Roger Re records Dark Side

[mosespa]

I'll probably give it a cursory listen on a streaming site or YouTube or something; but I'm probably not going to give him any money for it.

I didn't give him any money for his remix of Amused To Death (won a copy from a local radion station, not even knowing it was a remix,) and that turned out to be the right thing.

[battra]

As a friend of mine said...who asked for this?

Who wants this?

Musically speaking, I'm as much of a Roger stan as you're gonna find, and I'm not too excited.

Two albums of his re-recording and rearranging Pink Floyd...make a new mother flippin' record of new songs, Roger!



As for purchasing these new old albums...the jury is still out, but I sure as shootin' have that Dark Side live album on preorder.

[snifferdog]

It's ironic that he rants about David and Rick not having any ideas of their own, then he turns around and re-records DSOTM. This sounds like a newer take on those Unplugged albums that were all the rage 20 years ago. Albums that for the most part, fans listened to once or twice and then never bothered with again.

I managed to read Roger's recent interview in the Torygraph and towards the end of it, the journalist finally gets to hear the album. He (the journalist) is a fan of the original and says this is a curate's egg.

Time, that young man’s lament for mortality, sounds terrific with his old man’s timbre. Breathe is wonderfully reimagined as a slow, acoustic groove. A country-tinged Money could be a late Johnny Cash cut, with Waters growling charismatically at the very bottom of his register.
But, surprisingly, Waters seems to have decided that what was wrong with the original album’s beautiful instrumental tracks was that they didn’t have Waters talking all over them. Now they do. After a bad dream one night, he splurged down a description of it on his laptop and recites
the whole dreadful prose poem over On The Run unedited: “....Waters sings throughout, but only actually plays an instrument on one track, a terrific bass solo on Us and Them, which made me wish he’d played across the whole thing; it seems such a missed opportunity.
Many Floyd fans will enjoy the new Dark Side. It won’t replace the original; nor will it it ruin Waters’s reputation. His comments in the press are more likely to do that.

[AthousandMilesOfMoonlight]

It's ironic that he rants about David and Rick not having any ideas of their own, then he turns around and re-records DSOTM. This sounds like a newer take on those Unplugged albums that were all the rage 20 years ago. Albums that for the most part, fans listened to once or twice and then never bothered with again.

It is indeed ironic. Let’s be honest about Pink Floyd’s most appealing component… It’s the music! This is the band whose music in the early days (particularly between Piper & Dark Side was *very* much instrumental based, that was the appeal of the Floyd, their amazing soundscapes and musical interplay. For Waters to talk over the guitar/organ solos is like da Vinci deciding to paint over the Mona Lisa’s smile! Pure contrarian revisionism!!

[Yucateco]

For Waters to talk over the guitar/organ solos is like da Vinci deciding to paint over the Mona Lisa’s smile! Pure contrarian revisionism!!

No it´s not. Waters does not take the original off the market, it is still there. It is more like Da Vinci painting a second version of the Mona Lisa with a different face. No harm done to anyone.

I really don´t understand all the fuzz, this happens all the time in different areas of art. Imagine there would always be an outcry if there was a reinterpretation of Shakespeares Hamlet, "oh no! how dare they touch and change that masterpiece of Shakespeare! It has to be done exactly as in 1602!" The director is maybe adding his own touch or even setting it in the 21st century, would that be called pure contrarian revisionism? I don´t think so.

Once they are gone, the Floyds music will be interpreted or covered by other bands. I honestly think it is rather cool to get the opportunity to get a reinterpretation from the writer himself, we will get to see a nearly 80 year old man revisiting what he wrote when he was 30 years old, the result being an update with 50 years of life expierence added. I am still looking forward to this. The original will still be there, if you don´t like the new version why not just ignore it.

[GlastoEls]

For Waters to talk over the guitar/organ solos is like da Vinci deciding to paint over the Mona Lisa’s smile! Pure contrarian revisionism!!

No it´s not. Waters does not take the original off the market, it is still there. It is more like Da Vinci painting a second version of the Mona Lisa with a different face. No harm done to anyone.

I really don´t understand all the fuzz, this happens all the time in different areas of art. Imagine there would always be an outcry if there was a reinterpretation of Shakespeares Hamlet, "oh no! how dare they touch and change that masterpiece of Shakespeare! It has to be done exactly as in 1602!" The director is maybe adding his own touch or even setting it in the 21st century, would that be called pure contrarian revisionism? I don´t think so.

Once they are gone, the Floyds music will be interpreted or covered by other bands. I honestly think it is rather cool to get the opportunity to get a reinterpretation from the writer himself, we will get to see a nearly 80 year old man revisiting what he wrote when he was 30 years old, the result being an update with 50 years of life expierence added. I am still looking forward to this. The original will still be there, if you don´t like the new version why not just ignore it.

Good post, I agree.

I’m really looking forward to it for exactly those reasons.

[theaussiefloydian]

I'm gonna listen to this, but it does seem quite too self-indulgent.

You said it, mate. This is a new level of silly from Waters, I fear.
I especially bristle at him claiming that he's trying to bring the message of the album to the forefront, when his appalling politics concerning the Eastern European conflict flatly contradict much of the album's messaging. Utterly ludicrous.

[AthousandMilesOfMoonlight]

I'm gonna listen to this, but it does seem quite too self-indulgent.

You said it, mate. This is a new level of silly from Waters, I fear.
I especially bristle at him claiming that he's trying to bring the message of the album to the forefront, when his appalling politics concerning the Eastern European conflict flatly contradict much of the album's messaging. Utterly ludicrous.

"A new level of silly" indeed, I'm afraid. I think the message of the album is best communicated through the immaculate original recording (with those pesky guitar/organ noodlings intact!!).

He may have had somewhat of a point re NATO's (ergo the US') inexorable eastward march (vis-a-vis provocations) but he should also have acknowledged the savagery of Putin's invasion and why so many Eastern European nations gravitate towards the US/EU i.e., because they've experienced (a terrible) life under Stalinist tyrannies and have thereafter witnessed Putin's (quasi-Stalinist) aggression towards those states without NATO/Western protection i.e. Georgia/Ukraine. This is in no way negating the baleful influence of US imperialist foreign policy (which probably actually emboldened Putin in the early noughties).

[Hadrian]

Meanwhile, another forced concert cancellation for Roger, this time in Frankfurt, Germany. https://www.algemeiner.com/2023/02/24/g ... tisemites/

[scmods]

I'll give it a listen, but for the first time in my Floyd fandom history I'll make sure I find a way to hear it without paying before
I make the decision on whether to shell out the $.

[Annoying Twit]

Like others I will listen to this with interest. The concept of Rog speaking all over the instrumentals doesn't sound promising, but I won't judge before I hear it.

I like Mary Fahl's interesting take on DSotM, and generally cover albums work best when the style and arrangements are new and interesting. It seems that Rog has done some of this (from descriptions), but also taking an album somewhere new can also sometimes take it somewhere that it really shouldn't have gone and it ends up with doggy doo-doo on its feet.

The songwriting credits will be interesting. If RW is talking all over the instrumentals, then will he give himself (and legally can he give himself) songwriting credits on TGGITS and ACYL?

I'm wondering if maybe the packaging won't include credits, but just have an overall ambiguous 'Written by Roger Waters'. Or something like that. I'm not saying this is likely, but I wouldn't put it past Rog if he could get away with it. I guess he could get away with 'All words written by Roger Waters' and then omit any further credits.

[Keith Jordan]

Listen to New Roger Waters Dark Side of the Moon Recording > https://www.neptunepinkfloyd.co.uk/list ... -recording

[Jimi Dean Barrett]

Ok. I'm going deaf. Have hearing aids. But even then it still took me half the clip to work out what song was playing. I could recognise Nick Mason's drumming. That's it. I'm good, thanks.

[Keith Jordan]

I am keen to hear the rest of it, sounded better than I expected.

[Annoying Twit]

Oh dear. Um. I'm rather disappointed by this. 'Us and Them' is one of the classic songs of all time, but I think it's a good thing that the original recording didn't sound like this.

Maybe it will sound better in context, or I'll get used to it.

I thought that RW's cover of 'Comfortably Numb' was good, so I had ... expectations for this.