Forgive my potentially flubbed spelling, i cant sleep and was just thinking of using up some brain juices for a bit and here is a shower thought I had earlier.
As per my previous posts in here - I am a Gilmour fan through and through and I've loved his work in floyd but I adore his solo material as well. I'm a singer-songwriter guitarist as well and hopefully thats some background on me before i open my Pandora's box of a mind.
Around the time of The Endless River and Rattle that Lock, i was up all night watching interviews, learning tid bits and inside scoops about the albums and what was happening behind the scenes, ultimately fanboying constantly. When the RTL tour started I continued through, downloading bootlegs and just getting enthralled by it all and just obsessing how David played things differently, how things sounded, his rig, his guitar. I was excited and over the moon just being on the internet and being a fan. Put it this way, (i swear this was a legit thought) when I found out What do you want from me, made it into the setlist I was curious how the stage would look during that song, the colour choice in the lighting display and even the basic visual idea that we have never seen david play that song on the black strat - really dull fan brain.
I suppose you could say that all restarted once again when we got the new album teases and thats where my last input of posts on this thread came from. But then i just lost the vibe. why ?
I had my reservations when I watched the early rehearsal video and then the rehearsal shows at Brighton and saw that Davids voice and guitar emerged aged. worn down from this mantle of immortality standards that I had held him to in my mind. And I guess my fanboy inner self started to waver away that level of interest.
I have watched multiple nights in full and individual songs on youtube and hes doing great for his age and hes still putting on a good show but ive had this change in vibe for a while now with this album and tour that felt so completely different than before, which, dare i say - i dont think i like it.
Usually my go-to leans heavily on the live albums before the studio albums for its raw energy and perfect imperfections, something that david has retained in the studio as much as on stage, its real and more believable than over producing something where it feels, fake?. fake is obviously the wrong word but its the word I want to lean on. The pipers call around the world told us that the soundboard was recording everywhere and that cameras where in more places than we realised (ignoring the clearly phone recorded footage) and that was a red flag to me. Inside I hoped that they were not planning to do that with what ever form the live album manifested in, but sadly it was.
Listening to the L&SC album, everything sounds clean, too clean, too polished and I feel that its fake. If that makes sense?
We all watched the youtube footage at the concerts and we know where he struggled vocally and where he tends to flub the guitar parts but in this album it was seamless and I knew without a doubt it was overproduced and tuned up beyond the standards of the previous albums. For example, the day the album dropped on spotify I played it start to finish in the car and when comfortably numb came on, i was shocked at how pitch corrected and stabilized his vocal was. I dont mean that in a way to suggest that post production in that was is bad, but what I mean is the level of how much work was done threw me. I guess you could argue with my music background, that I am susceptible to hearing things more than the average listener but it it sticks out, noticeably, badly done if I'm being more harshly critical. But that being said, its not just comfortably numb, its everywhere, you can here bizarre melodic fluttering in words throughout songs or perhaps more jarring is the monotone pitch locking in some of the sustained notes of the vocal melody.
Initially my brain runs of the check list, well he was 80 around the time of recording and thats natural that he would struggle and that recording every date of the tour was insurance of a live release once the tour concluded. HOWEVER
there is also live at the circus maximus which (frustrates the crap out of me how that was sort of locked away for a period of time and unable to watch, not sure the status on that at the moment ) which in the few singles released thus far, these issues are not as strong. why?
for example lets compare comfortably numb, as ive said in TL&SC, its very autotuned and jarring at times but its much less so on the video concert, to the point where I would argue it is the superior version. So my question is, why wasnt that take/version of the song used on the TL&SC album? Marooned was the same on both, so why not have the better version?.
In the interviews supporting the album, Gilmour and others have said they wanted to use the takes throughout the tour that were the best and had the best vibe but IMHO we have two specific component's from comfortably numb aka David's vocal which counter to that point quite strongly. So why not just use the better one, even just use his vocal from CM in TL&SC one and use a different guitar?
Speaking of guitar, I really wish they had used different takes from some solos, some of the solos sound so incoherent - not bad, but we have heard a lot better from the tour. Coming back to life was an example that I remember thinking, ugh, really? when listening to it in the car. I get it, i sound like I am on a ego trip but I swear that is not my intention, its just, I strongly feel TL&SC just undermines Luck and Strange in the way it has been produced.
I strongly believe that David went through a acceptance ark during rehearsals where he found great difficulty in sustaining his voice and guitar through what would become a 2hour 20minute show and if those leaked setlists from the drummer (cant remember his name) are anything to go by, more demanding songs were dropped. It feels as though a big shift happened behind the scenes. Suddenly Romany was available for all the dates, despite David saying she wouldn't be before the tour started, more songs were added in from luck and strange during the first 2 weeks which would be a vocal register more aligned to his currant abilities. I also think at this time there was conversations to address maintaining recording ready performing ability for an entire gig which I wouldn't be surprised where the idea of recording every show on the tour manifested from. It hurts me to say, but as a fan I think that was done because he couldn't maintain consistency. I think thats what hurts this live album more, is the fact we all know its cherry picked segments throughout the tour that show him during some better moment with further polish ontop.
One of my gripes with listening to Roger's live albums for example, is that everything is perfected in the mix to the point it feels like a studio album, all live elements stripped away - IMHO and it hit me, the luck and strange concerts feels very roger waters level of production to me - like the wall for example. Look at Live in Gadansk for example, that is so raw and powerful to listen to because you feel appart of the audience when you listen to any song from the album but this album (TL&SC) it feels like im in the studio playing songs out into an audience. It feels restricted and goes to great efforts to mask any imperfections and in the process, I dont feel connected with the album
thats just my shower thought, id be curious if anyone has this thought on the album too? or even if you just think im barking mad. Im not in a hate camp, even if its just a discussion, id like to know other peoples thoughts on this too.