CD Odyssey Disc 337: Roger Waters

I spent yesterday afternoon lazing around the house, and part of that time was used in working on a diorama Sheila and I are building together. That qualifies as "painting" in the rules sidebar, and so I was through a second album in as many days.

However, when I went to review it I didn't feel inspired, so I downed tools for a day. I've just spent another day lazing around the house (although this time I watched football). My life is truly a thrill a minute.

Disc 337 is...The Pros and Cons of Hitch-Hiking

Artist: Roger Waters

Year of Release: 1984

What’s Up With The Cover?: A woman decides to try a new approach in attracting a ride while hitch-hiking. In this case, she is apparently relying on her bright red backpack and shoes to catch drivers' attention.

This cover reminds me of a road sign on the highway near Vancouver that always enrages me. It reads:

NO
HITCH-HIKING
PICK UP
IS ILLEGAL

This sentence advises drivers that there is no hitch-hiking pick up which is illegal. Does logic therefore dictate that all hitch-hiking pickups would be legal - even people wearing nothing but a backpack and red pumps? I don't think that is what is intended, but nor do I think the paint required to punctuate this sentence with a colon would break the budget.

How I Came To Know It: My friend Craig is a big Roger Waters fan, and he got me into "Amused To Death" (reviewed back at Disc 115). Based on my enjoyment of that album, I decided to get one of his earlier efforts.

How It Stacks Up: I only have two Roger Waters solo albums, and "The Pros and Cons of Hitchhiking" is the weaker of the two.

Rating: 2 stars

Sometimes timing is everything. It has only been two albums since I reviewed Pink Floyd's 1979 masterpiece, "The Wall." Consequently, much of my reaction to "The Pros and Cons of Hitchhiking" was coloured by demons of comparisons that were not kind.

"Pros and Cons" has a sound very similar to "The Wall", and it often feels like Waters is just rehashing musical themes that were already fully explored during his time with Pink Floyd. Efforts at an atmospheric sound, themes of alienation in the lyrics, even production decisions like putting in the sound of children's voices - it's all there, but in each case, delivered in a much more average way. Some of the melodies sound directly lifted from "The Wall" in fact.

Eric Clapton plays lead guitar on the album, and while Clapton is one of rock's greatest guitar players, he is a poor fit compared to David Gilmour for a work like this. I enjoyed the guitar, but it didn't really add another dimension as happens on "The Wall."

Lyrically, the album is apparently a concept album of some kind. I read the lyrics in the liner notes cover to cover, and I'm still not 100% certain what is going on. My best guess is that Roger Waters is having a series of dreams and nightmares, some of which feature the theme of hitch-hiking.

The songs are all named after a time on the clock, starting at 4:30 AM and progressing through twelve tracks to 5:11 AM (I believe matching the length of each song in the process). The songs also have subtitles that follow the time of the morning with a long, bloated title obsessed with its own importance. For example, track 3 is called "4:37 AM (Arabs With Knives And West German Skies)." Like the song titles, the whole album seems obsessed with its own cleverness, minus the cleverness.

I generally like concept albums, and I don't expect them to be replete with radio hits. That said, "Pros and Cons" didn't have much for me to hang my hat on. It goes along competently enough, but there are not enough swells or dips thematically to keep my ear interested. Also, for a concept album, the various dream sequences (if that is what they are) are not strongly linked to each other in any way beyond the thinnest of connections.

I am a big admirer of Roger Waters, mostly for his work giving Pink Floyd some much needed thematic direction. He is a smart man that is not afraid to try something different, and he usually succeeds. I quite like the other album of his that I own, "Amused To Death", but "The Pros and Cons of Hitchhiking" didn't do it for me. It isn't a failure, but it isn't for me either, and I don't see myself putting it on often if ever after this point. Given this, I am going to reluctantly part company with it, and sell it for credit a a local CD store.

Best tracks: 4:41 AM (Sexual Revolution), 5:01 AM (The Pros And Cons of Hitch-Hiking Part 10)

CD Odyssey Disc 115: Roger Waters

Man, that last review really made me question whether nineties concept albums are a good idea. Fortunately, the Gods of Randomness responded by giving me an artist who has a bit of a stronger track record on making them.

Disc 115 is...Amused to Death
Artist: Roger Waters

Year of Release: 1992

How I Came To Know It: Like most people I am familiar with Roger Waters through Pink Floyd, but this particular album was a combination of me liking the radio single, "What God Wants" and the recommendation by my buddy Craig, who is an avowed fan of both Pink Floyd and Roger Waters. Thanks, Craig!

How It Stacks Up: I actually have two Roger Waters albums; this one, and 1984's "The Pros and Cons of Hitchhiking". Despite the fact that the latter's cover features a woman wearing nothing except a red backpack, I am still going to say I prefer "Amused to Death".

Rating: 3 stars.

Roger Waters knows concept albums. Remember, "The Wall" is principally this man's brainchild (don't be mad David Gilmour, I'll say nice things about "Momentary Lapse of Reason" when I roll it).

Of course, "The Wall" is an iconic record - and "Amused to Death" pales significantly in comparison. But taken on its own, it is a solid piece of work, in the traditional Roger Waters style - by which I mean it is deeply depressing.

As near as I can tell, this is Waters telling the tale of our species - and how he sees our self-extermination as a near-certainty. In his narrative we are basically just apes, who have come to dominate the earth as a species - to the point of developing nuclear weapons - but without any sense of how to possess them responsibly. As he sums up in "Too Much Rope":

"Preacher or poet who was it wrote
Given any one species too much rope
And they'll fuck it up."

Waters combines this nuclear threat, with religious fanaticism, and our obsession with being passively entertained by the television into a thick gumbo of despair. (Mmmm...gumbo). If one of our vices doesn't kill us, he's convinced another one will get it done. He ends imagining aliens finding our planet years after the collapse:

"And when they found our shadows
Grouped 'round the TV sets
They ran down every lead
They repeated every test
They checked out all the data on their lists
And then the alien anthropologists
Admitted they were perplexed
But on eliminating every other reason
Four our sad demise
They logged the only explanation left
This species has amused itself to death."

Like I said - it is a depressing, apocalyptic album.

Musically, it is solid, if overly repetitive (there are three different versions of "What God Wants", none significantly different from the others). Fortunately, "What God Wants" is a good track (my favourite version...Part Two!).

I also really like "The Bravery of Being Out Of Range" which captures the impersonal nature of modern warfare, where someone can kill from a great distance, and never know the face of the enemy.

The album is slightly overlong. There are fourteen tracks, and five of them are over six minutes. I found that by around track ten, I was wanting the story to wrap up. Of course, a happy ending would've been nice - but this is Roger Waters we are talking about.

It is a record that aspires to greatness, but falls a little short. It's still worth a listen or two - just don't expect to be amused.

Best tracks: What God Wants, Part II, The Bravery of Being Out of Range, Perfect Sense Part I