http://www.chron.com/CDA/archives/archive.mpl?id=1994_1194347
chron
Houston Chronicle Archives
`Division Bell' rings like Floyd, minus the edge
RICK MITCHELL Staff
MON 04/04/1994
HOUSTON CHRONICLE
The rock world has been turned on its ear in the seven years since Pink Floyd last released an album of new material.
Then again, Pink Floyd - a British band of geezers conceived in the psychedelic '60s and nurtured in the progressive-rock '70s - was already something of an anachronism when A Momentary Lapse of Reason was released in 1987. That album went on to sell more than 2 million copies.
Come to think of it, Floyd's magnum opus, Dark Side of the Moon, still sells about a million copies a year worldwide more than 20 years after its release.
So, however tempting it might be, it would be unwise to dismiss The Division Bell - due out Tuesday on Columbia Records - as irrelevant. There is a large segment of the rock audience for whom the "alternative" is still just that, and bands such as Floyd represent the proud remnants of the prog-rock mainstream.
For proof, just listen to Houston's so-called album-rock radio stations, which still play Dark Side of the Moon and/or The Wall on a daily basis.
Or ask any of the 40,000-plus fans who will be at Rice Stadium Tuesday night for the third date on Floyd's American tour in support of The Division Bell.
"What do you want from me?" Gilmour asks grumpily on the album's introductory track. "Do you think I know something you don't know?"
