Is This The Life We Really Want?

SteveG wrote: A new Roger Waters album discussion thread with no word yet from Lazland? If Laz doesn't surface in three days, let's send out a search party and hope for the best!!

Catcher10 wrote: I borrowed the CD from a friend, pretty much agree here with those that are in the mehhh camp. I'm not a big Waters fan, but that's prolly cause I am a big Gilmour fan.  There are some moments, musically, but IMO nothing like Rattle That Lock. Which has a more fluid pattern and how can you ignore Gilmour's playing and singing...Huge props to Polly Samson!! I gave the CD back and have zero intentions of buying it.

Good to hear someone who liked Rattle that Lock. I really liked that album very much... my favourite from Gilmour... the most consistent one. This Waters one, I just got it, and I'm sure I'll enjoy it, but it has no Gilmour guitar solos, nor are the vocals as good. In general, I think the music is better with the Gilmour one, even if it's nothing new.

Aussie-Byrd-Brother wrote: Can't we have both?! I don't know, Steve...when you're younger it's so much `cooler' to like Waters over Gilmour, etc (same too goes for Lennon over McCartney)...because they're the `edgier' ones with more weight to their material. Easy to get caught up in the `Waters IS Floyd and that's it' nonsense. But when you add up all the nasty comments, feuds, dismissal of the others work, the heavy-handed lyrics. etc...I just find myself more drawn over to the `lighter' ones. Personally these days I'd take a warm Gilmour solo, that mellow voice and more melodic approach over Water's self-indulgent, histrionic, tiresome ego. (mind you, that's still coming from someone who digs the new album, `The Final Cut', etc etc!). Hmmm, I'm trying to make a point but essentially falling flat!

 I don't know. I've played air guitar to Comfortably Numb, but I've never played air guitar to Eleanor Rigby.

Edited by SteveG - June 12 2017 at 10:39

It's not that the album `sounds Floydian' from an atmospheric/conceptual point of view, but littered throughout the album are so many lazy moments that are almost straight remakes of earlier tracks. Pretty much all the acoustic guitar passages sound like variations on the same `Pigs on the Wing'/'Mother' chords (I mean, just start singing the lyrics of those songs and they pretty much slot right in...I know when I first got the album I started accidently singing the words of `Mother' and they fit in perfectly before I even knew what I'd done!). `Smell the Roses' comes very close to `Have a Cigar', ditto `Picture That' to `Sheep'.

It sounds like Godrich might be a die-hard Floyd fan, but instead of crafting music in the style of Floyd, he kind of settled for `songs that sound very much like past Floyd songs but with just the most minute of detail changes to stop it being complete forgery' in several parts of the album.

Hmmm, you might be right about the subject change...oddly the album only 55 minutes, when wasn't `Amused to Death' somewhere close to the full 80 CD limit? That crammed in a hell of a lot of subjects, so I was very surprised this one didn't run as long.

Edited by Aussie-Byrd-Brother - June 12 2017 at 06:45

Eh, the last time I heard The Lamb, I lowered the volume and read actual literature 

I don't think I'm in any camp, but when an artist gives much more thought to the lyrical content than the music itself, it's generally not for me. If I don't find it instrumentally interesting, I don't even care about lyrics.

I believe this is one of those "love it or hate it albums", which is not surprising to me. There is a Roger camp and a David camp and perhaps that's why.

Edited by SteveG - June 12 2017 at 04:17

^Agreed, 100%. 

I don't want to come off as negative about Waters' singing. He is the dark voice, sardonic and theatrical voice of Pink Floyd and was always an integral part of many, many Floyd songs. Gilmour singing Mother, for example, would simply not have had the same gravitas.

AZF wrote: Had a morning of playing it over. The sound is weird as it sounds like it would be as expansive as Wish You Were Here, but there's this muffled sound. And then Roger's voice comes in crystal clear.. I love the title track and Bird In A Gale. Wait For Her is the only poetry interpretation since Golden Hair on his friend's album. Having a break from listening, but I can say although it's his best solo album, but no idea how this will stand when compared to other albums considered best. I'm more satisfied with this than the last three albums Roger made with Pink Floyd. I recommend a listen but it isn't even Autumn!

Without getting technical, there's a bit of sharpness missing from the music but that's down to a particular EQing of the album's music.