Pink Floyd – Chillout Review

At this stage in their artistic cycle, the lack of tours paired with the constant drip of shaky material means Pink Floyd is inching closer to an image as poor as KISS or Yes. Bands which are past their sell-by date and could coast on their glory days after downing tools, fighting and dying over the last four decades. For Pink Floyd though the constant re-releases of The Dark Side of the Moon are simply not enough. From Roger Waters remaking his own works to the remnants of protest songs from leftover members, it is a bonfire of trouble for the band whose legacy will thankfully last on the coattails of Wish You Were Here. EPs like Chillout do not help, though, the equivalent of U2 flailing around and covering their work works.  

Pink Floyd does not cover their own material here, they just fit it together. This is so far away from what fans would expect, it may as well be an intern, or someone not involved at all in the creative process. At the very least they could have added a few faders, and made sure the songs clicked in the right place as is the fine form shown in their best works, but there is no chance of it happening here. A playlist dumped onto Spotify and clanging together songs which are meant to chill the listener out. Nothing but stress or indifference from this one. Chillout is exactly as it sounds, chilled-out riffs and songs from the Pink Floyd backlogs. A fair idea and a nice spin on the compilations of today, but butchered completely.  

Nowhere within this release is a sense of progressing these songs or even attempting to blur them into one another. Opener Marooned marks a nice slice of The Division Bell and the continuity of instrumentals which follow do not quite suit the opening tones. Still, it is all they must toy with. There is no chance of Pink Floyd returning to the studio to ease over a twenty-five-minute EP named Chillout. Throughout this is a sense of lacking budget. It is a project endemic of the Pink Floyd lifespan. Remaster, re-release and revise the songs of old because its members will not and shall not speak to one another. In turn, it leads to some terrible fixtures. These songs are good, but the project is not. 

Chilled out may not be the right descriptor for this Pink Floyd collection, either. The whistling tones it deploys so frequently through The Endless River cuts Things Left Unsaid and Calling feel more twisted and unwelcoming than anything else. Such is the point of the projects at the time and fitting a new meaning into them nearly a decade on from their release feels more like lazy revisionism than it does paying tribute to the calmer tones Pink Floyd allegedly showcased. These are no surprise to those frustrated or unmoved by the frequency of these remasters and mixed adaptations of Pink Floyd material. It is likely just the beginning though, of cashing in on the legacy whenever a birthday worth celebrating rolls around for a decades-spanning collection of exceptional works.