I still say it makes total sense to call, “Endless River” a Pink Floyd album. Why? For a few reasons. For starters, “Endless River” will be 20 years after “The Division Bell”. Most of the material on “Endless River” was written by Rick Wright… like I said before, the material on “Endless River” were unreleased recordings during the “Division Bell” sessions. These are reasons alone that the new album deserves to be called a Pink Floyd album.
Gilmour himself sort of explained why this album deserves to be called a Pink Floyd album, “The Endless River has as its starting point the music that came from the 1993 ‘Division Bell’ sessions. We listened to over 20 hours of the three of us playing together and selected the music we wanted to work on for the new album. Over the last year we’ve added new parts, re-recorded others and generally harnessed studio technology to make a 21st century Pink Floyd album. With Rick gone, and with him the chance of ever doing it again, it feels right that these revisited and reworked tracks should be made available as part of our repertoire”
The music on “Endless River” were meant to be instrumentals. They weren’t really meant to have vocals although one song on “Endless River” with lyrics written by Gilmour’s wife has vocals on it but the vocals will be probably be sung by Gilmour himself.
Keep in mind that over the years, Waters wasn’t the only Pink Floyd lead singer. Syd Barrett started out as lead vocals for the band and I think Rick Wright himself sang some lead. Gilmour himself sung some Floyd songs as well. So it wasn’t always Roger on the vocals.
This new album was never intended for Roger to be involved in. It ain’t true Pink Floyd without Roger??? In my opinion, it has always been Pink Floyd no matter the members. As long as Gilmour, Mason and Wright are involved, that’s Pink Floyd no matter what you think of it. Waters isn’t involved with the “Endless River” recording ’cause he never recorded vocals during the “Division Bell” sessions… he left Floyd and moved on.
Rick Wright may not have been a legal member of Floyd during the “Division Bell” sessions but he will always be looked at as an important member no matter what you think of it.
This may have been a side project at first, music from The Big Spliff but later Gilmour clarified there’s only a little bit of The Big Spliff on “Endless River” so technically this is still NOT a side project.
Anyway, I’m sure Gilmour is gonna get interviewed by the music press about the album… he’s probably gonna get interviewed for Rollingstone/Guitarworld and he will talk about it more. I’m sure he’ll explain more on why he named this a Pink Floyd album.
Who cares if Waters isn’t involved. The guy is a freakin’ Iran lover and jew hater anyway so let him go. Just shut up and enjoy the album. I know I’m gonna!!! Can’t wait for it!
Kev