Wright wrote the music for Us and Them, easily one of PF's best.
I liked the piano part (the live bit recorded during DSOTM filming was great; I totally learned to play that myself here), but it's one of my least favorite songs on the album due to all that moaning/nonsensical vocals applied to it. I know some people love that. I'm not one of them. I've actually skipped it before and I don't skip ANY other tracks (well sometimes I skip the intro if I'm tight on time and just want to hear
Breathe.
Look, you can easily gauge what contribution Waters made, and what he didn't provide, by listening to his solo albums.
Ever listen to Gilmour's solo albums, particularly the newer ones? Some people like them (I liked his first two albums), but they sound nothing like Pink Floyd. Even AMLOR got shut down by the studio when they presented it to them as sounding "nothing like Pink Floyd" which forced them to redo huge parts of it. No wonder Waters said it sounded like a very good facsimile of Pink Floyd because they were imitating themselves the 2nd time around. I do like Gilmour's first two solo albums, but most of the songs are still very un-Floyd like as well, but there were some gems (There's No Way Out of Here, Short & Sweet, Cruise and Murder come to mind). The truth is Pink Floyd is very much Waters + Gilmour and without BOTH of them, it's just not the same. Admittedly, Waters doesn't often sound much like Floyd either solo (Amused To Death was very close, IMO, but I still liked Radio KAOS and I loved The Final Cut, which was more of a Waters solo album played "by" Pink Floyd so to me so I'm pretty much in the middle of the squabble and don't like taking sides. They both have points to make and they'd both be better off musically speaking working together even if they hate each other doing so!
From what I understand, they weren't always so competitive. I think it came to a head during Animals, but was getting worse during WYWH being recorded (Hell Waters was crying that they didn't beg him to do the vocals on Have A Cigar as his voice was supposedly shredded after doing Shine On's vocals and Gilmour refused to sing it since he said he didn't feel that way about the music industry (and NEVER covered it as his version of Pink Floyd despite it being an awesome song regardless of the lyrics). The feeling I got reading A Saucerful of Secrets by Nicholas Schaffner back in 1992 (available now again after being out of print for some time the last time I looked) is that Roger does indeed write many of the songs that have his name on them, but they're pretty "rough" when he presented many of them and needed some real polishing in many cases. Gilmour is very good as polishing (even turds!) and songs on The Wall wouldn't work as well as they do without Gilmour, which was one of the things he said (He said his fingerprints are all over that album) despite getting only a few co-credits.
Eventually, you ended up with The Final Cut which was "Written by Roger Waters ; Performed by Pink Floyd". From what I read, Waters attitude was "Albums don't grow on trees" and the gang agreed to do that album for that reason (i.e. they had no ideas of their own). Ironically, despite that, it seems Waters was the one that wanted to dissolve Pink Floyd while Gilmour thought it still had life left in it and more importantly, it's more like big band names don't grow on trees. Gilmour saw his own solo albums languish and Waters never got respect as a solo artist until the In The Flesh tours and more importantly, THE INTERNET made his name known that was only known by hard core Pink Floyd fans before that point. Most people can't be bothered to read the liner notes and Pink Floyd was known for pushing the point (during The Wall) that with stadium tours, that could be ANYBODY on stage and the audience wouldn't know the difference and indeed they did not notice on the opening track.
Why the seeds were so bad by the Animals tour is another matter. Even Gilmour can't supposedly recall what he was angry about at the last show, only that it involved Waters doing some control freak thing that had him pissed off and that he said that was the only time he saw Pink Floyd play as an audience member during the last song. But I think Roger taking most of the credit for The Wall definitely had an impact on Gilmour's long term attitude.
Let's face it, some people are control freaks. Relationships break up all the time due to this egotistical issue. I know there are Waters fans and Gilmour fans, but I don't like either one of them at this point. Their music has suffered on their own since they broke up, IMO. They both had some brilliant moments on their own (I loved some songs on Amused To Death and Radio KAOS and I liked most of AMLOR and a few songs on Division Bell. I haven't cared for Gilmour's solo albums since or Waters' last one). Great guitar isn't enough. I need cohesive songs that don't put me to sleep. On An Island sounded "good" but it was sleepy time. Rattle That Lock bored me to death other than the title track. I'm sure others love it, but Pink Floyd hasn't been the same since The Wall and some brilliant guitar moments on The Final Cut. I loved The Final Cut (I listen end to end), but it's definitely more of a Waters album.
Not Now John rocked, however (Fuck it all we've got to get on with the film show! Don't Care what it's about as long as the kids go!) as did the Gilmour solo on the title track, which I think might be the single best point on the album and quite possibly my favorite Gilmour solo (short as it is) outside of
Comfortably Numb.
