The guitarist and singer David Gilmour joined Pink Floyd in 1967 and in the following years became a crucial part of the band’s sound. Although he was never a lyricist, he was a fundamental part when it came to writing the music and of course, adding incredible guitar solos.
With Nick Mason, Richard Wright and Roger Waters, Pink Floyd was a real music force and certainly changed the course of music in the 70s with the release of many incredible albums that would later become some of the best-selling of all time. Although the band had many praised records in their career, there is one that David Gilmour once said he personally didn’t like.
The Pink Floyd album David Gilmour said he personally didn’t like
Well, many Pink Floyd fans would probably expect that the answer is “The Final Cut”, released in 1983, and they are right. As Gilmour told Musician magazine in 1992 that was the album he personally didn’t like.
He was first asked by the interviewer about the fact that by having the name Pink Floyd, it was almost guaranteed that a new album from them would sell millions of copies. So he used “The Final Cut” as an example and then revealed he personally didn’t like that one.
“It’s not a guaranteed smash. I mean, ‘The Wall’ certainly did very well. The follow-up to it, The Final Cut, didn’t. Following on from that one, with Roger gone, and the previous album having not done terribly well. I don’t think any of us were thinking we were onto any guaranteed sales whatsoever. Certainly, I would have been surprised if it had sold less than a million around the world. My two solo records sold three-quarters of a million each. (If it had) the Pink Floyd name on top of that would have added a little. But we had no serious guarantees in undertaking this project. A lot of people didn’t buy The Final Cut.”
He continued
“Yeah (It was a good album), but it only sold about a *fifth* of The Wall, really. I’m not talking about quality, although I personally don’t like it. There were three good songs, then just rather average filler. In terms of numbers, it was the worst sales we had since before ‘Dark Side Of The Moon’,” David Gilmour said.
“The Final Cut” was the last Pink Floyd album featuring the band’s bassist, singer and main songwriter Roger Waters. The tension between him and the other members got bigger during the making of “The Wall”, an album which he started to dominate the songwriting even more. It also led him to eventually force the band to “fire” Richard Wright. Gilmour and Mason said many times that during the making of “The Final Cut”, Roger really took control. Also that it was basically his first solo album, because they really didn’t have a lot of space for contribution.
Then Roger decided to leave the group, believing that the band would then end since he was the main songwriter. But as you know, Mason and Gilmour decided to continue and even brought Richard Wright back in. After a legal battle in court, they ended up with the rights to use Pink Floyd’s name.
Pink Floyd never toured to promote “The Final Cut”
Pink Floyd was one of the biggest and most successful bands in the world by the time they released “The Final Cut”. Their previous four albums were “Dark Side of The Moon” (1973), “Wish You Were Here” (1975), “Animals” (1977) and “The Wall”.
Millions of fans expected another masterpiece when the album was released. But they actually didn’t receive an album that could be compared to the previous ones. They also never saw the band playing those tracks live.
Instead of going out to support the record, Gilmour and Waters focused on their solo projects. So they toured in the following years to support their own albums. Pink Floyd never toured to promote “The Final Cut”. The songs from that record were only performed live years later by Roger Waters. More recently, during his “This Is Not a Drill” tour, Waters played the track “Two Suns In The Sunset”.