The 1985 Listening Post - Nick Mason and Rick Fenn - Profiles

Nick Mason and Rick Fenn - Profiles

#274/908

July 29 1985

Nick Mason and Rick Fenn

Profiles

2.5 out of 5

Highlights:

Malta

2 songs in and I already find this more pleasing than any of Roger Waters solo stuff. I know it’s MOR and it’s SUPPOSED to be pleasing but that doesn’t mean it isn’t. And I balked at reviewing it, since all but two tracks are instrumental. 

I’m pretty glad I was reprimanded. That opening track is bouncy and then not and then glides to other styles but never bores. 

It’s gentle, key driven prog rock and it’s perfectly fine. The title track is a top down drive into the countryside. 

But, boy…Side Two opens with an atrociously awful track, “Israel”. Musically crappy, lyrically terrible, arranged…fuck it. I’m tired of talking about this song. 

Ugh…as we keep going through this thing I find myself coming back to Brand X. It’s a Phil Collins side project (what the fuck was this guy NOT doing in the 80s??). Unorthodox Behavior starts off great with "Nuclear Burn" but then it just owns up to what it is: Jazz Fusion noodle bore. 

And that’s what’s happening here. 

Only late, with “Zip Code” do we get any sense of life but it’s a mirage. They try real hard with “Black Ice” but these guys aren’t really all that fiery. 

https://music.apple.com/us/album/profiles-remastered/542454994

The 1984 Listening Post - Roger Waters - The Pros and Cons of Hitchhiking

Roger Waters - The Pros and Cons of Hitchhiking

#91

April 30 1984

Pink Floydwaters

The Pros and Cons of Hitchhiking

2.75 out of 5

Highlights:

4:50 AM (Go Fishing)

5:01 AM (The Pros and Cons of Hitchhiking)

We all know that kids with hard earned allowance cannot fucking wait to get their hands on...

A rock meditation on midlife entropy. 

Seriously. 

I really don’t get what I’m listening to. Do the time titles...are they marking something?

What is happening here, is someone having twilight nightmares?

I’ve got to go read what the hell this is…

Ok. So the protagonist picked up a hitchhiker and he’s fantasizing about her. That’s only really clear if you read up on the record. The songs are so obfuscated and not all that engrossing. That Gilmour thought this was musically stronger than The Wall is perplexing. Because every song sounds exactly the same as the last. Same melodies, same anticipated climax. 

This investigation into midlife crisis requires multiple listens to truly understand but the music is so revoltingly boring and predictable that who would want to go through this exercise again when it reminds so much of a predecessor that the listener, given the choice, would reflexively reach for that epic instead?

Get therapy, Roger. 

https://itunes.apple.com/us/album/the-pros-and-cons-of-hitch-hiking/180100455

The 1984 Listening Post - David Gilmour - About Face

David Gilmour - About Face

#60

March 27 1984

David Gilmour

About Face

4.25 out of 5

Highlights:

Love On the Air

Blue Light

Cruise

I hated Gilmour’s solo debut. Terrible. Unmemorable. So, I was not looking forward to this. 

From the opening strains of “Until We Sleep” I feel like we are in for something a bit different and I start to love “Murder” until it gets unnecessarily weird with it’s muted Pino Paladino bass solo. The ship rights itself just in time and gets me back to familiar Floyd territory.  The excellent “Love on the Air” fills me with mixed emotions inasmuch as the lyrics are by Pete Townshend  (who also wrote the words for “All Lovers are Deranged”) and they are the most accessible on this album. While the musicianship almost carries the day, the flatline 80’s cocaine fueled production almost drags the whole thing down, but I can overlook that as long as there’s tasty non-Floydian energy like that found on “Blue Light” and “All Lovers Are Deranged”. Roger would never have let these sorts of things get in the way of his plodding 4/4 mid-tempo musings. 

And the epic, elegiac instrumental “Let’s Get Metaphysical” makes me happier than almost anything Marillion has ever put my ears through.

Honestly, this gets another .25 if the production didn’t suck. I expect better mixing and mastering from an old studio hat like Gilomour.

https://itunes.apple.com/us/album/about-face/323420860

The 1983 Listening Post - Pink Floyd - The Final Cut

Pink Floyd - The Final Cut

March 21, 1983
Pink Floyd
The Final Cut
3 Stars

This one takes way too much work for me. It sounds like The Wall, part 2. But at least there were some catchy tunes on that one. This is just full of Waters introspection.
Oh, Roger. Go write a damned book. And get in therapy. Maybe have a convo with Roland Orzabal. Or just listen to Tears for Fears. And spare us this.
Is this really a Pink Floyd record, anyway? It’s really a Roger Waters solo joint, no?
Too harsh?
I’ve put off listening to this for 3 decades. I am not better for having done so.
It’s not “bad”. It’s just that one “The Wall” was all we really needed. And all these songs sound the same.