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The flip side of all this is that the post-Waters, largely Gilmour-penned Floyd albums have soul like crazy but none of the sneering tautness and cold brutal wit of Waters' compositions. It really was a case of the whole being greater than the sum of the parts.
I have to question, however, the words "pretty" and "good" being used to describe Amused.
At the time, I thought "Radio K.A.O.S." was pretty solid. Now I just hear "The Final Cut" slathered in '80s pop (though I'd argue that "Sunset Strip" is pretty great, lyrics aside.)
I love "It's A Miracle" and "Three Wishes" from "Amused," but crap, here's ten dollars – buy an editor.
Add to that, he is usually correct in his assessments. Case in point, his ranking of the Pink Floyd oeuvre. Seriously, isn't that spot on?
Over the years that I've been reading Christgau I've found that when I disagree with his ratings it has been because (a) I have had an affection for the work of a particular artist which turned out to be disproportionate to the actual merit of the work, or (b) my taste hasn't caught up. Sometimes he favors exotica that I find "meh", but he also listens to a lot more music than I do, or could. As a rule he is reliable, and fun to read, and that is what we should all strive to be as critics.
I had to do it. I apologize, but Christgau often has a view of himself and his opinions that seemingly tries to cut the "gau" from his name. It's one thing to say you have an opinion of something and then cite your reasons. It's another to say, "Here are my reasons and they're indisputable because I said them." Clearly, this is a flaw many critics have. Hell. My first cassette may have been Scorpions' "Blackout" for Christgau's sake. I have no room to complain.
Okay, so Waters has a hangup about his father dying in World War II (not the most moral war: I seem to remember something about Hitler killing an awful lot of Jewish people in horrible ways). But to call Waters a bad person because he didn't want to put up with Richard Wright anymore and because he didn't consider Pink Floyd to be an entity after he left? Horseshit.
Roger Waters was the principle lyricist for Pink Floyd, which was painfully obvious when Gilmour and cohorts released that twaddle after The Final Cut (two snoozefests and two live snoozefests... and they made it seem so effortless). And as said principle lyricist, what he wrote was what we were all singing back then (and still now): 'We don't need no education,' 'Money, it's a gas, grab that cash with both hands and make a stash,' 'Did we tell you the name of the game, boy, we call it Riding the Gravy Train,' and so on. Well, I was singing it. And lots of others, so that makes it right. Admittedly, Pros and Cons was a little weird (although it was Clapton's last gleaming on guitar before he became a boring VH1 founder), but it is still a lot more listenable than Momentary Lapse of Reason... unless you're going for that stoner coma. Waters' permanent paternal mourning is his bag, and it sold a lot of records and made a lot of fans, and we weren't listening to his lyrics thinking he'd make a great drinking buddy.
Roger Waters is one of those rock stars of the second estate, and nobility always does weird stuff. I hear Bryan Ferry is a madman in Europe these days. I really don't care; I'll continue listening to Avalon and Manifesto and Mamouna and Dylanesque, just as surely as I'll continue listening to Amused to Death, Pros and Cons, and even Radio KAOS. And even though I'll put on Gilmour's two official solo albums at the drop of a hat, if I never hear Fictitious Sports, Wet Dream, or Broken Boring China again, the resulting butterfly effect will make your day all that much better. I don't see Waters as a bad person, just someone whose opinions get a lot more press than the prick next door's. Besides, I didn't see you at the most recent 'Waters is Bad' meeting (I was outside, picketing and taking names for the rapture).
Sheeeit. Defending Roger Waters on Popdose... what's next, calling Robert Christgau a toefucker?
Mmm... depends on which side of the Axis you're reading it from, I suppose. If you want to get into the morality of war, you might want to leave Roger Waters out of it... I hear he lost a family member during WWII.
You want a pissing match? Fine. I should leave Roger Waters out of it because he lost a family member during WWII? I never got to meet the majority of my mother's side of my family because they were gassed to death in concentration camps. As a Jew, there's no moral ambiguity about it: it doesn't depend on which side you were on. The Allies were morally obligated to fight this war.
Sorry about that everybody.
But I agree, let's not argue semantics. Your main point of the article is that Roger Waters is a bad person, and your own assessment is: 'Perhaps the most irritating thing about Waters, at least as a musician, is that he guided the band over time to an express purpose, and in his mind, logical conclusion, which was….to whine about how unfortunate he was that his father died before he was born.' And as a musician, he has every right to sing about what he knows, what he feels, and how it has affected him and others. And if that's your biggest problem with Waters, I don't agree that it makes him a bad man.Write what you know, or so the saying goes, and in interviews he admits that the loss of his father has overshadowed a great many things in his life, including his songwriting. So you don't like some of his albums: that's your bag. Hanging him for 'crimes of pomposity' by calling him a 'smug, pretentious asshole' comes across as excessive. After all, he was in a band with David Gilmour for a long, long time.
No pissing match intended.
Does anybody else have the Roger Waters album " Music from The Body?" I don't even know when or where I got it. It's.... awful.
Great post! I learned things I didn't know.
Looking forward to your piece on Neil Young ;-)
As opposed to 'presumed American due to pomposity?' ahem ;)
At any rate, if it's not Neil it must be Geddy.
Hint: he appears in one of my Rod Stewart posts.
If you look at his book on 80s music, he gives their four records A-, B+, A+, and B+, which means he thinks even their worst material is as good as, and the best of their material better than, anything by Pink Floyd. How's that for something for Waters fans to chew on?
No matter though as I intend to have fun lampooning your arguments against Waters. Had you wrote that in... say, 1998... it might have held more water. Gilmour's troupe rolled across the landscape in '95 with the Division Bell tour and Waters was MIA since 1992, when ATD failed to justify a tour. However, the Roger Waters of 1999 and since is the one that you seem unwilling to accept. That is the one that made peace with Nick Mason, met up a few times with Rick Wright and played with the re-formed Floyd at Live 8.
In your attempts to label Roger an asshole, you've ignored the fact that he has opened the door to Gilmour to do SOMETHING else as Pink Floyd (album, tour, whatever) and it's David that refuses.
Rick Wright, sad as it is that he passed away, was fired by mutual decision by Gilmour. Wright wanted a production credit on the Wall, but was not earning it. When Waters, Ezrin and Gilmour chopped Wright's hopes off at the knees for a producers credit, Wright refused to work with Waters in the studio, and then just refused to work period. Waters demanded he be fired and Gilmour agreed (no matter what revisionist BS some believe). He was brought back for the tour as all agreed it would be better that way (the same way he was just for the MLOR tour, but not an official member of the band again until 1993).
Waters might be pompous on some level, but no more than most others. He's extended olive branches and been willing to accept that he has differences of opinions with Gilmour and Mason on their shared past.
Many of which were either written by members of the band other than Waters or co-written with Waters. He wasn't the whole show.
And as a slight correction to this review, I'll add that it was Rick Wright, not Waters, who first started picking up the writing slack after Barrett's departure. Two of the best songs on "Saucerful of Secrets" were Wright's. But more importantly, the first post-Barrett a-side, "It Would Be So Nice," was a Wright tune. When that single failed, Waters apparently lost confidence in Wright and tried to take over, but the next single failed too, and that was co-written by Waters and Gilmour ("Point Me at the Sky"). The band left both these failed a-sides off "Relics" and instead included the b-sides.