 | |
List Price: $31.98 | | Label: Columbia
Salesrank: 213692
Released: November 1, 1994 |
| Our Price: $23.72 |
| Used Price: $8.04 |
|
| Media: Audio CD |
|
The Final Cut Track Listing:
1. Post War Dream
2. Your Possible Pasts
3. One of the Few
4. Hero's Return
5. Gunners Dream
6. Paranoid Eyes
7. Get Your Filthy Hands off My Desert
8. Fletcher Memorial Home
9. Southampton Dock
10. Final Cut
11. Not Now John
12. Two Suns in the Sunset
Editorial Review:
1994 U.K. reissue of their top 10 1983 album on a full colorpicture disc. 12 tracks, including 'The Post War Dream', 'The Gunner's Dream' and 'Not Now John'.
Description of The Final Cut:
The last release from the Roger Waters-led incarnation of the band, The Final Cut is easily the most darkly provocative entry in the entire Pink Floyd catalog. Many fans and critics tend to think of it as a Roger Waters solo album, though it certainly hangs together much better than The Pros and Cons of Hitchhiking or Radio K.A.O.S.. Others view it as a sequel to The Wall--and indeed, The Final Cut tackles many of the same issues (the futility of war, the innate powerlessness of the individual in modern society), albeit with twice the bile and intensity. The anger that fires songs like "The Hero's Return" and "Not Now John" is certainly legitimate, and Michael Kamen's orchestral arrangements are absolutely stunning, but the entire listening experience can be pretty draining. On the other hand, if you found The Wall to be too soft or commercial, The Final Cut is definitely the record for you. --Dan Epstein
The Final Cut Reviews:
Mahalo! 
2009-01-08 - It was great working with you! I really appreciated your quick response in sending my order being that I ordered late and it was a christmas gift! Thank you!
the end 
2008-10-07 - The Final Cut suffers a bit from not enough musical ideas, and trying to make the lyrics the MAIN appeal of the album over everything else. Clearly this was an approach not everyone can appreciate, including me. The lyrics are nice, and some of the vocal melodies are good enough, but this album is definitely lacking compared to EVERY other Pink Floyd album created before this one.
Uncomfortably Numb 
2008-04-27 - I won't pretend to be objective here: I never enjoyed this album. Beautifully produced, relentlessly downbeat and funereal. I first heard it at a college record store (Cutlers, Yale) broadcast on its official release date by WAVZ [WDRC?] packed with PF fans. By 10 minutes into the album, most simply scratched their heads and wandered out, profoundly disappointed. It was like listening to Side 3 of The Wall without the two great bookend pieces, Hey You and Comfortably Numb.
I've read in other sources that much if not most of FC is a compilation of songs that didn't make it into The Wall - and if they had, I doubt Wall would have been such a triumph. FC's lyrics are very dated, and there's little to relate to. Would've been much more honest if this were released as a Waters solo album.
Pink Floyd - 'The Final Cut' (Columbia) 
2008-01-20 - Review no. 246. Band's 12th proper album, also the Gilmour, Waters, Wright and Mason line-up sawnsong release. Long awaited follow-up for 'The Wall'. Personally, I never cared much for this Floyd effort because I've always felt it was Pink Floyd in name only - certainly not spirit, vibe or musically. Even though the playing on this record is so-so, the only songs I sort of liked were "Your Possible Pasts" and the radio-friendly (over-played, at the time) "Not Now, John". Rest assure, the band's two CD reissues several years later 'Momentary Lapse Of Reason' ('87) and especially 'The Division Bell' ('94) are much better.
More like 4.5 for Roger Waters' dark goodbye to Pink Floyd 25 years on 
2007-11-10 - Pink Floyd's The Final Cut was released in April of 1983.
The album was the first Pink Floyd album of new material since 1979's The Wall.
The Final Cut album was mainly the work of Roger Waters (bass player/singer) with muted contribution from drummer Nick Mason and guitarist/singer David Gilmour. Co-founder/keyboard player Rick Wright was kicked out the band during The Wall sessions. The Final Cut was supposed to be the soundtrack to The Wall movie but instead, The Final Cut presents a gloomy vivid portrait of a morally crumbling post-WWII/Falklands War era England (which lyrically does sound dated in 2007 but musically is a powerful album).
The album is fixated on the second World War and what the personal and societal sacrifices of that conflict meant to Great Britain in 1982/1983.
"What have we done to England?/Should we shout, should we scream/'What happened to the post war dream?'" lyricist Roger Waters asks on the opening "The Post War Dream". Throughout the album, Mr. Waters (whom lost his father in World War II) explores that inquiry. "Your Possible Pasts" are taking subliminal shots at both Margaret Thatcher and the late Ronald Reagan (although I thought Reagan was one of the best US Presidents and the last great Republican President). The main character in this album is the teacher from The Wall whom was disappointed in the generation they preserved ("One of the Few" and "The Hero's Return"), trying to keep a fellow serviceman's dream alive ("The Gunner's Dream"), pursued by ghosts ("Paranoid Eyes").
"Get Your Filthy Hands Off My Desert" is great and is followed by arguably the album's standout track "The Fletcher Memorial Home" which depicts Thatcher and Reagan as overgrown infants and tyrants (Reagan did help get the US out of recession and end the Cold War which many were eternally grateful for). "Southampton Dock" was about Thatcher waving goodbye to the men and not about a wife saying goodbye to her husband before he went to fight for his country. The title cut is a great song too and my favorite here. "Not Now John" is a superb rocker and the only Gilmour vocal on the record (him and Roger fought like mad and David took his name off the credits but still got paid to produce the album). The haunting "Two Suns in the Sunset" closes the album. Andy Newmark plays drums on this track as Nick was forced out as well.
By the time The Final Cut was finished and released, Pink Floyd broke up (though no formal announcement was made until Roger Waters said in a 1985 interview that "Pink Floyd was over").
The album was nevertheless another Top 10 album for the band in the US hitting #6 and selling 2 million copies in the US but was a flop compared to its predecessor The Wall. I was one of those who bought this album on cassette tape the year it came out and have gone through countless copies of this album, especially the various remasters of this album.
Nevertheless, it is highly recommended!