The Pink Floyd Top 50 Countdown (#45-41) & This Week's Statistics

Hello, my friends, old and new! I will admit to suffering from something akin a writer's block lately. Only, it's not actually writer's block, it's more of a reluctance to sit down and commit myself to the long and lonely business of researching and writing. To my defense, I have a lot of new friends on Facebook, my partner has returned after being abroad for a month and I've had my birthday, which I've celebrated at another person's birthday party. Kind of like the cuckoo bird. Anyway, this meant a lot of re-shuffling of scheduled stories to fit my unruly mood... Well, enough about me! Time for the Pink Floyd.

At #45 on our list is a song from More (1969), the first full-length soundtrack album, and third studio album, by Pink Floyd. It was their first full album without founding member Syd Barrett. The film More was primarily filmed on location on Ibiza where most of the story takes place. It was the directorial debut for Barbet Schroeder.

The song in question, The Nile Song, is a genuinely bashy triumph in a compact three-and-a-half-minute package; if you’re not paying attention, you could mistake it for the New York Dolls, though not as focused or tight. (Pink Floyd didn’t do tight. Or focus.) As purely heavy (musically, if not thematically) as Pink Floyd ever got, with a rave-up so scorching you can practically feel the acid dripping off the guitars, and production so fuzzy you'd never guess the unnerving sonic spotlessness of A Momentary Lapse of Reason lay within the band's next two decades. Gilmour kicks ass in the last minute or so. It makes you feel a little bad for Gilmour and drummer Nick Mason that they didn't get to play Roger Daltrey and Keith Moon more often.

Next, we have two songs from Animals (1977). At #44 is Sheep. Sheep is the final segment of the dense, monolithic Animals and the third component of Waters’s bleak Orwellian concept, where he callously divides up the human race into dogs, pigs and sheep. Naturally, the “sheep” caste of humans are those driven by comfort and security and are often afraid to think for themselves and question authority. In the context of the song, propelled by a signature dark bass line and featuring eerie keyboard work from Richard Wright, the sheep are manipulated by the pigs (the upper crust) to turn on the dogs (the competitive, ruthless achievers of society); they eventually overwhelm and defeat them in sheer numbers.

The thrilling 10-minute climax to Animals, with racing organs and bass and portentous vocals ("You better watch out! There may be DOGS about!") make the band sound like Evil Steely Dan - especially in time for the "bad dream" moaning synth breakdown halfway through. But the song picks back up for the song's unexpectedly righteous close, a triumphantly chiming guitar riff that either proves that the animals in power are vanquishable after all ("Have you heard the news? The DOGS are dead!"), or that we're simply long past the point of fighting them anyway.

Waters' voice is lacerating - one of his best vocals - particularly on the neat effect at the end of the first line of each verse. Gilmour pulls a great-sounding guitar sound out of his magic hat, especially in the last 3 minutes of the song. To sum up: Animals is nothing to sneer at, an authentic work of defiant misanthropy by a man facing the Me Decade on one side and on the other a snotty new generation of punks whose contempt for Pink Floyd (however misconceived) became a cliché of the era.

At #43 we find Pigs (Three Different Ones). The song's three verses each presents a different "pig", the identities of which remain a subject of speculation because only the third verse clearly identifies its subject as being morality campaigner Mary Whitehouse, a kind of British Anita Bryant.

Pigs (Three Different Ones) is peak Orwell on Animals. For over 11 minutes, the band get down and dirty in the titular beast’s trough, oinking away with talkboxes (a first time for the band) and ultra gluttonous basslines (straight from a fretless axe). Seeing how the sloppy piggies are supposed to represent the capitalists and the higher-ups, there’s a sinister vibe from beginning to end, and Gilmour and Waters keep that sleazy image alive with a delightful mess of vocals, harmonies, tape effects, and solos. The latter is arguably the strongest part of the mix, as Gilmour goes hog wild in the last two minutes, sizzling up some six-string bacon like he’s a psycho fry cook toiling away in the back of an IHOP.

The song is a worthy sequel to the previous album's Have a Cigar, and the only Pink Floyd song to maximize the potential of the most '70s of all instruments, the cowbell. Would you believe Roger Waters resorts to Donald Trump imagery when he plays the song live now?

At #42 is Fearless, the third track on Meddle (1971). Floyd's finest early acoustic jaunt, a blissful mid-tempo saunter that sounds like a more ethereal Everybody Knows This Is Nowhere or a less sentimental Led Zeppelin III. There's absolutely no good reason why a groove this divine should end with a field recording of Liverpool F.C. hooligans singing You'll Never Walk Alone, but the unexpected outro ensures that the song is instantly unforgettable - an early lesson in keeping songs surprising till their very final seconds that Floyd would heed well in the decade to follow.

Fearless is overlooked, haunting and melodic, and very beautifully sung by Dave Gilmour. I suppose it's about being confident, believing in yourself – going forward without fear. There's what feels like a backward-chord sequence, strange and incredibly telling, and a very simple but interesting guitar chord-riff. Fearless isn't complex, but simply beautiful.

Finally for today, at #41, are the two tracks closing The Wall (1979): The Trial/Outside The Wall. The Trial is the most theatrical Waters has ever been and he is ably assisted both in writing as well as in production by Canadian producer Bob Ezrin, who had already exhibited his penchant for theatricality in the albums of Alice Cooper and in Peter Gabriel's debut solo album.

The song centres on the main character, Pink, who having lived a life filled with emotional trauma and substance abuse has reached a critical psychological break. The Trial is the fulcrum on which Pink's mental state balances. In the song, Pink is charged with "showing feelings of an almost human nature." This means that Pink has committed a crime against himself by actually attempting to interact with his fellow human beings, defying the mission towards self-isolation that defined much of his life. Through the course of the song, he is confronted by the primary influences of his life (who have been introduced over the course of the album): an abusive schoolmaster, his wife, and his overprotective mother; in the animated sequence, they are depicted as grotesque caricatures. Pink's subconscious struggle for sanity is overseen by a new character, "The Judge." A prosecutor conducts the early portions, which consist of the antagonists explaining their actions, intercut with Pink's refrains, "Crazy/Toys in the attic, I am crazy,/Truly gone fishing" and "Crazy/Over the rainbow, I am crazy,/Bars in the window." The culmination of the trial is the judge's sentence for Pink "to be exposed before your peers" whereupon he orders Pink to "Tear down the wall!"

As Waters sings the dialogue for each character he transitions into different accents including upper-class British dialect (the prosecutor and judge), Scottish accent (the schoolmaster) and Northern English accent (Pink's mother). For the character of Pink's wife, he used his normal voice on the album and the original 1980-81 tour. However, in his solo 2010-13 tour of The Wall, he portrays the wife with a distinctively French accent. The song ends with the sound of a wall being demolished amid chants of "Tear down the wall!", marking the destruction of Pink's metaphorical wall.

If it was for The Trial alone, it might not have been so high on my list. It's melodramatic, overwrought, and over-the-top, but what makes it work is that it segues into Outside The Wall. After all the bombast comes this soft little ditty. It really works lyrically - it's a pretty knowing acknowledgment of the cost to the people around those who have put the wall up. The lyrics really represent the way I feel, plus there's the added bonus of the song's sly sudden end, mid-phrase: "Is this where?..." Then you play the album from the start and the melody reappears, while the phrase is completed, "...We came in?" It is a testament to the cyclic nature of time, a concept that is necessary if one wants to approach the origin of the Universe. These are the lyrics:

"All alone, or in twos
The ones who really love you
Walk up and down outside the wall
Some hand in hand
Some gathering together in bands
The bleeding hearts and the artists
Make their stand
And when they've given you their all
Some stagger and fall after all it's not easy
banging your heart

Against some mad buggers Wall"

This is the version that appears in Alan Parker's movie, The Wall (1982):

Now, let's continue with the statistics of the past 12 days; the Village People proved to be very popular, as did Alicia Bridges. The first Pink Floyd installment did well, and the Oscars did OK.

As far as countries are concerned, this week's most notable story is that for a second time in a row the United States actually increased its all-time percentage; naturally, it sits comfortably at #1 for the week. Neighboring Canada also had an increase in its all-time percentage, as well as Greece, the United Arab Emirates (which replaced Belgium in the all-time top 10), Spain, Taiwan, and Brazil; which meant that this week's top 10 was comprised of the two bigger North American countries, the most powerful island in Europe, four countries from Southern Europe, one from the Middle East, one from the Far East and the biggest country of South America. Cyprus kept its all-time percentage steady, while the United Kingdom, France, Russia, Germany, Italy, and Belgium experienced a drop.

Here are this week's Top 10 countries.

1. the United States

2. France

3. Greece

4. the United Kingdom

5. Canada

6. Spain

7. Cyprus

8. the United Arab Emirates

9. Taiwan

10. Brazil

Here are the other countries that graced us with their presence since our last statistics (alphabetically): Albania, Argentina, Australia, Austria, the Bahamas, Bahrain, Belgium, Bermuda, Botswana, Bulgaria, Chile, China, Colombia, Costa Rica, Croatia, Czechia, Denmark, Dominican Republic, Ecuador, Egypt, Estonia, Finland, Georgia, Germany, Guam, Hong Kong, Hungary, Iceland, India, Indonesia, Iran, Ireland, Israel, Italy, Jamaica, Japan, Kazakhstan, Kenya, Kuwait, Lebanon, Lesotho, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Malaysia, Mexico, Morocco, the Netherlands, New Zealand, Nigeria, Norway, Panama, Peru, the Philippines, Poland, Portugal, Puerto Rico, Romania, Russia, Saudi Arabia, Senegal, Serbia, Singapore, Slovenia, South Africa, South Korea, Swaziland, Sweden, Switzerland, Tanzania, Thailand, Turkey, Turkmenistan, Ukraine, Uruguay, Venezuela, and Vietnam. Happy to have you all!

And here's the all-time Top 10:

1. the United States = 37.0%

2. the United Kingdom = 9.6%

3. France = 9.0%

4. Greece = 8.9%

5. Russia = 4.4%

6. Germany = 3.0%

7. Cyprus = 1.40%

8. Italy = 1.33%

9. Canada = 0.97%

10. the United Arab Emirates = 0.57%

That's all for today, folks. Till the next one!