For me Axl's screams on TWAT are the best and most impressive part of the song. The solo is good, but I can live with the Finck version of it. Nothing can replace the screams.

Perhaps there are radically different versions of the song? Who would ever think about Nightrain when hearing Prostitute?

I think that is a minor issue. They spent 100 million on Damon's Ford vs. Ferrari in 2019. Original story with no particular action sequences. Obviously they are still willing to take risk. The problem is they aren't making good movies for the most part. And that all goes back to the advent of realistic special effects and the "theme parkization" of movies. Look at all the upcoming directors today. All of them are Super Hero directors. In a sense, the only reason they exist is because the studios need somebody to direct these movies. In the old days you couldn't get a real director to touch that type of movie with a flag pole. And really, if we're counting the old school directors that are still working, that is still the case. Nolan, Fincher, they have no interest in that crap.

So if all the big money directors are not really doing any real direction, where is anybody going to learn the craft? Knowing how to make a 5 million indie movie doesn't teach you how to make a big, expensive studio movie. This used to be the decisive factor that separated American movies from the rest of the world. They were the only place that could do artistry on a grand scale.

Now, they know how to make a Captain America part 10, but they don't know how to make a Die Hard. Except for the few old timers still going, nobody does anymore. It's like a medieval skill that has simply fallen out of use. If you can sell 100 million tickets with some CGI and a brand name, why make a real movie? There's no need.

I don't think it's sad. I'm impressed. He obviously thought he no longer need Pink Floyd to maintain popularity and he failed spectacularly. His first solo album was nothing more than a fart, the second too. When you say it sounds like cheesy 80s that is probably deliberate so he can appeal to the current thing. But that wasn't enough because the album was no good. Then he spent six years on his magnum opus, Amused to Death, and in between that he had a public wind with his the Wall performance when the Berlin Wall fell. But that too was a massive bomb. All the while Gilmour is out there selling millions of copies of his crap albums and enjoying worldwide success with his gaudy tours. Waters must have been fuming, maybe close to a nervous breakdown. Reality hit him in the face with brutal force in those days.

But he didn't lay down. He remembered his only success in those years, his Berlin Wall performance. So he focused on that and built himself up as a live artist. Aided by the fact Gilmour wasn't doing anything with Floyd anymore. Musically he's no longer relevant, but he has managed to make himself relevant as an artist and a performer, and using that public capital, become a very relevant political actor. Say what you will about his speech in the UN, he's clearly relevant in that arena with a lot of young folks looking to him with inspiration.

And for me personally his latest album, the first in 25 years, is clearly his best solo work. Put Gilmour, Mason and Wright (theoretically) in the mix and you have a great modern Pink Floyd album. So he has not only evolved as a performer in his old age, he's also improved significantly with his solo efforts. The Comfortably Numb remake was also incredible, and the little I've heard from the Dark Side remake also intrigues me. For so many years I never cared for any of his solo work because his first 3 albums were so disappointing, but here he is in his late 70s wheeling me in. For me he is about to create a second legacy which is almost as illustrious as his Pink Floyd heyday.

I listen to early Floyd. Not so much the Barrett period and the few albums after that when they were learning to create music on their own, but Atom Heart Mother and particularly Meddle have a lot of great songs. They sound like summer pop albums with cheerful melodies. Then you have Echoes, one of their best songs and clearly the bridge to later material.

All of Floyd's early solo material is a microcosm of what they each brought to the band. Wright with his soundscapes, Gilmour with his guitar, Mason with his rhythm and Waters with his energy and visionary concepts. He shouldn't have left the band.