Floyd.  Ummagumma (which is slang for copulation I believe) is recommended along with Piper at the Gates of Dawn 1967); A Saucerful of Secrets (1968); More (1969); Atom Heart Mother (1970); Meddle (1971); Obscured by Clouds (1972); and Animals (1977).
1098907
I never even knew about Animals until I was thoroughly immersed in the Floyd.  At first I wondered, how did we go from the sublime keyboard driven "Wish You Were Here" album to the power chords of "The Wall"?  The answer of course, was this segue called Animals.  Of course, it wasn't intended as such, but has become a segue in the history of Floyd albums simply because there are no songs which can be pulled from it for Album-Oriented Radio (AOR) stations, like a "Have a Cigar," "Money," or even a "One of These Days."  Occasionally, an ultra-progressive rock station might play "Dogs", but this is quite rare.
This extreme lack of airplay causes Animals to be overlooked by casual Floyd fans, myself obviously included.  Critics, to the surprise of no one, carped on the album upon its release in 1977 for not containing any "new" songs - in fact, each song but the aforementioned short acoustic "Pigs on the Wing" doodles had been a part of the band's live set for years.  At the last minute, their lyrics were reworked so that they'd fit in with the "concept" of animials representing different classes of people.  For example, an old song called "Gotta be Crazy" was reworded and called "Dogs".
As to the songs themselves, the arrangements are decidedly more sparse than on the previous two Floyd masterpieces.  Rick Wright's keyboards are virtually gone, except for the drifting middle section of "Dogs."  Dogs is arguably the album's best track, and longest clocking in at about 17 minutes.  Sometimes, fans draw comparisons between Animals and Orwell's "Animal Farm," but aside from the obvious allegorical comparisons, Waters' lyrics do not closely parallel that classic work.  In terms of personality, the "Dogs" to which Waters refers are most similar to the Orwellian pigs (Napolean, et al) who thirst for power at the expense of everyone else.  These are Waters' most scathing lyrics, even more so than his ranting solo project "Amused to Death."  As usual, however, the great thing about Floyd is that Roger makes you think, whereas Dave Gilmour makes the music immensely enjoyable (Waters' solo projects always lacked this component: even a competent guitarist like Jeff Beck couldn't restore the musicality to "Amused").  "Dogs" contains some of Gilmour's very best guitar work with the band.
"Pigs: Three Different Ones," the third track, represents a commentary on holier than thou moralists like Mary Whitehouse, to whom Roger sings the lyric closest to a hook-line on the album: "Ha ha, charade you are."  The middle section of "Pigs" is a trough in the album's creativity (get it?), and amounts to Gilmour (I think...maybe Waters) making whining pig noises as a sort of "solo".
Then, there are the "Sheep", hapless followers who have no real thoughts of their own.  A driving bassline permeates the piece, along with blasts of rhythem guitar interspersed therein.  It's a long way from "A Pillow of Winds."  "Sheep" really seems to be a warm up for "The Wall," especially in the exciting power chord climax which could conceivably pass for a dry run of "Run Like Hell".
When the dust clears, "Sheep" ends with the sound of farm animals congregating in a pastoral setting, sequeing into the second "Pigs on the Wing".  Waters was never a virtuoso (if you've never picked up a guitar in your life, you will still learn to play "Pigs on the Wing" in a matter of minutes), but the bookends of the album truly do create an image of humanity nonexistent throughout the remaining tracks.
All things considered, a truly enjoyable album: incidently, my favorite Floyd to listen to in the car.
648558
I don't want to be disrespectful to the current line-up because however I feel about their post Waters work these guys were involved in the making of some of my favorite music of all time. That having been said I have to ask how can they seriously justify putting five post Waters tracks on this compilation. Other reviewers have questioned the lack of 'Welcome to the Machine' and 'Have a Cigar'. That's a valid point but the inclusion of these two would mean that the entire 'Wish You Were Here' lp would be represented. I can't imagine that any real Floyd fan would question the decision to put parts one through seven of 'Shine On You Crazy Diamond' on here and the title track really can't be denied so what can they do? This isn't a box set. I can understand that bands want their best of compilations to span their entire careers and I don't think it's a coincidnce that there are five Barrett songs represented here as well. The difference is that the Barrett stuff is brilliant but the post Waters just doesn't hold up. Waters' solo stuff is much better (even 'Radio Kaos'). 'High Hopes' is especially painful listening. Its inferiority only highlighted by its sandwiching between two stellar Barrett tracks. I think it's reasonable of them to include only one post Waters tune and in exchange for that they should have included a Waters' solo tune. Whether or not it contains the name Pink Floyd it IS the real Pink Floyd that has been etched into my brain. 'Pros and Cons' is in the same league as 'The Wall'. I would have included 'Waiting for the Worms', 'Not Now John', 'Several Species of Small Furry Animals Gathered in a Cave and Grooving with a Pict' (from Ummagumma) and 'If' (from Atom Heart Mother). Including, 'When the Tigers Broke Free' previously only in the movie version of 'The Wall' is a good choice and not just an attempt to get die hard fans to buy the whole set for one track. In truth, this track really gets into the heart of late Waters' era Floyd. If you know anything about their music and listen to the lyrics and to the sound you'll realize that this is truely a great Pink Floyd song that belongs on a best of compilation. The blending of the songs together works well and makes the album more interesting and more coherent. Some fans point out that Floyd records should be listened to in their entirety and I agree that it's important to listen to their music that way if you really want to understand it. However, that doesn't mean that their individual tracks can't hold up alone. It's also cool to just take the songs one at a time. By the way, Pink Floyd's best record is 'Animals'.
1003560
Big Floyd fan, this record has its moments, but for the most part falls short. If you are a fan, you have to get it, no choice really. Just don't expect greatness.
2884849
Like Pink Floyd?  Then you have to get this album, umm, CD.  Never heard Pink Floyd?  Get this, listen and be hooked into getting the rest of the band's work.
4178783
This is not ambient music like you would hear playing in the background of a nice spa. It is mostly mellow instrumental music that sounds like it could have been written in the Meddle or Momentary Lapse of Reason (MLR) eras. It does not sound like it was clipped from the Division Bell recordings. The sound quality and song writing is definitely Pink Floyd. There are a lot of good ideas on this album, but is it worth $20? It almost seems like blasphemy that I ponder that,  but it is a thought I am having. This is an album to listen to front back. They have always written albums that way but it is more apparent with this one. There are a lot of references to old songs.

I must note that I was able to witness a show from the Pulse tour. It was amazing.