The mighty Nyman's 60th birthday has been marked by six remastered re-releases. One, Decay Music, was produced by Brian Eno in 1976 and has never been available on CD before. Eno's written sleevenotes. It was one of the first significant contributions to 'minimalism', a word which Nyman, writing in The Spectator in the late '60s, was the first to apply to music. After mastering this means of expression, Nyman decided: "I don't believe that the best film scores are the ones you don't notice. I refuse to provide just background.
Best known for their late-'60s hit "Only One Woman" and its identically arranged follow-up "The Walls Fall Down", the Marbles were driven by the sheet metal-bending larynx of Graham Bonnet and the prolific writing of the Gibb brothers, who are responsible for half of the tracks featured here.
The latest in the excellent Classic Albums series turns to the Floyd's masterpiece—and given such dubious contenders as Meat Loaf and Judas Priest have already featured, the surprise is that it's taken this long. The hour-plus documentary follows the familiar mix of archive footage (ranging back to the early days with Syd Barrett) and current interviews, in which David Gilmour in particular comes across as hugely entertaining. And what makes it a classic album?
