Roger Waters - Amused To Death

Discussions about Pink Floyd and Solo Official Album CDs and DVDs.

Rate this album

5 - Best
57
50%
4
29
26%
3
16
14%
2
5
4%
1 - Worst
6
5%
 
Total votes: 113

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danielcaux
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Re: Roger Waters - Amused To Death

Post by danielcaux »

I may have said this before but this album could have been great had the editing scissors been applied more diligently. Reduced to the 48 minute mark it would be in the same level of quality and effectiveness as The Final Cut, but with better music. Blame it to the CD fever, too much rope indeed.


...which brings to mind another question: at 72 minutes, was this released as a double vinyl LP back in 1992?
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Re: Roger Waters - Amused To Death

Post by mainly lurking »

Yes it was, but I´ve only seen one copy ever. It was a dutch release. I´m not sure whether that was unique for The Netherlands or if it was released worldwide.
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Re: Roger Waters - Amused To Death

Post by Hogtown »

danielcaux wrote:I may have said this before but this album could have been great had the editing scissors been applied more diligently. Reduced to the 48 minute mark it would be in the same level of quality and effectiveness as The Final Cut, but with better music. Blame it to the CD fever, too much rope indeed
It should have been longer! A double cd...but that will come in a couple of years when the NEW album cums out...
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Re: Roger Waters - Amused To Death

Post by danielcaux »

During October 1987, Waters took time of his Radio KAOS tour and took the Bleeding Heart Band to do some recording at Compass Point Studios, Nassau in the Bahamas. It was designed to be a follow up to the Radio KAOS album with the same musical style and format with Jim Ladd and Billy appearing, and with Doreen Chanter prominent. Six untitled songs were recorded plus an instrumental based on Going To Live In LA, plus they were also thinking about including Get Back To Radio. It was hoped to be released early in 1988. The working title for this album was Amused To Death (the title coming from Neil Postman's 1986 book Amusing Ourselves To Death), and a Gerald Scarfe album cover was purported to include a huge martini glass with three bodies lying in it. After more work on the album in London during 1988 and early 1989, in February 1989, EMI admitted that Amused To Death had been shelved because Waters was not happy with it. They promised a release by early 1990, either a rerecorded version or a new project, but it was to be many years later that a release was forthcoming. The CA IRA opera and the Berlin Wall concert was deemed more important at the time.
Are those "six untitled songs" available in the underground evil bootlegger market? Or perhaps they are saving them for an "Amused To Death Deluxe" release? :)
18 months of recording in ten different studios was needed to complete Amused To Death based on the demos that already existed. In fact, the song order was shuffled 7 times to try and obtain the best result
It would be interesting to see those alternate running orders too.
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Re: Roger Waters - Amused To Death

Post by Hogtown »

Hmmm...The solo Years Vol.2 perhaps. [-o<
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Re: Roger Waters - Amused To Death

Post by YetAnotherFloydian »

Always had love and belief for Roger song/lyricwriting ability, but I was stunned (to say the least) when I head this album. Didn't expected to have that much in him.

Unbelievably great producing and song writing on this album. It's like reading a really good book. Can't express enough how much I love this album..Pretty much perfect album really (even tough I don't believe in "perfection"). Stands up with the DSotM and other great Floyd stuff.

Roger Waters will live forever with PF music, but this album really defines how good he really is 8) [-D-]
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Re: Roger Waters - Amused To Death

Post by paul10 »

From one extreme to another....I think that “Radio Kaos” is the worst solo album from any Pink Floyd member, but “Amused To Death” I think is one of the best. I’m not interested in lyrics at all, so my judgment on any album is based purely on musical content and production. To get the best out of this album you really do need a good hi-fi system to listen to it, and also be positioned central to the speakers. This album utilises a process called “Qsound” which gives a more three dimensional or holographic soundstage than normal stereo gives. With a good system setup this can be quite impressive but if listening on a small (tucked away in the corner) stereo, it can sound dry, thin, and a bit fizzy on certain tracks. The two main guitarists on this album, Jeff Beck and Geoff Whitehorne, add significantly to the overall feel of this album with Whitehorne being the main workhorse and Beck adding his unmistakeable style to certain tracks, particularly the solo’s on track 10 (What God Wants part III). It’s these people that make the album stand out for me though, not Rodger Waters’ song writing.
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Re: Roger Waters - Amused To Death

Post by princessDungan74D »

I can say this is Roger's best solo album though his other are great too.
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Re: Roger Waters - Amused To Death

Post by SolidFloyd »

I agree with Paul about KAOS.. and I do listen to lyrics, love lyrics. But I cannot get past the overly 80's sound, its gross.

But ATD..... Truly amazing. I never listened to it until recently, maybe a few months ago, and I find I listen to that album more than Floyd at the moment, its brilliant. But my complaints are...

Rogers voice is horrible on this record... aside from a few parts where he is yelling and it sounds similar to his younger voice. Other than that... he sounds like a straining old man. Its weird.. he doesnt sound very old on the In The Flesh concert when singing these songs.

Watching TV is great... but starts to drag out too much... i usually change the song when he starts singing about Chang HI Shek or whatever.. or fast forward to the end of the song.
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Re: Roger Waters - Amused To Death

Post by MattAShine »

I'd hardly call KAOS the worst Floyd related work, but that's just my opinion.

As for ATD, I did give it a 5, and happily so. I didn't care for it for a long time, to be honest. I got it on cassette if I believe 1996 from a friend. I was 16 at the time, liked Floyd (the Wall more than anything else), liked Radio KAOS, but just never cared enough to try ATD or some of the other albums.

For quite a while I'd try to listen to it, got to appreciate What God Wants, Pt 1 and 2 and some other bits, but... it just wouldn't "click" with me on a whole.

One night in 1998, months after I stopped trying to like it, I decided to put it on and let it put me to sleep (The Ballard of Bill Hubbard used to do that). Didn't work that night, but stayed in bed and let it play. So Hubbard segued into WGW into Perfect Sense, etc, etc. By the end of the album, it FINALLY "clicked" for me. What I never "got" before then that, for me at least, ATD is like a movie, or a book. You don't jump around in a movie or a book, right? You take it in in sequence, and that's what I had to do for ATD.

There are individual songs on there that are great (Perfect Sense, Three Wishes, ATD, etc) that I love on their own merits, but the album works best as a whole. It's one of the very few albums that I regard as greater than the sum of it's parts.

Now, nearly 14 years after I first heard it, ATD is my second favorite album (behind WYWH). It and Dark Side swap places now and again. It love it more every time I hear it, or the live renditions on In the Flesh.

It's all personal taste. I'd rather eat a hollow point bullet than endure Division Bell or On an Elevator, and many Floyd fans disagree.
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Re: Roger Waters - Amused To Death

Post by ddebil »

It's great...:smt078
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Re: Roger Waters - Amused To Death

Post by MattAShine »

danielcaux wrote:I may have said this before but this album could have been great had the editing scissors been applied more diligently. Reduced to the 48 minute mark it would be in the same level of quality and effectiveness as The Final Cut, but with better music. Blame it to the CD fever, too much rope indeed.


...which brings to mind another question: at 72 minutes, was this released as a double vinyl LP back in 1992?

Yuppers. I have three of the Netherland ones (two sealed, one opened and played twice). Never seen the Spanish one, though. If you have a record player and source one out on the ebay machine, it's a DAMNED cool record. The LP actually beats the CD in sound quality and warmth, imo.

You have to be careful though, as a lot of the ones on ebay are the 180gram, and those are not the originals. They are reissues that some people try to pawn off as the original, more expensive, ones. The 180grams are not BAD, and are very listenable... just not the original pressings. There seems to be a sound difference as well.

I've considered getting the gold disk version of the CD, as I've heard it's more like the LP, but I don't know about that one.
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Re: Roger Waters - Amused To Death

Post by henno »

behind DSOTM, WYWH and animals... this is my favourite floyd-related album.

I think it would sit well in any music collection and im delighted other posters think the same.

More of the same please Rog!!
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Re: Roger Waters - Amused To Death

Post by David Smith »

henno wrote:behind DSOTM, WYWH and animals... this is my favourite floyd-related album.

I think it would sit well in any music collection and im delighted other posters think the same.

More of the same please Rog!!
Did you dig the album immediately, or was it something of a grower?
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Re: Roger Waters - Amused To Death

Post by Hudini »

Sharing the same feelings for the album as Henno, I must say I liked it instantly the first time I heard it. And I can still listen to it without getting bored. Apart from "Late Home Tonight", that is. Never liked that song (or songs if you will).