The Departed Sountrack

The Later Years 1987-2019 is an explicit sequel to The Early Years 1965-1972, the 2016 box set that rounded up nearly all the loose ends and detours from the first era of Pink Floyd, the fearless period when they were figuring out what the band could do. The Later Years covers a different time, when their most pressing challenge was demonstrating that they could thrive artistically and commercially without the presence of Roger Waters, the bassist/songwriter who charted Floyd's direction between 1973's Dark Side of the Moon and 1983's The Final Cut. In the parlance of these deluxe box sets, that decade amounts to "The Middle Years," a period far more prolific than 1987-2019, when the group released just two studio albums along with two live albums and a posthumous project that didn't arrive until 2014, by which time the group had largely been inactive for 20 years…

Scottish-born singer Jimmy Somerville became a surprise success in the mid-'80s. Instead of being Duran Duran-cute, Jimmy Somerville looked like the average boy next door. Instead of belting out his musical repertoire with a self-conscious urgency to prove himself as a singer (like Rick Astley or George Michael), Somerville possessed a dramatic, piercing falsetto that made the Associates' Billy Mackenzie sound like Tom Waits. But what really made Jimmy Somerville distinctive was his openness about his sexuality. The 1980s was the decade of androgyny, with artists like Annie Lennox, Boy George, and Poison emulating the gender-bending approach of 1970s-era David Bowie. Other performers such as Morrissey and the aforementioned George Michael kept their fans guessing about their sexual orientation.