Product Description

This is not a pretty album. Described as "a requiem for thepost war drama" it is Pink Floyd at their most miserable. In addition to the somber lyrics and themes explored by RogerWaters, it was recorded while the band were so fragmented, they had effectively broken up. Gilmour and Waters' feud hasbeen well documented and this could well have been titled THE FINAL STRAW. The only hint of lightness and humour throughout is in "Not Now John", but only in the shape of irony ("Can't stop lose job mind gone silicon"). Not an album to be played at parties or anniversaries.

Track Listing

1. The Post War Dream
2. Your Possible Pasts
3. One Of The Few
4. When The Tigers Broke Free
5. The Hero's Return
6. The Gunners Dream
7. Paranoid Eyes
8. Get Your Filthy Hands Off My Desert
9. The Fletcher Memorial Home
10. Southampton Dock
11. The Final Cut
12. Not Now John
13. Two Suns In The Sunset

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #1910 in Music
• Released on: 2004-03-29
• Number of discs: 1
• Format: Original recording remastered

Customer Reviews

A Masterpiece
This has always been one of my favourite Floyd albums, and I'm glad this reissue includes the terribly moving 'When the Tigers Broke Free' (the original single from 1982 said that it was from the forthcoming album The Final Cut, but was never included until this CD reissue).

OK, the band were imploding at the time they recorded it, but I think that has had an added effect on the music, in other words, this is incredibly disillusioned, angry, sad and cynical stuff. With references to the Great Beast Thatcher and the Falklands, shipyards closing and the IRA, this is clearly the work of people (or persons, namely R. Waters) who have lost faith in just about everything.

But this lack of faith is what makes the album incredibly affecting - I would go so far as to say that it is one of the most moving records ever made by a rock band. This is almost as far as it goes. Utter, total contempt for our rotten society, summed up perfectly in The Fletcher Memorial Home, a song which doesn't seem too far removed from Spitting Image or The Comic Strip presents. I particularly like the line 'Did they expect us to treat them with any respect?'

Enough of my fervour. Listen to this and make up your own mind. For me, it's been a landmark these last 25 years. And I think it will continue to be so. Floyd may hate it, but I don't think they realise what a beast - and a wise beast at that - they created with this magnificent album.

Time is kind...
Time is kind to this record. Written in the aftermath of the Falklands war, by a band in the middle of internicene warfare, it was accused of being a Vanity Project, Indulgent, Over-blown, Melodramatic, Not-As-Good-As-Dark-Side-Of-The-Moon etc etc.
However, having just repurchased it 20 years after my tape was spewed out of my binatone tape recorder, I'm finding it more and more compelling second time round. This was clearly a deeply personal record for Waters. His dad died at war, he objected to the Falklands invasion, he wanted to make a statement. And my goodness, did he. 'Southampton Dock', 'When the Tigers Break Free', 'The Hero's Return' will all bring a tear to your eye (or at least a lump to your throat).
Too often musicians have nothing to say other than I love you. This record is different - and a good reminder that even dinosaur rock stars care about the music and statements they make. Shame about Not Now John, mind - it's rubbish.

Sign of the Times
Although subjected to much criticism, The Final Cut is Pink Floyd (or rather Roger Waters) firing on all cylinders. Less operatic in tone than The Wall, this is a sad lament for the period in English history that was effectively strangled by the watershed that was the early nineteen-eighties. The beligerent 'forward' march of Thatcherism, and the shallow nationalism and electoral opportunism that this entailed is documentaed in painful detail. The end of the 'Post-War Dream' that was ushered in by the Falklands war, and the sustained attack on collecetive society is charted here in all its painful 'glory'. The horror of war that was airbrushed out of the consciousness of the body politic, and replaced by carefully controlled and managed spin which stressed a bastardised 'Dunkirk spirit' under the reign of Thatcher and the acolytes of the political right runs through the The Final Cut like some cancerous growth. This makes the album difficult listening in parts, but essential nonetheless. From the opening lament of The Post War Dream, via The Gunners Dream, The Fletcher Memorial Home and the stunning The Final Cut, this is the most essential Floyd album, notably because it offers an insight into a lost world, and the emergence of a new world order where priorities fundamentally changed and the belief in collective betterment were submerged beneath shallow jingoism and the triumph of the individualistic spirit. This is not just a requiem for Waters, but for everyone, and for this reason alone should be required listening to all who seek to understand the human spirit in all its frailties, and how this can be betrayed by the selfish actions of a delusional few in their quest for glory and personal gain.