by ash`

March 15, 2002
It was nearly two years ago, at some point in the middle of some long-forgotten thread, that I posted an off-the-cuff listing of the most embarrassing chapters in Pink Floyd history. While brainstorming up the entries to that list, I decided at the time to exclude all of the band's promotional videos since I felt that they occupied a whole separate definition of "lame" unto themselves. After a few months of messing around with creating a list of the most flagrantly awful Floyd videos ever made, I decided instead to review my entire collection of videos (both official and unofficial), and this project soon began to evolve into something far broader in scope (and, hopefully, more useful) -- an overall "Buyer's/Trader's Guide To Pink Floyd Videos" of all stripes and origins.

However, under the timetable I had set for myself back in 2000, I found it impossible to complete the project with my sanity intact (I made it about halfway through the band's history before hitting the proverbial brick wall), and decided to take a break that eventually became a six-month sabbatical from Usenet.

After weeks of constant prodding from a few AMPF-ers I keep in regular contact with (take a damned bow, Matt), I finally decided back in January to finally finish off the bloody thing so that it is at least current as of the beginning of this year. I have also elected to update and expand upon some already-posted material so that the early entries in this thread aren't merely reposts of reviews that I wrote in the summer/fall of 2000 (consider these early posts "remastered" versions, if you will)

March 17, 2002
With only a few notable exceptions, it pretty much goes without saying that for a band whose live reputation over the last thirty years was largely built on visual spectacle, Pink Floyd have been party to some of the most shockingly awful videos ever released. For every, say, 'Live At Pompeii,' there exist 2 or 3 'La Carrerra Panamericana''s -- a ratio that unfortunately mars the overall quality rating of the band's visual oeuvre. Now, it would be easy to push much of the blame for this ongoing tradition of shoddy execution onto David Gilmour's shoulders, as he has pretty much single-handedly controlled the band's output since 1987. However, we must then consider "Another Brick In The Wall (Part 2)," the entire 'Final Cut' video series and all of the subsequent Roger Waters solo promo clips (most of which are every bit as crap as the reconstituted Floyd's).

So, what is the main problem, then? At least in the case of promotional video clips specifically aimed at MTV (and it's innumerable imitators worldwide), the issue of money seems to come up time and time again (more specifically, the use of too much or too little), spiced with a tinge of aloof laziness on behalf of the band, unoriginality on the part of the director, and an unfortunate (and perhaps third-party mandated) propensity towards timeliness and trendiness in the area of production that made some of the band's better-produced videos look horrifically dated only a few years after their initial release. Tellingly, the very best Pink Floyd video clips to ever circulate are not even "videos" per se, but rather short films specifically commissioned to be shown behind the band during the live performances of various songs.

Now, as far as concert performance videos are concerned -- the chief problem is that there really aren't any (at least officially) that pre-date the band's Gilmour-era launch in 1987. This is a terrible loss considering how visually intense the band's presentation had become years before these kind of concerts became the norm rather than the exception, and it was this total lack of archival "classic-era" material, of course, that helped create the rather extensive VOIO market that seeks to give fans at least an approximation of what the fabled four-man lineup concerts were really like at the expense of a first-class audio-visual presentation (or even a *third*-class presentation in some cases).

So now, at last, after having spent *far* more time than is healthy viewing and re-evaluating Pink Floyd's video output, it's time to recap, review and hopefully save someone else the trouble of learning the hard way just how lame some of these compilations and VOIOs really are. From the ridiculous ("See Emily Play," "Radio Waves" and 'Video Anthology - Volume 3') to the sublime ("Welcome To The Machine," "High Hopes" and 'An Hour With Pink Floyd'), this series seeks to document as much as possible all of the band's triumphs and misadventures in the visual medium.

Due to the large volume of material being examined (and mercilessly mocked when the occasion warrants), this particular area of Pink Floyd's career will be covered in a series of posts -- each of which, for the most part, will stick to an certain era in the band's history and cover both official videos available through most retail channels and those "odds-n-sods" compilations only obtainable through what I'll obliquely refer to as "underground distribution." To the individual reviews, I've appended a quick-and-dirty ratings system, which at a glance will indicate each title's sound and video quality, track listing, "cheese factor" (ranked on a scale of 1-10), "squirm factor" (ranked the same as the cheese factor), and the best and the worst bits of each title.

(To clear up a bit of confusion from the first time some of these reviews were posted -- "Cheese Factor" relates to how much unforgivably lame imagery can be expected during the course of the video, while "Squirm Factor" reflects how much a certain title will either cause the average viewer to cringe in embarrassment, reach for the remote, or shift about on their ass in boredom.)

Without a doubt, this is an interesting time for collecting Pink Floyd VOIOs as the video industry that spawned their existence in the first place is now in a state of technological flux (much like the record industry was from 1985-1989) as the switch from a VHS to a DVD standard is now in full swing worldwide. As if in response to this across-the-board digital video upgrade, newer and higher-quality rips and screencaps from sources such as VH-1 Classics' recent "Pink Floyd Weekend" promotion are now beginning to circulate and raise the quality bar considerably over the old versions of these clips (many of which have been circulating for 14 years or more). It appears very likely now that many of these newly-updated versions may never see the light of day on VHS, but on far-more multiple-copy-friendly (and thus nearly generation loss-free) formats such as DVD and VCD instead.