I’m going to tell you some of the greatest complete albums ever created by a rock group. Read carefully:
Wish You Were Here
Dark Side of the Moon
Animals
The Wall
What kind of group has such a great run where they can put out entire albums that show no weakness? I mean, c’mon – even your favorite group on their best album threw some clunkers in the mix.
Pink Floyd created entire concepts that were strong start to finish [I curse Amazon for removing all parts of “Shine on You Crazy Diamond” from Wish You Were Here on their Prime streaming service]. But no one can keep it up indefinitely, and when Roger Waters left the group, they were never the same. It’s not that David Gilmour couldn’t carry it after that. And Waters’ fade wasn’t his fault. Both of them on their own are quite talented. But together? Unbeatable.
The thing is, I’d read somewhere that the problem wasn’t that Waters and Gilmour were some kind of dynamic duo of songwriters that just clicked to make great music. On the contrary, they really didn’t get along, and could never have been considered “friends.” But that’s just the thing: because of this they were never afraid to tell the other that their song sucked.
And that’s where it matters. Sometimes people need to hear when they’re full of crap from someone they know is probably right – even if it’s a begrudging knowledge.
We all need to hear opposing views from people we respect. We need them so we can refine our own. We need to be able to defend our positions, but we also need to be open to the truths we are being told. We need to be able to tell the difference between “facts” and “assertions” – both our own and those of the ones we are debating.
And most of all, we need to acknowledge that if we find ourselves “winning” every battle, we might not be engaging the best the opponent has to offer.
With that in mind, what was I saying at the beginning of this post…?
