Roger Waters

[Kara Zor El]

Always been a big fan of Roger Waters. Any others out there? His writing with Floyd gave them a stinging edge that worked well with Gilmour and wrights melodic work.
His solo albums are some of the best produced albums in the world. particuly Amused to Death.

I'm dieing for something new. The Operah was good but a diiferent genre, to my usual tastes.

I can't think of another writer and musician and singer who is anything like him.

He also garners a lot of hate.

Favourite solo songs by him include.
Every Strangers Eyes. Who Needs Information. Towers of faith. What God Wants Part 2. It's a Miricle. Amused to Death. Sea Shell And Stone. Breathe. Chain Of Life

But I love them all.

[P-Man]

I've become a huge Pink Floyd fan, but I've been afraid to venture to Waters or Gilmours solo works. They make such a good team I've been hesitant to see what they can do alone. I haven't even bought the Final Cut or the Water-less later Floyd albums because I love the team so much.

Would anyone mind describing what Waters solo albums sound like?

[Kara Zor El]

They sound very Pink Floyd but the harder edge of Floyd. Pros and cons of Hitchhiking is similar to The Wall. As is Final Cut. Radio Kaos is his weakest solo Album but it's still good. Sounds the least like Floyd. Amused to Death is pure genius. Very moving and again very dark Floyd. Some of the best lyrics ever.They are all concept albums.

Gilmore's first two solo albums aren't up to much. The second one, About Face has some great moments but his recent On an Island is very Pink Floyd sounding and better than his Floyd without Waters wo rk.

[Kara Zor El]

I haven't even bought the Final Cut or the Water-less later Floyd albums because I love the team so much.


As for not buying the Final Cut. It does sound more like a Roger waters album but is probably the most moving album I've ever heard. Brought me to tears many times. Rick Wright isn't on the album, but he didn't contribute any material to Animals or The Wall and he hardly actually played a chord on The wall. So Pink Floyd hadn't been working as a three way team since Wish You Were Here anyway.

[P-Man]

As for not buying the Final Cut. It does sound more like a Roger waters album but is probably the most moving album I've ever heard. Brought me to tears many times. Rick Wright isn't on the album, but he didn't contribute any material to Animals or The Wall and he hardly actually played a chord on The wall. So Pink Floyd hadn't been working as a three way team since Wish You Were Here anyway.

The thing about The Final Cut is that even though Gilmour played on the album, that's all he did. I know his song writing contributions to The Wall were limited, but those few contributions really helped the album. On the Final Cut Gilmour showed up at the studio, played the stuff Roger had written, and then that was that.

I do think I'll finally buy the album though. They have it at various Best Buy stores for something like $13, so why not?

[Kara Zor El]

The thing about The Final Cut is that even though Gilmour played on the album, that's all he did. I know his song writing contributions to The Wall were limited, but those few contributions really helped the album. On the Final Cut Gilmour showed up at the studio, played the stuff Roger had written, and then that was that.

I do think I'll finally buy the album though. They have it at various Best Buy stores for something like $13, so why not?

That's true what you say but it's still a very powerful album. If you get it post back here and tell me what you think.

[rick]

Radio Kaos is his weakest solo Album but it's still good.


I so completely disagree with you here.

Radio Kaos is easily my favorite of Rogers solo work, it is just so very different from his Pink Floyd work but is still quite hypnotic and very solid lyrically. And better yet, it skips the huge dose of self-pity that hurts so much of Waters work.

Pros & Cons is just great, and so is Amused to Death, but to this day, I can’t stomach the so-called Pink Floyd album, Final Cut.

It is just loathsomely bad.

[Kara Zor El]

I so completely disagree with you here.

Radio Kaos is easily my favorite of Rogers solo work, it is just so very different from his Pink Floyd work but is still quite hypnotic and very solid lyrically. And better yet, it skips the huge dose of self-pity that hurts so much of Waters work.

Pros & Cons is just great, and so is Amused to Death, but to this day, I can’t stomach the so-called Pink Floyd album, Final Cut.

It is just loathsomely bad.

It's all about taste.

However Roger Waters himself is not a fan of Radio Kaos, he didn't play any of it on recent tours and has gone on record saying he doesn't like the production.

But that's him and you like it and I like it too. I've listen to Kaos too many times to mention and saw it live in 86, I've got the early tracks that never made it onto the album. I just think it's the weaker of them but I still love it.

I like artists who delve into their own misery and Roger's the king of that.

[Sanagi]

The problem with The Final Cut is a lack of actual music. About half of it verges on spoken word album, and the only real rock song feels out of place on the album. I find Amused to Death to be preferable. I like it quite a bit, although I skip the song with Don Henley. Rough, aging rocker voices in duet... Not that pleasant. Anyways, nitpicking aside, it's a good album and the music doesn't feel tacked on like on The Final Cut.

[Ilash]

Ah, Roger Waters. Now here's a guy that I'm pretty ambivilent about. It's worth mentioning that any statements I make, I make without having heard either the Final Cut or any of his solo stuff.

First, he's an OK bass player. I'm no expert but he doesn't strike me as being in the class of the truly great bass guitar players - and placed next to some of his prog-rock contemporaries, he pales badly in comparison. He also has a fairly ugly singing voice that only really works as a counterpoint to Gilmore's ever-pleasant vocals.

As for his songwriting, I think he only really works when he's balanced out by Gilmore (and the others in the band). The more he took control of the band, the more wary I become of their output. The Wall is the ultimate example of this. It does have some damned fine songs but ultimately it's an album that showcases his problems all too well. Melodically, it's a major step down from their previous albums (the second half especially), leaving the focus squarely on the lyrics - which is a pity as I don't rate his lyrics much at all. His bleak outlook on life neither has the spiritual catharsis or the broken idealism of people like Strummer or Townshend and the end result is one of obvious, one-dimensional and ultimately fairly useless pessimism that borders on the nihilistic. As a side note, it's strange that The Sex Pistols hated the Floyd so much considering how similar their philosophies were. I have no doubt that there is a large contingent of people who really relate to and admire the viewpoints that he puts through his lyrics but I don't really have much use for them. For teenage-angst-driven rock operas, give me The Who's Quadrophenia over the Wall any day of the week.

[Adam C]

As a side note, it's strange that The Sex Pistols hated the Floyd so much considering how similar their philosophies were.

Well whether you set your angst to short rock numbers or over bearing, po-faced art rock, complete with excruiating double concept albums has a lot to do with it.

[Kara Zor El]

I was expecting a lot of Rog hate on this thread.

In defence of the later work being more him and therefor less melodic. Both Gilmour and Wright have admitted that they didn't have any material. They stopped writing Floyd stuff in that period. Rog filled the hole that was Wright's coke habit and Gilmour's lazyness.

[david r]

The Final Cut sounds like a Roger Waters solo album. And his depressing lyrics and somber delivery (on piano) make this sound far removed from the same group that recorded the mesmerizing Dark Side of the Moon.

I agree with Ilash that Waters became more self-indulgent as time went on. The Wall and The Final Cut are extremely self-indulgent albums, and no wonder the other Floyd members had little input. However, I would argue Roger Waters' lyrics for the entire Dark Side of the Moon should rank him as a fantastic lyricist and do not agree with Ilash's dismissal of his lyrical abilities.

[Eliot Johnson]

worthless musician, but a good businessman. seems like a nice guy now, but what a terrible person he was back in the day.

he's tune deaf and can't play bass at all. he writes really dull songs that are supposed to have really profound subject matter but are basically really stupid. not that gilmour did anything better.

[Sanagi]

The Final Cut sounds like a Roger Waters solo album. And his depressing lyrics and somber delivery (on piano) make this sound far removed from the same group that recorded the mesmerizing Dark Side of the Moon.

I agree with Ilash that Waters became more self-indulgent as time went on. The Wall and The Final Cut are extremely self-indulgent albums, and no wonder the other Floyd members had little input. However, I would argue Roger Waters' lyrics for the entire Dark Side of the Moon should rank him as a fantastic lyricist and do not agree with Ilash's dismissal of his lyrical abilities.
Yeah, anyone doubting Roger Waters's lyrics needs to go back and listen to songs like Time, or Brain Damage, or Wish You Were Here. He later changed to a style that was much more storytelling-oriented, which I think had its ups and downs. Ups would be songs like When the Tigers Broke Free, or Nobody Home, or Amused to Death. Downs would be... Well, the fact that you can't figure out the plot of The Wall without a cheat sheet, for one...

And when they found our shadows
Cooped 'round the TV set
They ran down every lead
They repeated every test
They checked out all the data on their list
And then, the alien anthropologists
Admitted they were still perplexed
But on eliminating every other reason
for our sad demise
They logged the only explanation left
This species has amused itself to death
No tears to cry, no feelings left
This species has amused itself to death

[Ilash]

Actually, I have to confess that when I was dismissing his lyrics it was more for stuff like the Wall. Dark Side (and parts of Wish You Were Here) does indeed have some great lyrics to it - Time, most notably. And while his general philosphy does get rather tiresome after a while, I din't have too much of a problem with it on Darkside of the Moon. As I said, it's the later stuff that I really have a problem with. Even Animals for all of its many musical virtues, does suffer from lyrics that feel like Animal Farm without the subtelty.

[leonaozaki]

Even Animals for all of its many musical virtues, does suffer from lyrics that feel like Animal Farm without the subtelty.

Well, to be fair, Animals was an Animal Farm-derived allegory. Now, we can argue back and forth about how effective it was, but Waters was drawing on Orwell's work to a very large degree.

rob

[Dennis K]

I've always, well, not always I suppose, but for quite awhile anyway, have considered Waters' best Floyd work to have inspired by, or about, Syd. So in a roundabout way, I'm suggesting that without Syd, there would be no Roger Waters (in a manner of speaking).

[Jonathan Bogart]

I've always, well, not always I suppose, but for quite awhile anyway, have considered Waters' best Floyd work to have inspired by, or about, Syd. So in a roundabout way, I'm suggesting that without Syd, there would be no Roger Waters (in a manner of speaking).
That's an excellent point. When he ran out of Syd-inspired things to say, he started talking about himself, and it got real bad real fast.

[Ilash]

Well, to be fair, Animals was an Animal Farm-derived allegory. Now, we can argue back and forth about how effective it was, but Waters was drawing on Orwell's work to a very large degree.

rob

Oh sure, that much is pretty clear. As you can tell, I'm not all convinced by its effectiveness. Pity, because it's a really fine album musically.