Pink Floyd - Obscured By Clouds POLL

the title track, which in my mind is the first song to "sound" like the 80s, i.e. every cop movie soundtrack from that decade

totally, it sounds like john carpenter.

What I love about this record, is that it sounds more focused than, say, Atom Heart Mother or Ummagumma, yet it has a charm to it that would kinda vanish from Dark Side Of The Moon onwards.

For me, it's one of those "buried" kinda records that you sometimes find in artists with large discographies, a bit like Fleetwood Mac's Bare Trees

The title track is sheer badassery of the highest order.

The title track is awesome - those ominous synths! - but my god, 'Burning Bridges' is such a pretty song, and 'The Gold It's In The...' shows a route the Floyd very rarely went down, but they pull it off so fucking well. 'Stay', too, for me is a hidden gem on an LP full of them.

I quoted "Free Four" in my high school yearbook. I'm feeling sentimental so I'm throwing it a vote.

Childhood's End cmon duh

Need to listen to this again... based on pure memory I feel it might be down to Free Four and Childhood's End.

title track for me too

Man in hindsight, the trilogy of the title track, 'Burning Bridges' and 'Mudmen' (not to mention 'Childhood's End' working the same groove as 'Time') point so blatantly towards Dark Side of the Moon. Obscured by Clouds may be a transitional album, but the similarities it shares with Dark Side of the Moon make it such an excellent sidebar.

"Burning Bridges" and "Mudmen" are my favourites (I know, same song). And "Absolutely Curtains". Richard Wright ftw, is what I'm saying. Pity about "Free Four", yet another crap Roger Waters song.

Gilmour and Wright harmonising is one of the loveliest sounds I can think of... always a pleasure to listen to.

Mudmen is in my Floyd top ten, but the whole album's amazing. They were pretty much incapable of writing a bad song at this point.

I don't know about that, 'Stay' is pretty sappy.

Live version of OBC is about as epic as you can get

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pdqJpdj5wwk

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wja_jhP_DGo

The one that sounds like half man half biscuit.

I always pictured the title track as being something Herzog could have used in Aguirre The Wrath of God (and I kind of wish he had). 1972, a good year.

When I was in high school in the 80s, I won some sort of music competition and was allowed to choose a song to perform. At the time I picked, "Wot's...Uh the Deal" which reminded me of the sort of thing Slapp Happy were doing in...1972.

I'm going to vote for the title track, but this is really an insanely consistent album and probably reflects all the strengths of Pink Floyd in one spot better than anything else they did.

And Turrican totally OTM with the Bare Trees comparison.

"stay" slays. lover man dave in rare seduction mode

Lover man Rick, you mean.

Childhood's End might be the best Pink Floyd deep cut. Floyd used that long slow fade intro a few times after this record.

Automatic thread bump. This poll is closing tomorrow.

I always thought of Meddle as the Bare Trees of Pink Floyd albums, but a good case could be made for OBC too.

Agreed re: "Stay".

voted "Stay", love Rick Wright's 70s songs

Meddle to me is more like a Fleetwood Mac (1975) than a Bare Trees, with Dark Side of the Moon obviously being Rumours.

i don't think meddle fits into any clear analogy with fleetwood mac's career.

Automatic thread bump. This poll's results are now in.

I'm guessing there aren't many mostly vocal albums where an instrumental is contender for best track. I voted for it too.

Secretly one of their best albums, this.

yes and also

'The Gold It's In The...' shows a route the Floyd very rarely went down, but they pull it off so fucking well.

^yes

like when they casually invented stoner metal for 3 minutes with The Nile Song then never went back to it

Checking out the slight remix of this on Spotify –1972 OBFUSC/ATION – I’m struck by what an easy listen this is, in a way that very few of their other releases are. Relieved of Waters weighty concepts, they are wonderful texturalists and lovely slight songwriters.

The title track/When You’re In are great. But also, the record ends on a recording of an tribal shanty of some sort?

Most of all, things like Burning Bridges and Stay make me think that perhaps the biggest tragedy of Richard Wright dying early is that he and Gilmour never got a chance to make a duo record in their 60s once these records had established some retrospective hipster cred.

Agree. Burning Bridges is maybe the best Gilmour/Wright harmony duet they ever recorded.

Stay is kind of awkward, I wonder if it was (musically) their attempt at an Al Green ballad? Let's Stay Together came out three months before they started recording. I usually like Wright's singing but he seems uncertain of how to phrase Waters' lyrics. Gilmour should have switched off the wah-wah pedal as well. This is one Floyd song someone else should revive.

for a long time i conflated this record with meddle. they both begin with menacing, synth-y instrumentals and they end with crowds of people chanting. the grab-bag feel of the track listing, the novelty songs. blurry covers with circular patterns.

It's really hard to make it out, but the cover is a picture of someone sitting in a tree. Occasionally it snaps into clarity for me, but most of the time I can't see it.

Also, if you stare past the cover, you'll see a 3D sailboat.

Lotta otm on this thread,

What I love about this record, is that it sounds more focused than, say, Atom Heart Mother or Ummagumma, yet it has a charm to it that would kinda vanish from Dark Side Of The Moon onwards.

Yup.

Most of all, things like Burning Bridges and Stay make me think that perhaps the biggest tragedy of Richard Wright dying early is that he and Gilmour never got a chance to make a duo record in their 60s once these records had established some retrospective hipster cred.

Yeah!

This is my favorite Floyd record, and Dark Side my least favorite, and the existence of this album is a big part of why. Everything I love about Dark Side they did better and rootsier here. And everything I dislike about Dark Side is completely absent from OBC. They really never did make anything that sounded this warm and honest again (but props to the Dave Camp for trying, come Division Bell).

Free Four is one of my favorite Waters lyrics. I love that he recited it on his re-imagined version of Speak to Me.

Anyway, reviving this because today I had When You're In stuck in my head, and I got stuck for a while thinking, is there any Track 1/Track 2 on any album that's more powerful and atmospheric and just straight-up bad-ass than OBC's?

Oh holy fuuuck, the drum intro to When You're In!!!

Been a couple years since I listened to this record. It's one that I played so many hundreds of times when I was younger that I have the whole thing memorized...

-- sike! I'd totally forgotten how punk that drum intro is.

But I can sing along to the Burning Bridges guitar and keyboard solos.

But not to David Gilmour's harmonies! I couldn't sing harmonies back then, so I didn't register them.

Hear me shout, "Come on in.
What's the news, where you been?"

;_;

i definitely think of the first two tracks as linked. WYI is kind of a complement and development to OBC. then you have gilmour and wright trading verses on the beautiful, wistful, mopey "Burning Bridges." "Gold" was my favorite track as a young 'un and is still lots of fun -- sounds uber '70s, like an edgar winter or dave mason track.

i love this record. always felt autumnal to me. i remember listening to WUTD on the bus ride home of a dreary november day and anticipating the warm hearth of home

"Gold" was my favorite track as a young 'un and is still lots of fun -- sounds uber '70s, like an edgar winter or dave mason track.

I'm wondering whether this track and "Nile Song" rock harder because Wright doesn't play on them, or if he didn't play on them because they rocked harder.