Classic Albums: Pink Floyd

This is not just another installment of VH1’s Classic Album series. Perhaps it is the material itself and how it stands the close scrutiny of every song and every individual recorded track on those songs, but there is a lot here to digest for the Pink Floyd fan, and for any fan of the history of recorded music.

The fact the band members are interviewed separately and are never even seen in any current footage in the same room did not diminish the strength of this documentary. This is not the emotional romantic gushing of nostalgic aging rockstars, but a sober (if not all that humble) view of one of best albums in rock history. Yes, everyone is tired of hearing “Money” played on the local classic rock station nine times a day, but this DVD will make even that stale old chestnut seem fresh, especially when you get to sit there and dissect guitar solos with David Gilmore as he adds and removes tracks from the masters.

There is little, if any, rock star bullshit on this DVD. It is mostly about the music, and when personal lives and issues of the band members do come up, it’s always in context of the music and recording it. They take apart and put together nearly every song. Listening to Clare Torry’s raw and brilliant improvisation on “Great Gig in the Sky” with all the other tracks dropped out gives you a real appreciation for what the big deal has always been about, as does watching the physical tape loop used to play the coin and cash register sounds at the beginning of “Money” in 7/8 time.

The real gold mine on here is the extras, which there is no skimping on. In fact, there is a sequence about the producer, Chris Thomas (credited as Mixing Supervisor in the liner notes) that is crucial to understanding how something with so many facets for the band to disagree about actually gets completed. There is extra footage for nearly every song segment from the final cut of the documentary, including full performances of songs some of the album’s cuts by members of the band today that were only seen in passing in the main feature. There is something melancholy and real about watching Roger Waters croak out “Brain Damage” on an acoustic guitar that helps to reveal the core strength of those songs in their most stripped down forms. And if the camera closes in to catch his face as he bitterly sings the line, “and when the band you’re in starts playing different tunes…” we can forgive them the melodrama.

Running Time: 1 hour 32 minutes