Pink Floyd: Ummagumma Review
Pink Floyd’s Ummagumma had been sitting in my local record store for some time. I always take a glance at it, but never pull the trigger. The fourteen dollar price tag pushed me away, but the lack of selection this week gave me no choice but to go ahead and purchase this double disc set.The heart and soul of Ummagumma is the first disc - a live recording featuring “Astronomy Domine”, “Careful With that Axe Eugene”, “Set the Controls for the Heart of the Sun” and “A Saucerful of Secrets”. These live takes - all record without Syd Barrett - are absolutely unreal. The studio versions of these songs sound empty when compared to their live counterparts. The live versions of these already great songs are spacier and more intense. The live disc alone is worth the price of admission, and quite frankly, Ummagumma may be held in higher regard if the second disc was left out.
The second disc is some of Floyd’s most experimental works which spends a lot more time missing the mark than hitting it. Each band member gets a crack at a song and three waffle around in obscurity while one produces a song that retains some sense of a melody. Wright’s opening song “Syphus” is nothing more than mindless noodling that fails to shows any semblance of a redeeming quality. Waters chooses to take the acoustic path on “Grantchester Meadows”, a song that waddles around in a place that is just below mediocrity, while the following track “Several Species of Small Furry Animals Gathered in a Cave and Grooving with a Pict” is absolutely, positively, ridiculous in the worst sense of the word. Gilmour’s track “The Narrow Way” is the only studio song that holds any water. It truly starts to hit stride in the third part of the song where Gilmour’s soothing vocals lead a spacey melody. Mason ends the album by showing off his drumming ability but seemingly forgets that “showing off” doesn’t necessarily equate to good music.
Ummagumma reminds me a lot of ELP’s Tarkus, in that you really only buy it for one reason. In the case of Ummagumma it’s the first record, for Tarkus it is side one. The live work is phenomenal, and that might be an understatement, the studio material on the other hand is poor at best. My recommendation - buy the album, and use the second disc as wall art or a coaster, or better yet, give it to Daniel Edlen and let him paint a picture of David Gilmour on it. You will not be disappointed!
Grade: A
(Just make sure you do something useful with the second disc)
posted by Jeff at 1:50 PM
4 Comments:
Actually I quite like this LP. Not so much for what's on it but for the fact that they were allowed to do it in the first place. How many record companies these days would allow this sort of experimentation?
musicobsessive - That is a good point, there is no way an album such as Ummagumma would make it to store shelves today unless it was self released. Far too many albums don't get released because they are deemed not commercially viable, and in so many cases, these are the albums which receive critical acclaim. One that immediately comes to mind is Fiona Apple's last album Extrodinary Machine which ended up being stellar.
Thanks Jeff! Great suggestion for the 2nd LP. :)
Bang on, sir. The live sides are great.
it really is a shame that artists really aren't "allowed" to make a free-wheeling record like this these days, though. I was listening to the radio in the car the other day and was astounded by how mind numbingly boring the tunes were.
Someone should put a ban on pitch correction, auto-tuned vocals and one note song writing.
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