Roger Waters - The Pros & Cons of Going Solo

^ Better late than never with the 38-video playlist for Roger Waters' opera. Thanks for reminding me. 

Pink Floyd Niagara performing Another Brick in the Wall

Edited by Psychedelic Paul - March 22 2023 at 08:53

tigerfeet wrote: I used to be a Roger Waters fanatic!  That was until i got married and my wife was a Gilmour fanatic. I can tell you it almost ruined our relationship  Now many years later we laugh at how we used to get heated about who was more important to Pink Floyd, Waters or Gilmour.  However, this thread is about the Pros and Cons of Going Solo. In my opinion PF had become compromised musically, and I am sure they were all desperate to get away from each other and release solo albums. So, in regards to Pros of Going Solo for Roger, I think that he realized that he could write songs until the cows came home. His problem was that he needed a good guitarist to play guitar/solos. This is why his decision to record as a solo artist was a good decision.  When Pros and Cons was released I was so excited. I had been a Roger fan for years. My first instrument was Bass guitar and I thought that his way of playing was exact and with purpose and creativity. I still rate him as one of the best bass guitarists of all time.  He had decided to get Eric Clapton on board who at that time was suffering from poorly received gigs after having being in rehab a few years earlier. Clapton had become bored and non creative and in my opinion he could finally let loose on Pros and Cons and it gave him a new found lease of life. It really does come out from Clapton and such sweet guitar is all over the Pros and Cons album. He made the album for me, although i did enjoy the album cover

I really wish Roger had recordings so that he could release a live album from this tour. Clapton might be one of the few guitar players that could really do justice to Gilmour's original solos. I remember hearing some bootleg songs at some point, all with rather poor quality, but I particularly remember a great version of Nobody Home, which is not one of my favourite songs from Floyd, actually, but he did add some wonderful solo that really made the song better. I actually got to hear a version of Wish you were Here with Clapton himself singing it (how I wish I could get a good quality version of that).

AFlowerKingCrimson wrote: The best thing about the pros and cons of hitchhiking is the album cover(original).

Psychedelic Paul wrote: Dellinger wrote: Indeed his pros are being able to do whatever he wants without having to please the rest of the band, or the rest of the band wanting to put their own stuff as well... but that's the con too. He doesn't get the input about how good something is, nor the restraint if something is not up to standard, nor has the possibility of receiving extra quality material to improve the albums. Even on the arrangement department... the songs may still be his, but the arrangements to those same songs done by Gilmour on guitars or Wright on keys could significantly improve at least some of the songs. About half of Amused to Death (my favourite solo album by Waters) would surely have benefited a lot by having had them in the band... another half of the album is just perfect and might not have fitted so well with them. And just about all of Is this the Life we Really Want would surely have worked so much better if it had been done with Pink Floyd... I mean, it sounds like a copy of Pink Floyd music, but without Gilmour's guitars, nor Wrights ambient parts, nor the long instrumental segments that would make the difference between an OK album and a fantastic album.   It's like I was saying to Cristi earlier: the best Roger Waters' albums are those where he's playing the music of Pink Floyd, such as:- "The Wall = Live in Berlin" (1990); "In the Flesh - Live" (2000); and "Us + Them" (2020)

Those live albums all have some wonderful versions of Floyd songs... and some other versions in which he rather ruins them... or at least falls a bit short. It took me years of listening to Floyd, but now I can really tell in the longer songs with important guitar roles that it's not Gilmour the one playing, and as subtle as the difference might be, it's enough to make those notably inferior. And Gilmour's vocals are often missed too (actually, Waters vocals are also often missed, since he just couldn't sing as he once did). I still need to get that Us + Them album... I'm mostly interested in how he played his own new songs, hoping he might have added a bit to make them more interesting.

Psychedelic Paul wrote: Dellinger wrote: Indeed his pros are being able to do whatever he wants without having to please the rest of the band, or the rest of the band wanting to put their own stuff as well... but that's the con too. He doesn't get the input about how good something is, nor the restraint if something is not up to standard, nor has the possibility of receiving extra quality material to improve the albums. Even on the arrangement department... the songs may still be his, but the arrangements to those same songs done by Gilmour on guitars or Wright on keys could significantly improve at least some of the songs. About half of Amused to Death (my favourite solo album by Waters) would surely have benefited a lot by having had them in the band... another half of the album is just perfect and might not have fitted so well with them. And just about all of Is this the Life we Really Want would surely have worked so much better if it had been done with Pink Floyd... I mean, it sounds like a copy of Pink Floyd music, but without Gilmour's guitars, nor Wrights ambient parts, nor the long instrumental segments that would make the difference between an OK album and a fantastic album.   It's like I was saying to Cristi earlier: the best Roger Waters' albums are those where he's playing the music of Pink Floyd, such as:- "The Wall = Live in Berlin" (1990); "In the Flesh - Live" (2000); and "Us + Them" (2020)

Indeed his pros are being able to do whatever he wants without having to please the rest of the band, or the rest of the band wanting to put their own stuff as well... but that's the con too. He doesn't get the input about how good something is, nor the restraint if something is not up to standard, nor has the possibility of receiving extra quality material to improve the albums. Even on the arrangement department... the songs may still be his, but the arrangements to those same songs done by Gilmour on guitars or Wright on keys could significantly improve at least some of the songs. About half of Amused to Death (my favourite solo album by Waters) would surely have benefited a lot by having had them in the band... another half of the album is just perfect and might not have fitted so well with them. And just about all of Is this the Life we Really Want would surely have worked so much better if it had been done with Pink Floyd... I mean, it sounds like a copy of Pink Floyd music, but without Gilmour's guitars, nor Wrights ambient parts, nor the long instrumental segments that would make the difference between an OK album and a fantastic album.

^ Well, it makes perfect sense to me, and nudge nudge, wink wink, say no more, a nod's as good as a wink to a blind horse. Know what I mean?

Edited by Psychedelic Paul - November 11 2020 at 05:49

Cristi wrote: 5 stars for The Wall in Berlin  I sometimes disagree with album ratings, or reviews, but Live in Berlin got 2.25 overall here on PA and I agree.

Edited by Psychedelic Paul - November 11 2020 at 05:51

These are my ratings for all of Roger Waters' albums:-