HiRez Poll Pink Floyd - A MOMENTARY LAPSE OF REASON [Blu-Ray Audio]

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Rate the BDA of Pink Floyd - A MOMENTARY LAPSE OF REASON


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Please post your thoughts and comments on this 2021 reissue of the classic Pink Floyd album "A Momentary Lapse of Reason".
Originally released in 1987, the album was remixed in stereo & 5.1 surround by Andy Jackson for inclusion in the 2019 box set "The Later Years": HiRez Poll - Pink Floyd - THE LATER YEARS 1987-2019 [Blu-ray Audio]

Now the remix is available outside of the box set in CD/Blu-Ray and CD/DVD sets.
https://music.apple.com/us/album/a-momentary-lapse-of-reason-2019-remix/1583036744
(y) :) (n)

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Sounds good to my ears. Decent enough surround attributes, lots coming from the rears. Improves the album overall. IMO the weaker of the two Gilmore Floyd albums. I'd give it a 9 but, I am taking 1 off because it was ridiculously expensive for 1 blu-ray and 1 cd and the packaging did little but justify the added cost. Don't need the stickers (marbles are better LOL) and a normal blu-ray or RBCD insert booklet would have been fine. Still better than buying the "Later Years" box set just to get a 5.1 mix of this album. Glad I waited. Will I have the same patience for Animals (without a doubt my favorite PF album)?,,,, probably not.
 
Sorry, I meant to post the following to this thread instead of the release announcement thread:

I'm on my third listen right now and will wait to review once it has sunk in and I've listened some more. Some early impressions...

1- The surround mix improves after Dogs Of War. Signs of Life could've been more adventurous, but it is hardly the only song on the album that would've benefitted from more imagination. Learning To Fly just seems like a mess, and the choice was made to separate the guitars from each other, rather than the keys from the guitars. Dogs Of War has TOO MUCH SAX. Good grief it about scared me to death. More on that later.

2- I don't think there is anything wrong with the fidelity. The album sounds largely like it did when I put in my cassette for the first time in 1987. It is a dark sounding album, and the 80s is full of such albums (I was listening to Bark At The Moon on the radio on the way home, and that's a good example of it). Most of it is the tones, but some of it is also the reverb. It likely would've been worse if they had kept the original drum tracks. I don't know if they were able to separate much of the reverb from the original tracks. In some cases you can hear that they did, but I'm not sure about the rest, and even if you have just a tiny bit of room reverb on everything, it will muddy up a mix fast. Regardless, some simple EQing would've brightened this release up considerably and eliminated some of the mud in the source tracks. However, if you do that, are you left with something too far apart from the original release? I don't know. That's Gilmour's call, not mine. The brightest sound in the entire album is that sax in Dogs of War. It sounds so out of place because it is bright and clean, unaffected by verb. I wish other parts of this album felt that same way, especially the keys, which are textured mud for the most part.

3- The sub gets a decent workout in this mix. Not overused, but used when appropriate.

4- Sorrow is a very underrated song.
 
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I’m just finishing my first listen to the 5:1 mix on blu-ray and I just don’t hear much discrete sound coming from the surrounds. I think it’s mostly ambience. WYWH and Dark Side are much better surround mixes IMHO. I like the overall feel of the new mix with the replaced drum tracks. I hope that Animals gets a better surround treatment.
 
I go 7 on this. Of all the PF surround releases, this is the biggest loser. Granted, the bar was set high by what came before it.
I think it’s mostly ambience. WYWH and Dark Side are much better surround mixes IMHO. I like the overall feel of the new mix with the replaced drum tracks. I hope that Animals gets a better surround treatment.

Yep. Not only did the Guthrie mixes of WYWH and DSotM provide a better surround presentation, but the fidelity was turned up a notch as well. Division Bell is a better mix as well, even better than those two Guthrie mixes. It also gains some fidelity compared to the original. AHM was quad, and it has its moments. The unreleased Meddle mix is decent, but it suffers from the dynamics being limited. It just doesn't have the impact of the original. And LTF suffers from that as well.

Long live the AP quad of DSotM. That's a 10 for me. I think the Guthrie WYWH and the quad WYWH are 10's as well, but for different reasons.

Its a shame. Fifty percent of the content on LTF is killer material.
 
I’m just finishing my first listen to the 5:1 mix on blu-ray and I just don’t hear much discrete sound coming from the surrounds. I think it’s mostly ambience.
Anyone think it's possible this is a different mix than the one on "The Later Years" BD", that's what I'm listening too. I just listened to it again and have a hard time reconciling what I hear and what others are reporting?
I find the inner detail and surround mix from the very opening rowed boat and splashing water awesome. The mix surrounds me completely with plenty of discrete sound objects/instruments down both sides of my room to the back wall and more.
Just as a for-instance I can hear two different tracks of Wrights keyboards placed in the L & R rears?
Very far from simply ambiance?
YMMV
 
Anyone think it's possible this is a different mix than the one on "The Later Years" BD", that's what I'm listening too. I just listened to it again and have a hard time reconciling what I hear and what others are reporting?
I find the inner detail and surround mix from the very opening rowed boat and splashing water awesome. The mix surrounds me completely with plenty of discrete sound objects/instruments down both sides of my room to the back wall and more.
Just as a for-instance I can hear two different tracks of Wrights keyboards placed in the L & R rears?
Very far from simply ambiance?
YMMV
My issue was never the mix itself, it was about the sonics. The dynamic contrasts have been restrained and most of the album, especially the vocals, sound muffled in comparison to my CD version.
 
So I decided to dig out my 34 year old cassette version of this album and give my cassette player a rare workout. That's actually a different stereo system hooked up to different speakers-- some 1990s Cerwin Vegas that were bought at Best Buy back in the day. They're a darker, more bass heavy speaker, but they get the job done.

I like the original recording better with the reverbed drums. To my ear, they do sound a bit 80s, but not overly 80s. They fit the original music better. I think that's part of the problem. You can't write an album and record it and have everything influenced by the tech and sounds of the time, then go back later and take out the drums that you feel are too influenced by the tech and drum sounds of the time. The replaced drums are very dry, the snare kind of dead (70s) sounding, and the tom fills barely audible. And while the drum parts aren't particularly challenging, they were also played by a 70 year old man. I think they could have found a better balance between the drum sounds they settled on and the original drum sounds. And while it may be sacrilege to say this in an audiophile form, the drums would've benefited from some compression/limiting to give them a bit more oomph.

The surround mix is ok. Sometimes it is quite good, but mostly it's just there and I'm not really noticing new contributions or things I haven't noticed before. I didn't have any issues perceiving Gilmour's vocals as being too low in the mix like some did. Having listened to this a bunch of times in the past week, though, it takes me back again to being 15 and playing it endlessly. There have been a lot of complaints over the years that this was essentially a Gilmour solo effort, and this is understandable because it kind of was, but it still sounds like a Floyd record to me, especially if you remove Learning to Fly, which is very un-Floyd-like until the chorus with the background singers, etc... Dogs of War feels very Waters-esque, One Slip is like something off The Wall, On The Turning Away more classic Floyd (or first album solo Gilmour). There are three extended solos on the album that harken back to Comfortably Numb.

I generally rate on just the mix, but I'm going to dock this a bit more due to content. I actually kind of liked the home video of the album cover shoot, but I don't give two flips about the videos or the live tracks or especially the stupid stickers that they threw in there, as if I'm 15 again and am going to slap them on a guitar case. I also would've preferred to have had the option to listen to the original mix. I get that it was sold as a remix, but still.

This gets a 7 from me because of that and because I think the mix is rather unimaginative. Still worth getting if you're a fan of the album.
 
I also would've preferred to have had the option to listen to the original mix.
It's near unforgivable that the latest James Guthrie remaster (from 2011) of the original mix was not included on the Blu-ray, nor—I think—even in the Later Years box. Given that everything is now administered by Pink Floyd Records (to my knowledge), I can't imagine there are any licensing issues.
 
It's near unforgivable that the latest James Guthrie remaster (from 2011) of the original mix was not included on the Blu-ray, nor—I think—even in the Later Years box. Given that everything is now administered by Pink Floyd Records (to my knowledge), I can't imagine there are any licensing issues.
But they do have to get every surviving band member to agree to allow it to be released, which is a significant issue.

Edit: but would Waters get a say in this album given he isn't on it?
 
But they do have to get every surviving band member to agree to allow it to be released, which is a significant issue.

Edit: but would Waters get a say in this album given he isn't on it?

Mason and Gilmour would be the only ones with any say on this particular album. Waters lost that battle long ago. And now that I think about it, I don't think Mason even played on the original release, hence they re-recorded the drums for this one.
 
Mason and Gilmour would be the only ones with any say on this particular album. Waters lost that battle long ago. And now that I think about it, I don't think Mason even played on the original release, hence they re-recorded the drums for this one.
Mason is credited for the drums. Wright is credited for backing vocals and piano, but I think his part was very limited.
 
It's near unforgivable that the latest James Guthrie remaster (from 2011) of the original mix was not included on the Blu-ray, nor—I think—even in the Later Years box. Given that everything is now administered by Pink Floyd Records (to my knowledge), I can't imagine there are any licensing issues.
Why? Wasn’t this mostly a 16/44 (or maybe 48) recording - and more importantly a 16/44 digital master?
 
Mason is credited for the drums. Wright is credited for backing vocals and piano, but I think his part was very limited.
Interesting. I thought Appice played on most of it, but apparently only Dogs of War. Jim Keitner played some as well. I don't know what Mason played on in the original release.

Wright was a hired gun for the album.
 
Interesting. I thought Appice played on most of it, but apparently only Dogs of War. Jim Keitner played some as well. I don't know what Mason played on in the original release.

Wright was a hired gun for the album.
I thought I read somewhere that Wright was included on the recording and tour to make it appear more like a legit PF endeavor. @rontoon may have the true-true on that.

At any rate, Wright had much more input on the Division Bell, and the subsequent outtakes that became The Endless River.
 
Long rant coming on.....

In the mid-80's, Floyd fans were wondering if the band would ever play again. Gilmour and Waters had done their solo albums and tours in '84. Gilmour had said that Pink Floyd was "gathering dust" while Waters said that being in the band was "not much fun anymore". So it was a sense of great relief when it was announced that despite Waters' departure, Gilmour and Mason would continue on as Pink Floyd with Wright returning to the fold. My hope was that musical interplay between Gilmour and Wright that had made albums like Meddle, Dark Side and Wish You Were Here so special would be reignited. When Lapse was released in September '87 I was greatly disappointed. Wright's presence on the album was virtually non-existent. Gilmour's writing and soloing was subpar. There were a few songs that I thought were ok, but much of it was unlistenable. When The Division Bell was released seven years later, I was similarly unimpressed, although I thought the album was an improvement over its predecessor. Needless to say I wasn't a big fan of this era of the band. Which is why I was so pleasantly surprised several years back when I heard Andy Jackson's wonderful surround mix of The Division Bell. It made me reevaluate the album. The mix of course was wonderful but I found that for the first time I was really enjoying the music as well, sometimes even listening to it in stereo. When a surround mix of Lapse was announced, I was hoping for a similar epiphany. Sadly it was not to be so.

Andy's surround mix here is decent, it probably betters mixes from many other engineers. However it seems to lack the "wow" factor that has made many of his other mixes so special. The two instrumental tracks are the highlights. It's kind of hard to describe the mix. You certainly feel the rear speakers, and it's not just a big-stereo type of scenario. But I don't also feel that much is happening in the surround field. Hard to articulate it. A lot of press was given to the fact that they de-80's-ed the album, trying to give it a more natural feel. But a lot of what they removed could probably be effective in the surround field. In terms of fidelity it doesn't really shine either. Not awful, but again not great. It probably could be a more enjoyable experience if the songwriting was up to Gilmour's previous level of excellence, but unfortunately that's not the case here.

One of the things that I had always loved about Pink Floyd was that every album was a new experience. They never tried to recreate their past glories. They always forged ahead and were trying new things. Wish You Were Here didn't sound like Dark Side, Animals didn't sound like Wish You Were Here and so on..... Unfortunately on this album it felt like GIlmour was trying to recreate some sort of classic Floyd sound. The opening sequence felt like an attempt to recreate the opening of "Shine On", the beginning of "One Slip" felt like an attempt to make an 80's version of "Time", etc.... Additionally on many songs Dave seemed to forget how to write a decent melody. His monotone droning grows tiresome very quickly. "On the Turning Away" is a notable exception to that. It's pretty nice but it also does feel like a rewrite of "Out of the Blue" from About Face. "Learning to Fly" and "One Slip" are perfectly acceptable 80's AOR, but they're not anything special. Tony Levin's solo on "One Slip" is a rare musical highlight on the album. The second half of the album though gets pretty tedious. I keep waiting for something to happen, it never does. The final track, "Sorrow", is pretty torturous. Sadly it's not the worst thing the album has to offer. That dubious distinction is saved for "The Dogs of War". Not only my least favorite cut on the album, but my least favorite song ever released under the Pink Floyd name. It feels like a Def Leppard reject. The only thing more embarrassing than the song itself was its accompanying screen film that was shown on the Lapse tour. (Interestingly, the most embarrassing part of that film was excised from the new reissue of Delicate Sound of Thunder). A big deal was made out of that fact that some of the 80's artifacts were removed for this new mix, however doing so only seems to underscore the deficiencies in the songwriting. Not surprising, Waters was critical of the album and referred to it as a "forgery". More surprising, Wright later concurred and called Waters' criticisms "fair".

Mix: Not up to Andy's usual standards, but not a Rich Chycki style disaster either: 2/3
Content: The low point of the Floyd catalog. Uninspired performances. A few listenable songs: 1/3
Fidelity: Something recorded by a major act in 1987 should sound better: 2/3
High-res: They did release it on Blu-ray: 1/1
I am going to dock a point because of the unnecessarily high list price. For that kind of money they could have thrown in some marbles and a scarf. 🤪
Total: 5


If you want post-Waters era Floyd, better to go with The Division Bell. It's got better songs, a better mix, better fidelity and better performances.
 
My issue was never the mix itself, it was about the sonics. The dynamic contrasts have been restrained and most of the album, especially the vocals, sound muffled in comparison to my CD version.
Unfortunate truth about AMLOR is that the best version ever released had no better than DR12 dynamics. The 5.1 mix measures the same 12 DR.
https://dr.loudness-war.info/album/list?artist=Pink+Floyd&album=Reasonhttps://dr.loudness-war.info/album/view/170917I find it hard to believe the original master was squashed that much but ??? Maybe we'll get better for the Atmos mix if it ever gets done. LOL
None the less I very much enjoy AMLOR and havent listened to the CD since I got the 5.1. I agree D Bell is better, but that's beyond the point. It's still better than anything Waters ever did solo. ;)
 
Long rant coming on.....

In the mid-80's, Floyd fans were wondering if the band would ever play again. Gilmour and Waters had done their solo albums and tours in '84. Gilmour had said that Pink Floyd was "gathering dust" while Waters said that being in the band was "not much fun anymore". So it was a sense of great relief when it was announced that despite Waters' departure, Gilmour and Mason would continue on as Pink Floyd with Wright returning to the fold. My hope was that musical interplay between Gilmour and Wright that had made albums like Meddle, Dark Side and Wish You Were Here so special would be reignited. When Lapse was released in September '87 I was greatly disappointed. Wright's presence on the album was virtually non-existent. Gilmour's writing and soloing was subpar. There were a few songs that I thought were ok, but much of it was unlistenable. When The Division Bell was released seven years later, I was similarly unimpressed, although I thought the album was an improvement over its predecessor. Needless to say I wasn't a big fan of this era of the band. Which is why I was so pleasantly surprised several years back when I heard Andy Jackson's wonderful surround mix of The Division Bell. It made me reevaluate the album. The mix of course was wonderful but I found that for the first time I was really enjoying the music as well, sometimes even listening to it in stereo. When a surround mix of Lapse was announced, I was hoping for a similar epiphany. Sadly it was not to be so.

Andy's surround mix here is decent, it probably betters mixes from many other engineers. However it seems to lack the "wow" factor that has made many of his other mixes so special. The two instrumental tracks are the highlights. It's kind of hard to describe the mix. You certainly feel the rear speakers, and it's not just a big-stereo type of scenario. But I don't also feel that much is happening in the surround field. Hard to articulate it. A lot of press was given to the fact that they de-80's-ed the album, trying to give it a more natural feel. But a lot of what they removed could probably be effective in the surround field. In terms of fidelity it doesn't really shine either. Not awful, but again not great. It probably could be a more enjoyable experience if the songwriting was up to Gilmour's previous level of excellence, but unfortunately that's not the case here.

One of the things that I had always loved about Pink Floyd was that every album was a new experience. They never tried to recreate their past glories. They always forged ahead and were trying new things. Wish You Were Here didn't sound like Dark Side, Animals didn't sound like Wish You Were Here and so on..... Unfortunately on this album it felt like GIlmour was trying to recreate some sort of classic Floyd sound. The opening sequence felt like an attempt to recreate the opening of "Shine On", the beginning of "One Slip" felt like an attempt to make an 80's version of "Time", etc.... Additionally on many songs Dave seemed to forget how to write a decent melody. His monotone droning grows tiresome very quickly. "On the Turning Away" is a notable exception to that. It's pretty nice but it also does feel like a rewrite of "Out of the Blue" from About Face. "Learning to Fly" and "One Slip" are perfectly acceptable 80's AOR, but they're not anything special. Tony Levin's solo on "One Slip" is a rare musical highlight on the album. The second half of the album though gets pretty tedious. I keep waiting for something to happen, it never does. The final track, "Sorrow", is pretty torturous. Sadly it's not the worst thing the album has to offer. That dubious distinction is saved for "The Dogs of War". Not only my least favorite cut on the album, but my least favorite song ever released under the Pink Floyd name. It feels like a Def Leppard reject. The only thing more embarrassing than the song itself was its accompanying screen film that was shown on the Lapse tour. (Interestingly, the most embarrassing part of that film was excised from the new reissue of Delicate Sound of Thunder). A big deal was made out of that fact that some of the 80's artifacts were removed for this new mix, however doing so only seems to underscore the deficiencies in the songwriting. Not surprising, Waters was critical of the album and referred to it as a "forgery". More surprising, Wright later concurred and called Waters' criticisms "fair".

Mix: Not up to Andy's usual standards, but not a Rich Chycki style disaster either: 2/3
Content: The low point of the Floyd catalog. Uninspired performances. A few listenable songs: 1/3
Fidelity: Something recorded by a major act in 1987 should sound better: 2/3
High-res: They did release it on Blu-ray: 1/1
I am going to dock a point because of the unnecessarily high list price. For that kind of money they could have thrown in some marbles and a scarf. 🤪
Total: 5


If you want post-Waters era Floyd, better to go with The Division Bell. It's got better songs, a better mix, better fidelity and better performances.

Ouch. Harsh, but fair I think.

Like a lot of bands, it's pretty clear that Waters and Gilmour needed each other and were better together than they were on their own. Both were perfectly capable of writing a good song or two on their own, but combine them and great songs were possible. I can't listen to Waters solo material for very long because it's just him caterwauling about some such nonsense that he finds objectionable. His high water mark Pros & Cons of Hitchhiking I can only take for about 15 minutes. Gilmour's solo stuff consists of bright spots here and there and long naps in between. I think Gilmour brought calm and a much-needed reprieve to Roger's vocal stylings and their songwriting together was kind of a yin-yang thing. I don't know if either would admit it, though. Maybe David would, but Roger still fancies himself a genius.
 
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