Pink Floyd - Meddle

Meddle is the sixth studio album by English progressive rock band Pink Floyd, originally released in October 1971 via Harvest Records.

The album was recorded at a series of locations around London.

With no material to work with and no clear idea of the album's direction, the group devised a series of novel experiments which eventually inspired the album's signature track, "Echoes". Although many of the band's later albums would be unified by a central theme with lyrics written mainly by Roger Waters, Meddle was a group effort with lyrical contributions from each member, and is considered a transitional album between the Syd Barrett influenced group of the late 1960s and the emerging Pink Floyd.

The cover, incorporating a close-up shot of an ear underwater was, as with several previous albums, designed by Hipgnosis, though Storm Thorgerson was unhappy with the final result.

The album was well received by music critics upon its release. However, despite being commercially successful in the United Kingdom, lacklustre publicity on the part of their United States-based label led to poor sales there upon initial release.

With Meddle, Pink Floyd finally emerged from a fairly stagnant period in their musical growth, marked by constant creative indecision. Meddle not only confirmed lead guitarist David Gilmour's emergence as a real shaping force with the group, it states forcefully and accurately that the group was well into the growth track again.

The first cut, "One Of These Days (I'm Going To Cut You Into Little Pieces)" sticks to the usual Floyd formula (sound effect-slow organ build-lead guitar surge & climax-resolving sound effect), but each segment of the tune is so well done, and the whole thing coheres so perfectly that it comes across as a positive, high-energy opening.

Next, we have a series of ozone ballads like "Pillow Of Winds" and "San Tropez". Pleasant little acoustic numbers hovering over a bizarre back-drop of weird sounds. A clever spoof entitled "Fearless" leads up to a classic crowd rendition of Rodger's & Hammerstein's "You'll Never Walk Alone", the perennial victory song for the Wembley Cup Final crowd in England. And, to round off side one, a great pseudo-spoof blues tune with David Gilmour's dog Seamus taking over the lead "howl" duties.

"Echoes", a 23-minute Pink Floyd aural extravaganza that takes up all of side two, recaptures, within a new musical framework, some of the old themes and melody lines from earlier albums. All of this plus a funky organ-bass-drums segment and a stunning Gilmour solo adds up to a fine extended electronic outing.

Pink Floyd were nothing if not masters of texture, and Meddle is one of their greatest excursions into little details, pointing the way to the measured brilliance of their future efforts.

Meddle is killer Pink Floyd from start to finish.

This album is a 2016 reissue on 180 gram heavyweight black vinyl housed in a textured gatefold sleeve with remastered audio from the original analogue tapes by James Guthrie, Joel Plante and Bernie Grundman, pressed in the US via Pink Floyd Records.