The Endless River is the fifteenth and finalstudio album by the English rock bandPink Floyd, released in November 2014 byParlophone Records in Europe andColumbia Records in the rest of the world. It was the third Pink Floyd album recorded under the leadership of the guitarist,David Gilmour, after the departure of former bassist,Roger Waters, and the first following the death of keyboardist,Richard Wright, in 2008, who appears posthumously.
The Endless River was promoted with the "Louder than Words" single and artwork installations in cities around the world. It became the most pre-ordered album of all time onAmazon UK and debuted at number one in several countries. The vinyl edition was the fastest-selling UK vinyl release since 1997. The album received mixed reviews: some critics praised the nostalgic mood, while others found it unambitious or meandering.
The Endless River was created as a tribute to Pink Floyd founding memberRick Wright, who died in 2008.
The Endless River is based on music recorded during the sessions for Pink Floyd's previous studio album,The Division Bell (1994).The Division Bell was recorded in 1993 and 1994 inBritannia Row Studios in London, and on theAstoria boat studio, belonging to guitaristDavid Gilmour.[5] Pink Floyd recorded hours of music during the sessions;[6] the engineerAndy Jackson edited it into an hour-longambient composition tentatively titledThe Big Spliff,[5] but the band did not release it.[7]
DrummerNick Mason (left) and guitaristDavid Gilmour (right) took up the project in 2013, intending to create "a 21st-century Pink Floyd album".
KeyboardistRichard Wright died of cancer on 15 September 2008.[8] In 2013, Gilmour and drummerNick Mason decided to revisit the unusedDivision Bell recordings to make a new album, re–recording parts, adding new ones, and using modern studio technology.[9] Gilmour said: "With Rick gone, and with him the chance of ever doing it again, it feels right that these revisited and reworked tracks should be made available as part of our repertoire."[9] Only a small part ofThe Big Spliff was used.[10] Two tracks fromThe Big Spliff are included on the deluxe version of the album as bonus tracks.
Gilmour asked guitarist and producerPhil Manzanera, who co-produced his 2006 solo albumOn an Island, to work on the material. Manzanera, Jackson and engineer Damon Iddins spent six weeks assembling four 14-minute pieces. Gilmour gave two pieces to producerYouth, who added guitar and bass parts. In November 2013, Gilmour led sessions with Manzanera, Youth and Jackson to record material with Mason, saxophonistGilad Atzmon and bassistGuy Pratt.[5] Vocalists includingDurga McBroom recorded backing vocals, and Gilmour recorded lead vocals on "Louder than Words",[11] with lyrics by his wife, authorPolly Samson.[12] Bassist and songwriterRoger Waters, who left Pink Floyd in 1985, was not involved.[13]
Gilmour saidThe Endless River would be Pink Floyd's last album, saying: "I think we have successfully commandeered the best of what there is ... It's a shame, but this is the end."[17] Mason said it would likely be the last Pink Floyd album.[18] In 2024, Gilmour said thatThe Endless River was not originally intended as "a properly paid-for Pink Floyd record" but that he had been "bullied by the record company".[19]
The Endless River comprises four pieces, which form a continuous flow of mostlyambient andinstrumental music.[20] Gilmour said: "Unapologetically, this is for the generation that wants to put its headphones on, lie in a beanbag, or whatever, and get off on a piece of music for an extended period of time. You could say it's not for the iTunes, downloading-individual-tracks generation."[21] Mason described the album as a tribute to Wright: "I think this record is a good way of recognising a lot of what he does and how his playing was at the heart of the Pink Floyd sound. Listening back to the sessions, it really brought home to me what a special player he was."[9]
"Louder than Words" is the only track with a lead vocal.[22] Samson wrote the lyrics after observing the band's interaction during the rehearsals for their 2005Live 8 reunion, their first performance with Waters in over 24 years. She said: "What struck me was, they never spoke ... It’s not hostile, they just don’t speak. And then they step onto a stage and musically that communication is extraordinary."[23] The album title is taken from a lyric on the last track ofThe Division Bell, "High Hopes": "The water flowing / The endless river / For ever and ever." Gilmour said it suggested a continuum between the records.[24]
The Endless Rivercover art depicts a young man punting a Thamesskiff across a sea of clouds towards the sun.[25][26]After the death of longtime Pink Floyd artistStorm Thorgerson in 2013,[27] Pink Floyd collaborated withAubrey Powell, co-founder of Thorgerson's design companyHipgnosis.[28] Powell discovered 18-year-old Egyptian artistAhmed Emad Eldin and asked to use the concept from his pieceBeyond the Sky forThe Endless River.[29] Eldin was a Pink Floyd fan and accepted enthusiastically.[30] Powell felt Ahmed's concept had "an instant Floydian resonance", and described it as "enigmatic and open to interpretation".[31] The final cover is a recreation of Eldin's work by London design firmStylorouge.[32] Powell felt that the cover summed up the title and music, and was appropriate for the recording on the Thames.[25]
The Endless Riverwas also released in boxed DVD and Blu-ray "deluxe" editions, containing a 24-page hardback book, postcards, and a bonus disc of three additional tracks and six music videos.[12] The DVD edition includes the album inDolby Digital andDTS5.1 surround sound, plus a 48 kHz /24 bit stereo version. The Blu-ray has DTS Master Audio andPCM, 96/24 5.1 surround and a PCM stereo 96/24 version.[12]
Several art installations, such as this one inSouth Bank,London, were placed around the world in promotion ofThe Endless River.
Pink Floyd were affected by thesale of EMI to theUniversal Music Group, which lasted from 2011 to 2013. TheEuropean Commission and theFederal Trade Commission approved the sale with conditions, including the sale of certain EMI assets.[33] Pink Floyd, along with many other bands under theEMI roster, were transferred to different labels during the process. TheParlophone Label Group was formed underParlophone as one of many assets to be sold off by Universal following the acquisition of EMI, with Pink Floyd transferred to the Parlophone Label Group during the sale.[34] TheWarner Music Group, in 2013, struck a deal with Universal to buy the Parlophone Label Group from EMI, acquiring publishing rights to Pink Floyd's back catalog and future releases in the process.[35][36]
In atweet on 5 July 2014, Samson released the album title and a projected release window of October 2014[37] to pre-empt a tabloid newspaper report.[5] The announcement was followed by backing vocalistDurga McBroom posting a photo of her alongside Gilmour in the recording studio.[38] Details aboutThe Endless River were announced on Pink Floyd's website on 7 July.[39]
Pink Floyd and Parlophone unveiledThe Endless River on 22 September 2014, including the release date, artwork and track listing, accompanied by a promotional website, ahyperstitial for the Pink Floyd website.[40] The site featured anartist's statement, photographs from theDivision Bell sessions, pre-order details and twoteasers, one featuring a 30-second snippet of "It's What We Do", and a television advertisement, featuring the album's geometric-based artwork.[41][42]Pre-orders on physical and digital formats started the same day.[43][44] Prominent installations of the album's artwork were placed around the world, including a four-sided 8m tallbillboard placed inSouth Bank,London,[26][45] and large-scale poster advertisements in cities such as Berlin, Paris, Los Angeles, Milan, New York and Sydney.[46][47]
The album's only single, "Louder than Words", premiered onChris Evans' breakfast show onBBC Radio 2 as a shortenedradio edit. Gilmour and Mason appeared in an interview forBBC Radio 6 Music to promote the album and to discuss Wright's contributions. The track "Allons-y (1)" was made available to download from theiTunes Store on 4 November 2014. In the week before release,The Endless River became the most pre-ordered album inAmazon UK's history;[48] the following week, the record was broken byIII byTake That.[49] There was noEndless River tour, as Gilmour said it was impossible without Wright.[50][51]
On thereview aggregator siteMetacritic,The Endless River has a score of 58 based on 24 reviews, indicating "mixed or average reviews".[53]
Ludovic Hunter-Tilney of theFinancial Timespraised the nostalgic "Floydian" sound, reminiscent of Pink Floyd's work prior toThe Wall (1979), and wrote: "How fitting that a band so accustomed to loss should close their account with an engrossing elegy to their own past."[63] Cameron Cooper ofThe Music gave the album three and a half out of five, writing that it felt "less like a swansong and more like a final homage ... the lack of vocals gives the music more freedom, allowing it to speak for itself".[64] InThe Guardian,Alexis Petridis described it as "not a new album from an extant band, but an echo from the past – or a last, warm but slightly awkward group hug ... on those terms, it works just fine". He praised the lead single and final track "Louder than Words" as "stately, poignant and open-hearted".[54] InRolling Stone,David Fricke wrote:"Wright was the steady, binding majesty in the Floyd's explorations. This album is an unexpected, welcome epitaph."[61]The Observer wrote that the album is "an understated affair but unmistakably the Floyd ... a pretty good way to call it a day."[58]
J.C. Maçek III ofPopMatters wrote: "Without the vocals, something is very clearly missing and the listener is left wanting more. While this makes for a good album,The Endless River is not quite fitting to serve as the final album of the greatest rock band of their kind, to say nothing of one of the greatest rock bands of any kind ever to perform."[60] Andy Gill ofThe Independent called it "just aimless jamming, one long thread of Dave Gilmour's guitar against Rick Wright's pastel keyboards and Nick Mason's tentative percussion, with nary a melody of any distinction alighted upon for the duration .... without the sparking creativity of a Syd or Roger, all that's left is ghastly faux-psychedelic dinner-party muzak."[55] TheNME wrote thatThe Endless River was "a collection of spruced-up outtakes ... On those limited terms it works well enough, and it's interesting from a certain geeky perspective, but it's never quite as satisfying or substantial as you want it to be."[57]Pitchfork wrote thatThe Endless River "is quintessentially and self-consciously Pink Floyd, for better or for worse ... it proves to be one of the few Pink Floyd releases that sounds like a step backwards, with nothing new to say and no new frontiers to explore."[59] Mikael Wood of theLos Angeles Times called it "so excruciatingly dull (even by Pink Floyd's often-dull standards) that the band's name on the cover feels like a straight-up bait-and-switch".[65]
In the week before its release,The Endless River displacedFourbyOne Direction as the most pre-ordered album of all time onAmazon UK.[66] It debuted at number one on theUK Albums Chart, with sales totaling 139,351 the third highest opening sales week of 2014,[67] making it Pink Floyd's sixth UK number one.[68][69] As of 27 November 2014, the vinyl edition had sold 6,000 copies, making it the fastest-selling UK vinyl release of 2014 and the fastest-selling since 1997.[70] The album also debuted at number one in several other countries, including France, Germany, Portugal, Ireland, the Netherlands, Belgium, New Zealand,[71] and Canada.[72] In the US, it debuted at number 3 on theBillboard 200 with 170,000 copies sold in its first week;[73] by January 2015, it had sold 355,000 copies there.[74] Worldwide,The Endless River sold over 2.5 million copies in 2014.[75] Tracks from the album have been downloaded/viewed a total of over two hundred million times onSpotify, the top track beingThings Left Unsaid with over 20 million plays.[76]
* Sales figures based on certification alone. ^ Shipments figures based on certification alone. ‡ Sales+streaming figures based on certification alone.
Ian Emes, a British artist and film director, and Pink Floyd's original animator, created a film usingThe Endless River music that was released in 2019.[172]
^"Top Stranih [Top Foreign]" (in Croatian). Top Foreign Albums. Hrvatska diskografska udruga. Retrieved 15 November 2014.
^"Czech Albums – Top 100".ČNS IFPI.Note: On the chart page, select46.Týden 2014 on the field besides the words "CZ – ALBUMS – TOP 100" to retrieve the correct chart. Retrieved 18 November 2014.
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