Wotta Revoltin' Development This Is Dept. - Wish You Were Here

 

Dem shoits is kinda cute, don'cha t'ink?

By Dark Side, only shadows of what made Pink Floyd so damn fantastic (Syd Barrett, mainly) remained, hidden behind the corporate studio sheen that won them the lucrative middle management market. The formally structured mindset of the architecture school had designed a product to be welcomed into every suburban household, flattering them with its progressive moods and provocative lyrics. Money! Who needs it, right? I mean, apart from the High Street hi-fi in the Scandinavian-style suburban lounge and the stereo system in the company car gleaming in the drive, what is it good for?

The Floyd's new grey suit and breath-mint audience was primed for its follow-up, which, in the natural order of things, had to be even better, right? This idea of artistic progression was so ingrained in the market by then that albums were bought without consideration, without even hearing. It's the New Floyd, man! I'm going to settle back in my World O' Leather© recliner with a glass of chilled Chardonnay and, like, trip out!

By '75 the band was creatively bankrupt, in inverse proportion to their bank account, already swollen by the corporate sponsorship of a French drinks company [left - Ed.] They would later drop all pretense of being anything other than an ugly bunch of fucking capitalists by openly embracing Volkswagen branded sponsorship [below - Ed.]. Making this album was an obligation, a chore, a two-year pain in the arse. They admitted as much, decades later, but their gullible fanbase mistook this grinding tar pit sludge as artistic credibility. This was a serious work of art! An adult album grappling with adult issues, like, er, the grasping capitalists in the music business. And, er, dead friends? The band's hypocrisy was nowhere more blatant than in the heartfelt memorial eulogies to Syd Barrett, inconveniently still alive. Even those Pink Floyd fans who knew who he was spent no turntable time with freaky druggie Syd, but they respected the respect the band gave him, because, you know, sadness. Life's fucking sad, innit?

It was the first Floyd album I didn't automatically snatch from the rack. I'd already offloaded my copy of Dark Side (with the vacuous poster and stickers) with no regrets, and I was baffled by the critical plaudits given its follow-up. What a joyless, miserable, horrible piece of shit. And they would get - incredibly - worse. Duke of Despair Roger Waters led the willing fans deeper into his wrist-to-forehead agonisings about mental illness and, er, war an' shit. War's sad, innit? 

This post fuelled by righteous anger - or as much as I can still muster - at the twats who turned the counterculture into a cash cow, and lost everything.