AWmusic

Here are this week’s posts:
Jess wrote a tribute to Pink Floyd’s Rick Wright.

Nancy did one mother fucking long post. Covering some key concerts happening this fall in the T-dot.

Kojo spread the word on Amanda Davids a Canadian soul artist.

Christian reviewed the not-yet released on this part of the world, Glasvegas’ self-titled disc.

I also sucked up the courage to listen to MGMT’s Oracular Spectacular.

The National’s Virginia EP is solid. At least I thought the Pitchfork review was not cool.

Joe reviewed Ray Garrison’s EP.

Adam reviewed Toronto ska/reggar band Rebel Emergency‘s EP.

I just found out about Siberian’s break up last week and wrote on my sadness.

I shared my input on the critically acclaimed You & Me by The Walkmen.

We Landed On The Moon are an upcoming band with a frontwoman who sounds a great deal like Jenny Lewis.

Ghalib covered rica-review/”>The Wiper’s Youth of America. Ghalib also proves that he likes to go out a ton with another concert review.

News around the blogosphere:
Pitchfork dropped a 1.6 on The Airborne Toxic Event. The band apparently didn’t like that. One thing for sure though, it caused a lot of discussion between bloggers… because TATE’s open letter was sent through their PR firm (Big Hassle) in an effort to make the review a publicity stunt (it worked). I didn’t care before, I don’t care now.

I guess I’m done…

So you might’ve heard by now that Richard Wright of Pink Floyd passed away this past Monday. He died at 65 to an undisclosed cancer. I think he was one of the most under-appreciated and misunderstood members of Pink Floyd. Wright, one of the founding members of Pink Floyd, primarily played the piano/keyboard/synths, but also did a bit of vocals and contributed to the composition of lots of Pink Floyd goodies. It’s said that Wright was the crucial element that gave Pink Floyd their psychedelic sound, which can totally be attested to through the successes of the albums he contributed to greatly. Incidentally, most of my favourite tracks by Pink Floyd were co-written by Wright.

Wright had an immense role in a lot of the albums that had a lot of synthesizer/keyboard focus, such as The Dark Side of the Moon (1973) and Wish You Were Here (1975). He was the genius behind “The Great Gig in the Sky,” “Us and Them,” and “See Saw,” just to name a few, and was a huge contributor to the epic 9-part “Shine On” splendor on Wish You Were Here. Both of these albums were critical successes (two of the five that topped charts, I believe).

A lot of tension in the band occurred after the huge success of The Dark Side of the Moon, leaving Wright subsequently getting kicked out of the band by Roger Waters during the recording of The Wall (1979). This was not made publicly known until it was noticed he was not credited in The Final Cut, because Wright still played live with the rest of the band as a paid hire. Wright officially rejoined the band after Waters left, just in time to contribute to the release of the last Pink Floyd album, The Division Bell, in 1994.

Wright also released two solo albums in 1978 (Wet Dream) and 1996 (Broken China), but they were practically unnoticed by the mainstream. Both were progressive rock albums that had a similar feel to the Pink Floyd sound.

Hopefully this post will do some justice to Richard Wright and the greatness he was to the band and the music industry in general. He was always known as a very modest, unassuming individual whose sensitivity conveyed his brilliant musicianship.

I thought it would be nice to put up the one song Rick will probably be best remembered by, so enjoy.

Pink Floyd – The Great Gig in the Sky