Roger Waters - Is This The Life We Really Want?

Picture that gefällt mir gar nicht, zumindest nach zweieinhalb mal hören hats nicht gezündet, beim 3. mal hab ich weitergezappt.
Deja vu und Last refugee dagegen sehr.

Die Bilder der Tour sind spektakulär, aber warum steht er nicht zu seiner schwachen, trotzdem charismatischen Stimme und singt zT playback? Schade!

Nicht übel, mir gefällt es auch deshalb weil es mal bisschen rockiger klingt. Interessant am Schluss ist aber das Solo von Waters an der Gitarre....oder sieht das nur so aus ?

@Neccropole: Ich muss immer an Rise up and fight von CBP denken. Bei Rise up and fight musste ich immer an WTTM denken.

Hall9000 schrieb:

Weist du Hajo, es ist gar nicht wichtig, ob Roger´s Album gut oder schlecht ist. Ist ja eh immer nur persönliches empfinden

Da hast du absolut recht.



Ich denke mal, dass ich hier schon seit 2005 registriert bin.

Hall9000 schrieb:

Weist du noch wie dein Nickname damals war? Ich kann mich noch an einen Thomas erinnern



Seit neusten schmeißt das Programm zweite Zitate aus dem Schwarzen Balken, sieht scheiße aus....geht aber nicht anders. Sorry.

Hall9000 schrieb:

An den Thomas erinnerst du dich richtig. " I am a HAL9000 Computer."

Jo dann bist du es, hab ich mir ja schon gedacht.

RonToon:


After about a half dozen listens and collecting most of the lyrics I'm mellowing a bit since my first spin of the disc.

The opening track, When We Were Young, is a short spoken collage by Roger (he obviously has a lot to say) over a pulsating synth/bass line with a clock ticking in the background. This leads directly into Deja Vu, my favorite track on the album. Godrich made Roger edit this down from his poem Lay Down Jerusalem (he wouldn't allow any Israeli politics on the album since it was deemed "unproductive') and it serves the song well. It gets right to the point in three verses each from a distinct point of view. It's beautifully orchestrated (as is much of the album) and structured. I'm still not thrilled with the verbosity of the first couple of lines but I've gotten used to this.

Next up is the familiar (by now) The Last Refugee. It's a very "light" song, not much going for it musically with an opening percussive beat and piano chords similar to Bowie's Five Years which are the sole instruments for most of the song. Waters soothing vocals give way to him straining his voice into uncomfortable territory at times (he could never sing this live - and doesn't) and the song never really goes anywhere, as pretty as it is for most of the time.

Picture That could have really been a scorcher, the highlight of the album. The lyrics are some of my favorites (Follow me filming myself at the show/On a phone from a seat in the very front row), raw, angry, a nearly 7-minute purge. My problem with the song is that the synch/keyboard in between vocals is to "light" for such a heavy song. If there was one track just begging for a rocking guitar it's this one. Think Sheep (which this song has been compared to). The final 2+ minutes of the song are wasted on a syncopated rhythm track and the same limp keyboards as the song refused to end gracefully. This one should have ended with a bang! One of the first instances where I couldn't understand a good deal of the lyrics because his voice was a bit buried in the mix.

A coyote howls, Roger clears his throat and an acoustic guitar introduces Broken Bones. A very simple melody in 3/4 time supported by his guitar and some more lovely orchestration reminiscent of Southampton Dock from The Final Cut. The serenity of the song is twice interrupted by a brief bombastic chorus (aka Roger yelling again - and I can't understand a word he's saying). This is one that's growing on me a bit, I'll bet I'll like it even more once I know what the heck he's saying.

The title track, Is This The Life We Really Want?, begins with some words from our current (cough, cough) president. Man, I wish he hadn't put this on the album, I hate hearing his voice. The track is a repetitious drone of keys/guitar/percussion with orchestral accents and flourishes where Roger is pretty much in spoken word mode. This would fit right in on Steven Wilson's solo debut, Insurgentes. My least favorite song, a remarkably unmusical and uninteresting track and I can't quite make out all the lyrics to this one either yet.

Bird in a Gale begins like an emergency breaking with a beeping alarm and rapid drumming and it is the percussion that drives this track over the synths. Roger basically yells at the top of his range throughout this song which I still find hard to get through. Another unmusical track where I don't have any idea of what Roger is yelling about most of the time. The most annoying track on the album.

A syncopated drum, not dissimilar to The Last Refugee, begins The Most Beautiful Girl but in 3/4 time (like Broken Bones). Another song with a very simple melody and sparse instrumentation (the piano/keyboards are by far the most dominant instruments on the album). And just like The Last Refugee is doesn't go anywhere or really do anything for me. It's pleasant at best and basically a relief from the previous 2 songs.

Smell the Roses is a wake up call from the mid-section malaise. I really dig this track with its Have a Cigar vibe and nods to Dogs (the middle sections) and Obscured by Clouds/When You're In. The slide guitar section during this song is the closest this album comes to featuring an electric guitar. You've all heard it by now. My favorite track along with Deja Vu.

The album closes with what could be considered a single composition in 3 parts - Wait For Her / Ocean's Apart / Part Of Me Died. A chordless keyboard and acoustic guitar carry the first song and third songs which share the same simple and repetitious melody, which are briefly bridged by the middle track. The song finally takes flight in the uplifting orchestrated chorus. I love the lyrics (which are again difficult to make out at times) and structure as Waters keeps things very simple. The final track smashes a plethora of lyrics and thoughts together which feels like a shotgun blast rather then a direct hit, a last ditch effort to offer all his final complaints and to make sure that all his bases/targets are covered.

The part that is envious, cold-hearted and devious
Greedy, mischievous, global, colonial,
Bloodthirsty, blind, mindless and cheap
Focused on borders and slaughter and sheep

Burning of books, bulldozing homes
Given to targeted killing with drones
Lethal injections, arrest without trial

Monocular vision, gangrene and slime
Unction, sarcasm, Common assault,
Self-satisfied heroic killers lifted on high

Piracy adverts, acid attacks on women
By bullies, and perverts and hacks
The rigging of ballots and the buying of power

Lies from the pulpit, rape in the shower
Mute, indifferent, feeling no shame
Portly, important, leering, deranged

Sat in the corner, watching TV
Deaf to the cries of children in pain
Dead to the world, just watching the game

Watching endless repeats
Out of sight, out of mind,
silence, indifference
The ultimate crime
But when I met you
That part of me died

Bring me a bowl
To bathe her feet in
Bring me my final cigarette
It would be better by far to die in her arms
Than to linger in a lifetime of regret

In the end the song builds to a crescendo but the final line abruptly peters out, seemingly prematurely ending the song and the album much like The Moment of Clarity did on The Pros and Cons of Hitch Hiking (Roger's first solo album - not counting Music from The Body). It's an interesting juxtaposition to the first part of this song (Wait for Her) which shares the same melody but is much less lyrically dense.


It's a hit-n-miss effort with strong hits and quite a few misses. It's musically simplistic and doesn't seem to take a lot of chances being dominated by acoustic guitar and piano. The middle tracks really bog down the album and I wish to feck that he included the wonderful Crystal Clear Brooks in place of... well throw a dart at the middle of the album. For the most part it sounds very one-note and the decision to have "no guitar" solos seems questionable, stubborn, and even foolish. It would be interesting to see what another producer would have created especially one that didn't steamroll over Roger so much during recording and mixing. On first listen I gave this album a 6/10 and now it's at about a 7/10. It's a very different kind of Roger Waters album yet at the same time familiar. I'm willing to give it some more time.

@Hall9000

Lieber Thomas, erst mal vielen Dank für die guten Wünsche ... kann ich z. Zt. gut brauchen.
Auch ich erinnere mich, dass da im alten Forum sich jemand nach dem Computer aus 2001 benannt hatte. Aber der alte Zugang funzt hier im "neuen Forum" ja nicht, also war neue Anmeldung sowieso nötig.

Und klar (um zum Thema zurück zu kommen) ist jegliche Musik Geschmackssache und all das "Vorausgeplänkel" für die bisher bekannten Titel hier ist sowieso hinfällig, wenn dann das ganze Abum zu hören ist, weil's ja ein Konzeptalbum ist, aber macht eben Spaß und ist Teil der Vorfreude hier, die wir "Forumsbrüder/schwestern" ja genüsslich zelebrieren.
Wir können ja alle froh sein, dass Gilmour und Waters im fortgeschrittenen Alter noch aktiv/kreativ/produktiv/usw. sind!
Man/n stelle sich vor, hier im Forum wäre das einzige Thema, welchen Rollator sich Roger oder David gerade zugelegt haben... oder so was :taetschel:
Da ist es doch viel schöner über neue Alben zu schreiben und was nun das neue Waters-Album betrifft, zähle ich inzwischen die Tage und besonders nach De Ja Vu und noch mehr dann nach The Last Refugee ist mir einfach das Herz aufgegangen und ich wusste, da kommt "GROSSES" auf mich/uns zu.
Vorher war das mehr Hoffnung.

Gar nicht ganz so unmusikalisch!
Zitat: Das Album ist musikalisch gelungen, zumindest für all jene, die die Verbindung von alten Waters- und Floyd-Schmähs (getragene Beats, Soundeffekte, Soli) ... mögen könnten.

Aber das ist treffend!
Zitat: Waters findet sich, ein Vierteljahrhundert nach seinem visionären Neil-Postman-Medienkritik-Album "Amused To Death", in einer absurd überspitzten Version jener Welt wieder, die er damals angeprangert hat. Und das passt ihm nicht. Wenn er denn Gott wäre, singt Waters, hätte er vieles anders gemacht.


Bestimmt!

So, heute darf ich um 19.00 Uhr die gesamte Platte "Is this the life we really want" im Studio in Warschau anhören

Ohhh, ich komme mal kurz vorbei. OK? :taetschel:

der promostream ist für Ende der Woche avisiert

Hajo,

klar komm vorbei: Studio 22, Aleje Ujazdowskie 22, Warschau Habe noch einen Platz frei.

@andiorek

Ach er kann doch eh nicht

Stimmt leider, aber der Wunsch ist vorhanden.

Die anderthalb Wochen wirste ja auch noch warten können