Published by La Mascara, October 1998
The
range of non-English language books on Pink Floyd is quite a bouyant
one, and here's a French title to tickle your fancy. And for those of
you who struggle with the language, the visual side of things might
attract...
Published towards the end of
1998, this large format (around A4/letter size), eighty page tome has a
similar look to Miles' classic book. The rear of the book welcomes you
to "the history of the big 'space rock' machine" - which is a shame as
this is exactly what the band have been at pains to point out for many
years, is NOT what they are about! The book takes things right up until
the release of Richard Wright's album Broken China in 1996. Written by
an Italian, and translated into French, colour and black & white
photos predominate making it very accessible to non-French speakers.
As an added incentive(?) there is
a free poster with this new (reprinted in 2003) edition, featuring the
cover picture without the box-out extra shots. I'm sure that this will
interest some people...
As is typical for books from the
home of the Eiffel Tower, there are a selection of nice, unusual
photos, many of which have not been seen elsewhere. It seems that
French picture archives are a goldmine of live and studio shots - the
reasons for this over other countries archives is not clear. Anyway, it
always makes exploring French Floyd books such fun!
In this instance, the sixties
shots are. on the whole, common ones, but there are some new seventies
pictures, including Wall show pictures, and a nice, full page Gilmour
from what looks like Crystal Palace, May 1971. There's also quite a few
from the 1984 Gilmour and Waters tours, again not seen elsewhere, mixed
in with the more common "press release" style pictures. Finally, a
selection of fairly dull stock shots from 1987, 1988, and 1994.
The text uses a lot of interview
comments throughout to advance the story, and also features a selection
of song lyrics towards the back of the book. The lyrics include some
little errors though and some strange songs are selected (for example,
One Slip and Not Now John).
There's a full discography with
track listings at the end of the book, which includes many of the
collaboration projects, and even some bootlegs! These were presumably
from the author's collection... some unusual titles included and some
"classic" boots are missing from the list. Diverting but not overly
useful or essential.
Like a French version of Miles,
but a lot less date driven, the book is a worthwhile addition to the
collection particularly for the pictures - not so much for the text and
data included.
The book is currently available from Amazon by following this special link.
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