Track Listing

1. One Of These Days
2. Pillow Of Winds
3. Fearless
4. San Tropez
5. Seamus
6. Echoes

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #1109 in Music
• Released on: 1994-08-01
• Number of discs: 1
• Format: Original recording remastered

Amazon.co.uk Review
For all that menacing, hatchet-happy growl at the beginning of Meddle's opener, "One of These Days", Pink Floyd really weren't about to "cut you into little pieces". Meddle did, however, show that the reigning British monarchs of 1970s-era psychedelia could rip into galloping jams. It also showed what its predecessor, Atom Heart Mother, promised--that the band could excel in long, breathtaking suites that revealed strains of late-classical music, Sun Ra-inspired space explorations, and a patchwork approach to colliding sounds that together took on acid-drenched proportions. And if all that isn't enough, "San Tropez" revealed a playful side of the band, playing footsy with loungy jazz and having good fun in the process. --Andrew Bartlett

CD Description
MEDDLE was the first album to hint at the musical identity that would define Pink Floyd in the mid to late '70s. Whereas prior releases like UMMAGUMMA and ATOM HEART MOTHER announced the presence of new singer/guitarist/songwriter David Gilmour, MEDDLE represents the band's Gilmour-influenced evolution toward a sleek, epic, spacey sound. In "Echoes", an ambitious 23-minute soundscape, the pinging of a synthesizer greets the listener before Gilmour's warm, open guitar and gentle crooning gives way to a repetitious, workmanlike rhythm.From here, the music fades into an abyss of whale calls andeerie sonic reverberations.
Elsewhere, Floyd dabbles with straightforward cocktail-hour jazz ("San Tropez") and a twisted slow blues ("Seamus"). But it is "One Of These Days", MEDDLE's opening track and lone radio staple, that truly previews things to come. Roger Waters's bass, played through a Binson echo unit, establishes the song's manically hypnotic groove, as Richard Wright's synthesizer bursts in and out, Nick Mason's off-kilter drum fills get tossed around, and Gilmour's guitar dive-bombs through it all. These varied sound effects, packaged in a song that clocked in at less than sixminutes, were a precedent for the masterpiece that was two years away: DARK SIDE OF THE MOON.

Customer Reviews

Start of The 'Real' Pink Floyd
The first ‘real’ Pink Floyd album, ‘Meddle’ leaves the last remnants of the group’s psychedelic past behind them and marks the beginning of their most productive decade. Guitarist David Gilmour’s growing confidence within the band is almost palpable as the trademark sound begins to coalesce. There’s also a new sense of purpose and direction about the album’s two standout tracks, ‘One of These Days’ and ‘Echoes’, despite the fact that both rely on ideas that have already been explored on earlier Pink Floyd albums like ‘Atom Heart Mother’ (1970) and ‘Saucerful of Secrets (1968).

The menacing, echo drenched bass riff that kick starts the opening ‘One of These Days’ soon turns into a relentless pounding which is double tracked on guitar, while keyboard player Rick Wright toys with the Dr. Who theme motif. After which, drummer Nick Mason’s disembodied voice intones ‘One of these days I’m going to cut you into little pieces’, Gilmour takes over with some searing slide guitar.

However, ‘Meddle’ is dominated by the 23 minute ‘Echoes’, which builds up gradually but deliberately from the opening piano sonar ‘ping’ through a series of cleverly linked fragments, to the tension of Gilmour’s exquisite guitar crescendo before the final verse lets you down with a cosy glow.

The other four tracks on the album are largely forgettable, although the wistful ‘A Pillow of Winds’ has a certain pastoral charm. But, it matters not: Pink Floyd had reset the controls for the heart of the 1970’s and beyond, and in the process revealed their true, wonderful potential.

A pure classic.
Meddle came after 'Atom Heart Mother' and showed Pink Floyd in a whole new light. Rather than being a reinvention of themselves Meddle shows another side to the four members, with an overall laid-back jazzy feel coming through. The opening number 'One of these days...' has become a standard and is way ahead of its time. The numbers that follow it up to 'Seamus' take the beat and slow it down to a toe-tapping rythmn, lulling the listener into a false sense of security. 'Echoes', the major track on the album at around 22 minutes long, has become a revered member of the Pink Floyd canon, and justly so. Opening with a single note from Rick Wright which sets the scene the song progresses into darker territory via Dave Gilmours almost violent crashing of chords into the eeiry wind-swept gothic towers of the middle section. Rick Wright once more brings light into the piece before the whole thing is rounded off in an almost fin de cycle.

A TRUE MASTERPIECE.

A saucerful of surprises
Pink Floyd presented a wide range of styles on this album which very much went against the conventions of the genre at the time. I think for this reason Meddle was controversial right from the beginning. I bought this in the Musicassette format when I was 15 (it was presented in a cardboard flip top pack, like a cigarette packet) after hearing "Fearless" on John Peel's BBC "Top Gear" radio show. That track gave little indication of what else was in store, but it was ultimately "Echoes" that prompted me to rebuy it later, in vinyl and finally this CD edition.

This reminds me that the two-sided format of vinyl (and cassette) is crucial to the way this album is paced. San Tropez and Seamus, both stylistically odd for Floyd, were the last two tracks on one side, and if you didn't like them, especially Seamus (and I don't like either of the two) you could take the needle of the record and flip it over. In CD format having these two tracks in the middle is understandably annoying.

I would still have bought this for Echoes alone, though. What I really like about this track is the sense of going on a journey through an imaginary landscape. At first I imagined a night train journey through some kind of alien desert (there are very trainlike rhythms at one point) with the guitar near the end sounding like a sunrise. Ultimately, though, I guess it's an undersea voyage, as announced by the sonar ping-like opening (however the sound was achieved!) and the faux whale-song with seagulls section later (this was long before the whale song sound became a newage cliché).

I think it's fair to say that you never know what to expect from one Pink Floyd album to the next, and that was never more true than with Meddle.