You can take a guy out of Floyd, but you can’t take Floyd out of a guy. Each member of Pink Floyd’s solo albums have brought to the fore that particular musician’s strengths, highlighting his contributions to the legendary catalog of the band’s music, always keeping the identifiable, though ineffable, aura of Floyd that always seemed to overshadow its individual members. Even drummer Nick Mason, the most overshadowed member of Floyd, has released two albums that, though obscured by history, reflect his understated, dry, British sense of humor.
Broken China was keyboardist Rick Wright’s second solo album (his third if you count Identity, a collaboration with Dave Harris), and ultimately his last. After being musically reinvigorated by Pink Floyd’s recent Division Bell album and world tour, Wright couldn’t sit on his yacht and do nothing. He was creatively recharged, and this hauntingly beautiful, atmospheric album was evidence. And, it brought out exactly what Rick Wright’s contribution to Pink Floyd had been – atmosphere. Just as Roger Waters’ solo works displayed his lyrical muscle and political vision, as David Gilmour’s albums showcased what had been the musical force behind Waters’ lyrics, as Syd Barrett’s two albums preserved, both sadly and brilliantly, his mental decline but remaining genius, Broken China is a portrait of Wright’s ability to create an atmosphere for the story being told in Floyd’s songs and albums.
The 1980s had been a very rough time for Wright. He had been silently ousted from Pink Floyd by 1981, and efforts to repair a crumbling marriage fell through. The album with Dave Harris went nowhere, Wright calling it “a mistake,” and perhaps his most high-profile musical project otherwise had been the score to a documentary about soccer star Pele. When former bandmates Gilmour and Mason decided to begin recording again as Pink Floyd, Wright was eventually brought on board. His contributions to A Momentary Lapse of Reason were limited, but his performance in the ensuing two hundred-date world tour and live Delicate Sound of Thunder album demonstrated a musician regaining the self-confidence that had been eroded by the band’s bitter in-fighting in the 70s, and by his own personal struggles.
Wright has since stated that the reason he suffered from severe writer’s block, which coincided with Roger Waters’ grasping of the Floyd controls, is that he was depressed. Little did he know his own experience would be invaluable to identifying with the muse of his finest solo piece. The story being
told on Broken China is a woman’s experience with depression. It’s the most Floydian of any of the band’s solo albums, and not just because it follows a specific theme: it’s more the thought that “you can’t take Floyd out of the guy.” Just as, musically, “Money” had sounded like excess, as “Time” had sounded like desperation, as “The Great Gig in the Sky” had sounded like fear, the sounds of Broken China sound like mental distress, in a purely emotional sense rather than the sociopolitical sense of the Waters era. “Money” and “Time” told their stories so poignantly with instruments that even if they hadn’t included cash register and clock sound effects, they’d have sounded like their subjects.
So it is with this album. One can hear a woman groping in the darkness without the sound of stumbling, footsteps, or weeping. Wright’s music does that. Floyd collaborator Anthony Moore proved a perfect fit for Wright’s music when he supplied lyrics for “Wearing the Inside Out” on The Division Bell – which remain among Pink Floyd’s best post-Waters lyrics. Moore had worked with Floyd on A Momentary Lapse of Reason as well, and continues to do so occasionally into the twenty-first century with Gilmour. His words can be as dark and melancholy, as filled with haunts and madness, as they can be uplifting and hopeful. What Waters’ lyrics had been to a world view, Anthony Moore’s words are to a personal view, to sheer emotion. Rick Wright must have been in the mood to match the emotion of those lyrics, as in two particular cases, he gives two vocal performances more thrilling and chilling than any turn at the mic with Floyd: “Far From the Harbour Wall” is devastating, while the penultimate “Along the Shoreline” finds Wright pouring everything he has into his modest voice, waves of hope cascading to form a powerhouse vocal from a man not remembered for such eye-widening performances.
Softer pieces like “Hidden Fear” and “Blue Room in Venice” tug at one’s heart as Wright’s own vocal cords seemingly break as he sings them. The keyboardist himself was always critical of his own voice – of his own work, period – though Pink Floyd songs like “Stay” and “Summer ‘68” (the latter being the closest the group ever came to sounding like the Beatles), and the opinion and love of fans, belie his reservations. But tough on himself or not, Wright was indeed known more for his musical contributions rather than his singing, and his work here molds an alluringly dark portrait of his subject; instrumentals like “Unfair Ground,” “Satellite,” and the introductory “Breaking Water” are as articulate in telling this broken woman’s story as Anthony Moore’s gripping lyrics. Guest Sinead O’Connor sings lead on two pivotal songs, “Reaching For the Rail” and the closing “Breakthrough,” the latter of which David Gilmour says he wished had been written in time for inclusion on The Division Bell. On some of his early 2000s solo shows, Gilmour would insist on Wright having a spotlight to perform the song.
Rick Wright died of cancer in 2008, crushing what very scant hope remained of a reunion album or tour of the celebrated four-man Floyd. Even if that was unlikely to happen in the first place, it’s still a shame that Wright never completed another solo album. He would, fortunately, form a more intimate partnership with Gilmour than when they were in Floyd together, and he continued to perform – and even sing – until his death. When he passed, even Roger Waters, who had by then made amends with his former bandmates, stated that with all the arguments and debates of “who was Pink Floyd” or who was the most important, Rick Wright’s unique, surreal playing were sometimes overlooked in the fury, and that his contributions cannot be underestimated.
He was as important to the sound of Pink Floyd as the prism on the cover of Dark Side of the Moon was as important to their imagery and lore. Fortunately, we have Broken China as a memento of a talented, complicated musician weaving with his talent a story as sad as the eyes of the man himself.
from the book Rocktology Exam: Classic Rock's Hidden Gems
The 1980s had been a very rough time for Wright. He had been silently ousted from Pink Floyd by 1981, and efforts to repair a crumbling marriage fell through. The album with Dave Harris went nowhere, Wright calling it “a mistake,” and perhaps his most high-profile musical project otherwise had been the score to a documentary about soccer star Pele. When former bandmates Gilmour and Mason decided to begin recording again as Pink Floyd, Wright was eventually brought on board. His contributions to A Momentary Lapse of Reason were limited, but his performance in the ensuing two hundred-date world tour and live Delicate Sound of Thunder album demonstrated a musician regaining the self-confidence that had been eroded by the band’s bitter in-fighting in the 70s, and by his own personal struggles.
Wright has since stated that the reason he suffered from severe writer’s block, which coincided with Roger Waters’ grasping of the Floyd controls, is that he was depressed. Little did he know his own experience would be invaluable to identifying with the muse of his finest solo piece. The story being
told on Broken China is a woman’s experience with depression. It’s the most Floydian of any of the band’s solo albums, and not just because it follows a specific theme: it’s more the thought that “you can’t take Floyd out of the guy.” Just as, musically, “Money” had sounded like excess, as “Time” had sounded like desperation, as “The Great Gig in the Sky” had sounded like fear, the sounds of Broken China sound like mental distress, in a purely emotional sense rather than the sociopolitical sense of the Waters era. “Money” and “Time” told their stories so poignantly with instruments that even if they hadn’t included cash register and clock sound effects, they’d have sounded like their subjects.
So it is with this album. One can hear a woman groping in the darkness without the sound of stumbling, footsteps, or weeping. Wright’s music does that. Floyd collaborator Anthony Moore proved a perfect fit for Wright’s music when he supplied lyrics for “Wearing the Inside Out” on The Division Bell – which remain among Pink Floyd’s best post-Waters lyrics. Moore had worked with Floyd on A Momentary Lapse of Reason as well, and continues to do so occasionally into the twenty-first century with Gilmour. His words can be as dark and melancholy, as filled with haunts and madness, as they can be uplifting and hopeful. What Waters’ lyrics had been to a world view, Anthony Moore’s words are to a personal view, to sheer emotion. Rick Wright must have been in the mood to match the emotion of those lyrics, as in two particular cases, he gives two vocal performances more thrilling and chilling than any turn at the mic with Floyd: “Far From the Harbour Wall” is devastating, while the penultimate “Along the Shoreline” finds Wright pouring everything he has into his modest voice, waves of hope cascading to form a powerhouse vocal from a man not remembered for such eye-widening performances.
Softer pieces like “Hidden Fear” and “Blue Room in Venice” tug at one’s heart as Wright’s own vocal cords seemingly break as he sings them. The keyboardist himself was always critical of his own voice – of his own work, period – though Pink Floyd songs like “Stay” and “Summer ‘68” (the latter being the closest the group ever came to sounding like the Beatles), and the opinion and love of fans, belie his reservations. But tough on himself or not, Wright was indeed known more for his musical contributions rather than his singing, and his work here molds an alluringly dark portrait of his subject; instrumentals like “Unfair Ground,” “Satellite,” and the introductory “Breaking Water” are as articulate in telling this broken woman’s story as Anthony Moore’s gripping lyrics. Guest Sinead O’Connor sings lead on two pivotal songs, “Reaching For the Rail” and the closing “Breakthrough,” the latter of which David Gilmour says he wished had been written in time for inclusion on The Division Bell. On some of his early 2000s solo shows, Gilmour would insist on Wright having a spotlight to perform the song.
Rick Wright died of cancer in 2008, crushing what very scant hope remained of a reunion album or tour of the celebrated four-man Floyd. Even if that was unlikely to happen in the first place, it’s still a shame that Wright never completed another solo album. He would, fortunately, form a more intimate partnership with Gilmour than when they were in Floyd together, and he continued to perform – and even sing – until his death. When he passed, even Roger Waters, who had by then made amends with his former bandmates, stated that with all the arguments and debates of “who was Pink Floyd” or who was the most important, Rick Wright’s unique, surreal playing were sometimes overlooked in the fury, and that his contributions cannot be underestimated.
He was as important to the sound of Pink Floyd as the prism on the cover of Dark Side of the Moon was as important to their imagery and lore. Fortunately, we have Broken China as a memento of a talented, complicated musician weaving with his talent a story as sad as the eyes of the man himself.
from the book Rocktology Exam: Classic Rock's Hidden Gems
