Importance of Rick Wright

Traditionally I have been a Roger fan, but I think I might have overlooked some things. I think that I realized that one of the biggest hurdles that the band faced was loosing Rick Wright, to put it nicely (or Roger telling him to shove it and leave after the Wall, if you're not so nice). I feel this was a big mistake. If you listen to any Floyd after that, it lacks the depth and texture that was added by Wright and his keyboarding. It lost that spacy feel that was so sucessful in their earlier stuff up to maybe his best work in DSoTM. From that point on, with WYWH, Animals and the Wall, it was evident that his contribution had sharply declined. Is it just me or was loosing Rick Wright the first step to the collapse of PF?

I don't really think it was the fact that Wright was actually kicked out of the band that started the collapse of the Floyd. Wright admitted himself that he "wasn't very creative during that period" so whether he was there or not wouldn't have made a huge difference. Perhaps this is why I really don't miss him on "The Final Cut" since what little he would've thrown in is easily covered by Kamen and Bown on piano and organ, respectively. I think the actual key factor to the collapse of Floyd is the fact that Gilmour and Wright were having less and less to contribute to the Floyd at the time, leaving Waters to dominate the songwriting end of things. Gilmour and Wright both recorded solo albums in 1978, but around that time period Roger had composed what was really the better part of 4 albums worth of material (The Wall disc 1, The Wall disc 2, The Final Cut, and the Pro&Cons). So as Wright's songwriting contributions waned, so did the need for him to play anything significantly important on the records, thus leaving Roger as the leader and the collapse of the group as a team effort.

I think that with Wright's keyboard in all the songs made them richer in music and melody. In Comf Numb, WYWH, Saurcerful of Secrets (awsome turn after the psychotic music to the keyboard chords), nearly all of DSotM and alot of other songs aswell are special due to the wonderfully worked keyboard. Thats what made the floyd so good at their music, playing simple riffs on instruments (not in all the songs) and adding up the sounds of all the instruments giving an excelent combination. A perfect example to support this oppinion is the drum solo in One of these Days, where you may find it an amaizing solo because you aren't used to Mason doing that kind of complex drumming.