Stephen Hawking guest vocalist on new Pink Floyd album

NEW YORK, USA – Pink Floyd’s first studio album in two decades will be without estranged ex-member Roger Waters, but one vocalist from the last record is staying on – physicist Stephen Hawking.

Song credits leaked onto the Internet of Pink Floyd’s The Endless River– one of the year’s most eagerly anticipated new albums, out November 7 – list a song with the acclaimed scientist entitled “Talkin’ Hawkin’.”

Hawking, who is paralyzed due to amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, also appeared on the conceptual rock legends’ last album, The Division Bell. On the 1994 album’s song “Keep Talking,” Hawking’s computerized voice begins by saying: “For millions of years, mankind lived just like the animals. Then something happened which unleashed the power of our imagination.”

The song credits for “The Endless River,” earlier reported by the music site Consequence of Sound, also showed that keyboardist Richard Wright wrote or co-wrote 12 of the 18 songs even though he died in 2008.

The album does not include Waters – the driving force behind the classic album “The Wall” during whose recording Wright left the band. Waters quit Pink Floyd in 1985 and has been dismissive of his former bandmates’ subsequent work.

In a recent posting on Facebook, Waters described Pink Floyd as consisting of remaining band members David Gilmour and Nick Mason.

“I have nothing to do with Endless River. Phew! This is not rocket science people, get a grip,” he wrote.  – Rappler.com