Dotoar

Only one vote for "Ummagumma"? God, I'm special! No seriously, it's more or less impossible to single out one 'greatest' from the Floyds. There are several candidates, of course, but each and everyone of them has its own flaws. "Piper" is too sloppy and unfocused in places, "Atom heart mother" is mainly carried by the title track and little more, "DSOTM" is too generic (and grossly overrated), "WYWH" is let down by too much sax noodling and the half-spoken "Have a cigar", "The wall" is plainly dull and "Meddle" and "Animals", well, those two actually come close to Floydish perfection. The former is however marred by the shorter tracks and the latter, however good in itself, is not really innovative and innovation is one main criterion when it comes to the greatness of Floyd.

The two forgotten soundtrack albums however, they definitely deserve mentioning even if the songs themselves aren't particularly innovative either but some of the tracks ("Green is the colour", "Cymbaline", "Wot's, uh, the deal" etc.) are among the best Floyd ever did. So all in all, I think that "Ummagumma" sort of summarizes all the good sides of their experimentation, and of course it's the first side I'm mainly referring to here. The versions of "Saucerful" and "Eugene" may or may not be the best Floyd tracks ever.

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