Pop Floyd and Garage Rock Disco Covers

The 10th anniversary of Lost Turntable is about a week away, and I do have something special planned. Not only that, but in a rare example of me planning out this blog in advance, most of it is already written and ready to go. I’m trying to go for something that focuses a lot on what I feel makes this blog great (in my humble opinion) and will really run the gamut in terms of content and tone. I think there will be something for everyone. I hope you all enjoy it, because I’ve really put a lot of time into it.

David Gilmour
Blue Light (Vocal Remix)
Blue Light (Instrumental Remix)
Is there a name for the genre of music that most 70s rock stars saw themselves falling into during the early 80s? You know what I’m talking about. Steve Winwood, Phil Collins, Pete Townshend, Robert Plant, just to name a few, at the dawn of the Reagan-era they all stripped away damn near everything that made each of them unique and all drifted towards the same incredibly generic, synthesizer-based dance/pop/rock sound. Nebulous-yet-catchy, and utterly dated not five years after the fact. Does anyone still listen to Robert Plant’s “Tall Cool One” in 2016?

That song is better than this track, however, a failed single off of Gilmour’s 1984 album About Face, which was not a good record in 1984; not a good record when I discovered it in the late-90s, and remains not a good record to this day. This is probably one of the better songs off of it, and I can say that it at least works moderately well as an upbeat rock track. Gilmour’s vocals are decent, and he manages to work in his trademark echoey guitar effects into what would be a rather bland pop track otherwise. It’s still strange to hear Gilmour perform music like this though. His more recent solo efforts, while also far from perfect, are much improved, and I think play more to his strengths, those being spacey guitar solos and much looser song structures.

While I’m not a fan of Gilmour’s solo work, I would still say that his solo output is better than his bandmate Roger Waters’, which has served to prove that Waters is a lyricist first, bass player second, and a musician eighth (positions three through seven are “professional asshole” if anyone was wondering). Gilmour’s solo records are boring, but at least the guitar solos are good. Waters couldn’t catch a melody if his life depended on it. He is tone deaf after all.

If you’re interested in checking out good 80s Gilmour that doesn’t involve Pink Floyd, I strongly recommend you give a listen to Berlin’s “Pink And Velvet,” a lost masterpiece that probably features Gilmour’s second-best guitar solo behind the one for “Comfortably Numb.” A jaw-droppingly stunning lost classic.

Thelma Houston
96 Tears (12″ Remix)
File under “Covers I Never Thought I’d Hear,” right next to KMFDM’s take on “These Boots Are Made For Walking” and Eagles Of Death Metal’s “Save A Prayer.”

The album version of this cover can be found on Thelma’s 1981 album Never Gonna Be Another One, however, this epic seven and a half minute version is 12″ exclusive and out-of-print entirely. It’s not as epic as I hoped it would be, but I’m still enjoying it.

5 Responses to “Pop Floyd and Garage Rock Disco Covers”

  1. Mike Kool says:

    I thought the first Gilmour solo effort from the early 70’s was actually fairly good. The song “There’s no way out of here”, in particular, is excellent.

  2. Lost Turntable says:

    I forgot about that album, yeah it’s not bad!

  3. U Cheese says:

    Hi

    The Thelma Houston is pretty classy! Many thanks.

  4. Colby Failla says:

    Who’d have thought that five boiler-suited geeks with flowerpots on their heads could tackle such a monolithic ’60s hit and triumph? Somehow these Darwin-opposing robo-punkers twisted Mick Jagger’s disaffection for modern consumerism into their own future-retro logic, and the whole Rolling Stones rebel ruckus into an irresistibly funky techno-pop masterpiece.

  5. Chris says:

    I reckon the best album made by anyone from Pink Floyd was Nick Mason’s Fictitious Sports. Actually, it may be credited to him but it’s really Carla Bley’s – she wrote the songs and co=produced it. Robert Wyatt sang almost all of them, with Chris Spedding on guitar. If you only listen to one track, “I’m a mineralist” is pure genius.

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