had been launching increasingly elaborate stage shows throughout the '70s, but the touring production of The Wall, featuring a construction of an actual wall during the band's performance, was the most excessive yet. In the 1980s, the group began to unravel. Each of the four had done some side and solo projects in the past; more troublingly, Waters was asserting control of the band's musical and lyrical identity. That wouldn't have been such a problem had The Final Cut not been such an unimpressive effort, with little of the electronic innovation so typical of their previous work. Shortly after its release, the band split up--for a while. In 1986, Waters sued Gilmour and Mason to dissolve the group's partnership (Wright had lost full membership status entirely), but Waters lost, leaving a Roger-less Pink Floyd to get a Top Five album with Momentary Lapse of Reason in 1987. In an irony that was nothing less than cosmic, about 20 years after Pink Floyd shed its original leader to resume its career with great commercial success, they would do the same again to his successor. Waters released ambitious solo albums to nothing more than moderate sales and attention, while he watched his former colleagues (with Wright back in tow) rescale the charts. Pink Floyd still possesses a huge fan base, but there's little that's noteworthy about their post-Waters output. They know their formula, they can execute it on a grand scale, and they can count on millions of customers (many of them unborn when Dark Side of the Moon came out, and unaware that Syd Barrett was ever a member) to buy their records and see their sporadic tours, but they will never regain the musical genius they once had, both with Barrett and with Waters. One doesn’t just listen to Pink Floyd, he or she experiences it....
