A Momentary Lapse of Reason
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| A Momentary Lapse of Reason | ||||
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| Studio album by Pink Floyd | ||||
| Released | 8 September 1987 | |||
| Recorded | October 1986 – May 1987, Astoria houseboat studio, Le Mobile, Los Angeles, California, United States | |||
| Genre | Progressive rock | |||
| Length | 51:14 | |||
| Language | English | |||
| Label |  United Kingdom: EMI United States: Columbia United States: Capitol (2009 rerelease) |
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| Producer | Bob Ezrin and David Gilmour | |||
| Professional reviews | ||||
| Pink Floyd chronology | ||||
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| Singles from A Momentary Lapse of Reason | ||||
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A Momentary Lapse of Reason is a studio album by Pink Floyd released by EMI Records on 8 September 1987, in the United Kingdom and the following day in the United States by Columbia Records. It was the band's first release after the departure of Roger Waters from the band in 1985. The album reached No.3 on both the US and UK charts.
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[edit] Background
After Roger Waters had declared Pink Floyd "a spent force" and ended his association with the band in 1985, David Gilmour attempted to continue the band together with Nick Mason. A bitter dispute with Waters ensued, but Gilmour and Mason eventually settled out of court for the legal right to continue using the name Pink Floyd. In exchange, Waters dissolved his former management partnership with Steve O'Rourke and gained exclusive rights to some traditional Pink Floyd imagery, including the original flying pig design, almost all of The Wall concept and everything to do with The Final Cut. Richard Wright re-joined the band during the recording sessions for this album as a full-time member of the band.
The recording sessions started in October 1986 as a new David Gilmour project. Gilmour revealed on the Shine On and A Momentary Lapse of Reason episodes of In the Studio with Redbeard that it was almost his third solo album as the material initially sounded too weak to be a Pink Floyd album. He then went on to say that by Christmas of 1986 that he had enough confidence to turn the album into a Pink Floyd project.
[edit] Recording
The album was performed largely by David Gilmour and several session musicians. The most famous of these was Tony Levin (of Peter Gabriel and King Crimson fame), who played bass on most of the tracks. Nick Mason felt he was out of practice on drums, and thus many of the percussion parts were either programmed or delegated to others. For example, Carmine Appice played drums on "The Dogs of War" while Jim Keltner played on "On the Turning Away" and "One Slip". The drum machine used on "Sorrow" was programmed by Gilmour.
Session keyboardist Jon Carin, whom Gilmour met and played with in Bryan Ferry's band at Live Aid, went on to collaborate with both Pink Floyd and Roger Waters on subsequent albums and tours. Pink Floyd's original keyboardist Richard Wright arrived during the sessions, but did not officially rejoin the band due to concerns about his severance contract with Waters (the initial album lists Pink Floyd as consisting of only Gilmour and Mason; however, later re-releases add his name). Wright can be heard playing on a few tracks, notably "Sorrow", which features his background vocals. Most other keyboard parts on the album were played by Carin, Gilmour or producer Bob Ezrin.
The recording heard in the middle of "Learning to Fly" is of Mason talking to an air traffic control tower in his private aircraft (both he and Gilmour became enthusiastic pilots after conquering their mutual fear of flying).
A Momentary Lapse of Reason was mostly a digital recording, as the acoustic drums and bass guitar tracks were recorded on analogue equipment.
[edit] Cover artwork
The cover shows 700 hospital beds placed on Saunton Sands, Devon. A person can be seen in the distance flying a hang glider, a reference to Learning to Fly. The interior gatefold sleeve featured several different images, including a portrait of David Gilmour and Nick Mason, the first time that members of Pink Floyd had been pictured on an album design since 1971's Meddle. The vinyl copies had two picture labels, side one showed a black and white photo of a man rowing a Thames skiff. Side two pictured the beds from the front cover on a beach with the dogs of war running, whilst a man is sitting on a bed and a female maid is standing up. Long-time Pink Floyd collaborator Storm Thorgerson produced the artwork.[1] This was the first Pink Floyd studio album since Animals to feature his work.
No trick photography was used to produce the album's cover image. A team took over three hours to bring 700 wrought iron beds from London to Devon and then arrange them as seen in the finished design. When the team realised that the shoot would take more than one day, a single bed was left on the beach to see if the sea would have any effect on it overnight. When they returned the following morning, the bed was nowhere to be found. The official Storm Thorgerson website details the process of positioning and photographing the beds on the beach, "700, yes 700, wrought iron hospital beds separately made up and positioned on the beach. Madness to do it at all, but we had in fact to do it twice 'cos it rained suddenly the first time, dank grey drizzle, and we couldn't see the distant half of the beds".[2]
[edit] Reception
A Momentary Lapse of Reason peaked at No.3 on the Billboard 200 in October 1987.
Critical reception to the album was generally negative, despite heavy airplay on video and radio music stations. Rolling Stone, however, described it as "a Floyd with a future". A Momentary Lapse of Reason is often regarded as a David Gilmour effort, rather than a full Pink Floyd album. Allmusic.com refers to it as a "Gilmour solo album in all but name".[3]
Roger Waters was initially dismissive of the album, mocking its title and referring to it as a "so-called Pink Floyd album". He has since become less critical of the album's music, admitting that it contained "a few bright moments when I heard something and thought, 'Well, maybe I'd have done something with that'". While he frequently states that he does not consider it or the Division Bell true Pink Floyd albums, Waters has also said that "A Momentary Lapse of Reason "had a couple of really nice tunes on it that, had I still been in the band, those chord sequences and melodies would have been made it onto a record that I was involved in". However, he has largely denounced the album's lyrics and concepts as "rubbish".
[edit] Reissues and remastering
A remastered CD was released in the early 1990s for Europe, and in 1997 for the rest of the world. Another remastered version was released in the US and Canada in October 2005 due to Columbia Records losing the production masters. James Guthrie and Joel Plante supplied the label with new masters, and thus the mastering credit was changed from Doug Sax to Guthrie and Plante. Also, a number of minor changes have been noted in the credits and legal text for this latest release, mostly reflecting changes in the band's business situation since 1997 (including the death of their manager Steve O'Rourke).
It is also the only one of the post-Waters Pink Floyd albums to have a remastered EMI version. The Columbia version is now out of print.
In May 2009, it was announced by Capitol Records, that since Sony BMG had discontinued the remastered Columbia version in 2008, Capitol itself would be releasing a remastered version on 2 June 2009.
[edit] Tour
The Momentary Lapse Tour, according to Tim Renwick, was only supposed to last 11 weeks. Originally the band would play a show at Wembley Stadium, tour the United States Of America, and finish back again at Wembley, much as Roger Waters was doing on his Radio K.A.O.S. tour. The tour began on 9 September 1987 at Lansdowne Park Ottawa, Canada, and finished at BC Place in Vancouver, Canada, on 10 December 1987. The World Tour began with the band's first and only New Zealand performance at Western Springs in Auckland, New Zealand on 23 January 1988 and finished at the Nassau Coliseum, Long Island on 23 August 1988. In the spring and summer of 1989, the band performed another European leg of the tour, dubbing it Another Lapse. During the tour, the band played two consecutive nights in Chapel Hill, North Carolina at the Dean Smith Center, where one of the men who the band was named for, Floyd Council was born.
[edit] Quotes
On the Momentary Lapse of Reason album, Nick's belief in himself was pretty well gone, and Rick's belief in himself was totally gone. And they weren't up to making a record, to be quite honest about it... Roger's very good at belittling people, and I think over the years he managed to convince Rick completely that he was useless and more or less convinced Nick of the same thing.
– David Gilmour, 'Rock Compact Disc magazine, September 1992
A Momentary Lapse of Reason had a couple of really nice tunes on it that, had I still been in the band, those chord sequences and melodies would have been made it onto a record that I was involved in. But conceptually and lyrically, it's just rubbish, partly because it's not true.
– Roger Waters, 'CDNOW.com, 1999
[edit] Track listing
All lead vocals performed by David Gilmour
| # | Title | Writer(s) | Length |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1. | "Signs of Life" (instrumental, spoken word by Nick Mason) | David Gilmour, Bob Ezrin | 4:24 |
| 2. | "Learning to Fly" | Gilmour, Anthony Moore, Ezrin, Jon Carin | 4:53 |
| 3. | "The Dogs of War" | Gilmour, Moore | 6:05 |
| 4. | "One Slip" | Gilmour, Phil Manzanera | 5:10 |
| 5. | "On the Turning Away" | Gilmour, Moore | 5:42 |
| 6. | "Yet Another Movie / Round and Around" | Gilmour, Patrick Leonard / Gilmour | 7:28 |
| 7. | "A New Machine (Part 1)" | Gilmour | 1:46 |
| 8. | "Terminal Frost" | Gilmour | 6:17 |
| 9. | "A New Machine (Part 2)" | Gilmour | 0:38 |
| 10. | "Sorrow" | Gilmour | 8:46 |
[edit] Personnel
- Pink Floyd
- David Gilmour – vocals, guitars, keyboards, sequencers
- Nick Mason – drums, percussion, drum machine, sound effects
- Richard Wright – keyboards, backing vocals
- Additional musicians
- Carmine Appice – drums
- Sarah Nean Bruce – spherical sound
- Ken Caillat – spherical sound
- Jon Carin – keyboards
- Bob Ezrin – keyboards, percussion, sequencers
- Donnie Gerrard – backing vocals
- John Helliwell – saxophone (mistakenly credited as "John Halliwell")
- Tom Jones – spherical sound
- Jim Keltner – drums
- Darlene Koldenhaven – backing vocals
- Michael Landau – backing guitar
- Patrick Leonard – synthesizers
- Tony Levin – bass guitar, Chapman Stick
- Scott Page – tenor saxophone
- Bill Payne – Hammond organ
- Tom Scott – alto and soprano saxophones
- Phyllis St. James – backing vocals
- Carmen Twillie – backing vocals
- Production
- Andrew Jackson – sound effects
- Mastering Lab – mastering
- Precision Lacquer – mastering
- Phil Taylor – technical and musical instrument supervision
[edit] Single releases
- "Learning to Fly (edit)"/"Terminal Frost" – Columbia 38-07363; released 15 September 1987
- "On the Turning Away"/"Run Like Hell (Live)" – Columbia 38-07660; released 24 November 1987
- "The Dogs of War"; April, 1988 (US radio only)
- "One Slip"/"Terminal Frost"; June 1988
[edit] Sales chart positions
- Album
| Year | Chart | Position |
|---|---|---|
| 1987 | UK album chart | 3[4] |
| 1987 | The Billboard 200 | 3[5] |
| 1987 | Billboard CD Charts | 1[citation needed] |
| 1987 | Norwegian Record Charts | 2[6] |
| 1987 | Australian ARIA Albums Chart | 47[7] |
| 1987 | Swiss Charts | 2[8] |
- Singles
| Year | Single | Chart | Position |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1987 | "Learning to Fly" | Mainstream Rock Tracks | 1[citation needed] |
| 1987 | "Learning to Fly" | The Billboard Hot 100 | 70[citation needed] |
| 1987 | "Learning to Fly" | UK Singles Charts | 55[citation needed] |
| 1987 | "On the Turning Away" | Mainstream Rock Tracks | 1[citation needed] |
| 1988 | "The Dogs of War" | Mainstream Rock Tracks | 10[citation needed] |
| 1988 | "One Slip" | Mainstream Rock Tracks | 5[citation needed] |
| 1988 | "Sorrow" | Mainstream Rock Tracks | 36[citation needed] |
[edit] Sales certifications
In the United States, the R.I.A.A. have certified the album:
- Gold and Platinum (November 1987)[citation needed]
- Double Platinum (January 1988)[citation needed]
- Triple Platinum (February 1992)[citation needed]
- Quadruple Platinum (August 2001)[citation needed]
[edit] References
- ^ Storm Thorgerson interview, 1997
- ^ Storm Thorgerson's website
- ^ allmusic.com review
- ^ "Chart Stats - Pink Floyd". www.chartstats.com. http://www.chartstats.com/artistinfo.php?id=696. Retrieved 2009-07-02.
- ^ "Billboard.com - Artist Chart History - Pink Floyd". www.billboard.com. http://www.billboard.com/bbcom/retrieve_chart_history.do?model.chartFormatGroupName=Albums&model.vnuArtistId=61137&model.vnuAlbumId=768708. Retrieved 2009-07-02.
- ^ "norwegiancharts.com - Pink Floyd - A Momentary Lapse Of Reason". norwegiancharts.com. http://norwegiancharts.com/showitem.asp?interpret=Pink+Floyd&titel=A+Momentary+Lapse+Of+Reason&cat=a. Retrieved 2009-07-02.
- ^ "australian-charts.com - Pink Floyd - A Momentary Lapse Of Reason". www.australian-charts.com. http://www.australian-charts.com/showitem.asp?interpret=Pink+Floyd&titel=A+Momentary+Lapse+Of+Reason&cat=a. Retrieved 2009-07-03.
- ^ "Pink Floyd - A Momentary Lapse Of Reason - hitparade.ch". hitparade.ch. http://hitparade.ch/showitem.asp?interpret=Pink+Floyd&titel=A+Momentary+Lapse+Of+Reason&cat=a. Retrieved 2009-07-03.
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