Slashdot Mirror
Roger Waters To Create New Album
pal writes "Roger Waters (of Pink Floyd fame) is recording an album in February, according to his web site. The interesting part is that the web site is being used as what looks to be an interactive forum! Under "Questions?" there is a bit about the Declaration of Independence, and The Spirituality of the Internet, all with WWWboards there for feedback. Does he intend to allow the internet-going public to influence his lyrics? The last question is: "What do you think?" " This sort of work - remote collabrative work is kind of what Everything2 is trying to do. It's a very interesting point: How do you work over-the-wire?
Music is a question of taste, and I, for one, don't happen to care for Waters' music. At the risk of incurring bad karma, I submit the first "who cares?"
(note that on many of the other controversial "is this really news" items, I hold slashdot's journalistic integrity in high regard.
I tend to agree - Slashdot has slowly, but surely, been turning to shit since the Andover buyout.
Given the themes of his previous albums Radio K.A.O.S and Amused to death. Both of which had to do with the idea that we're messing ourselves up. Perhaps his writing an album about the net isn't such a good thing. Don't get me wrong the man is a Diety but don't be surprised if his view of the net is somewhat fatalistic.
"as plurdled gabbleblotchits on a lurgid bee" - Prostetnic Vogon Jeltz. (One man's humorous is another mans flamebait)
Comeon Rob... it's supposed to be stuff that matters... not commercialized crap like this. *sigh*. -1, here I come...
Ok, you try to keep updating a news service for nerds. Oh yeah, and you have to put up with kids from the short bus critizing you everytime you go a little off topic.
Why, Microsoft NetMeeting of course!! Hahahaha...that's sarcasm son.
Seriously guys, the world has moved on since The Who and Pink Floyd!
Man he's no good w/o the rest of Pink Floyd. But Pink Floyd isn't nearly as good w/o him. It's an odd situation. They should come togethor again they were a good team.
Teach a man to dish and he will gossip for life.
SELLOUT, Bastard!
Roger Waters hasn't done anything interesting
in 25 years. He needs all the help he can get, so
some collaboration might be in order.
The last good Floyd record was "Meddle".Everything has been a rehash since then.
1. Cool stuff on, slashdot
2. IPO
3. Gone to hell
Amen.
Roger Waters isn't as good with out pink floyd, and pink floyd isn't as good with out roger water *OR* syd...
I honestly think Roger Waters is just trying too hard to re capture the fame that came from The Wall and Dark Side of the Moon. And what better way to do that, than to use buzzwords.
Not the posting of the Pink Floyd story - what's sad is that you people who don't care about it coming in here and posting stuff like 'Slashdot is dying' just because something was posted that did not suit YOUR interests. *get over yourselves* Rob has always posted stuff of personal interest to him on this site, and I hope he continues to do so. It's pretty easy to just skip a story if you don't want to read it. And if you don't want to read a story here and there, that hardly means Slashdot is going to hell. Jesus christ people. Grow up. BilldaCat webmaster@e-league.com
Mr Malda has always posted information on his favorite groups/musicians (such as The Who), and this being his site, why shouldn't he?
Damn, I generally put up with shitty content around here because there is still a lot of good stuff when you seperate the wheat from the chaff.
However, the most captivating content now is the Natalie Portman posts, Postmasta mick, and the rest of the trolls battling for bragging rights on who can be the most absurd.
At least the trolls have something interesting to read.
I sure hope Andover lets Hemos and Taco get back to what made this place so good to begin with.
Core compentency was great intelectual content.
Roger? Roger who? Which one's Pink?
My allegiance remains to Poor Old Syd anyway.
--
--
=8^
You hit the nail on the head.
A bit unrelated, but I think Waters could try something as interesting - offer his songs online as mp3s for free and see where that leads his album sales. After all, the guy doesn't seem to be
obsessed with greed and he's got alot of money to start with.. he could try it.
-- ATTENTION: do not read this sig. It doesn't say much.
The opinions are valid, aren't they?
More race stuff in one place,
than any one place on the net.
Wish you were here, all the way. There are no more relaxing, interesting floyd songs than the "Diamond"s, and the actual song wish you were here just rules.
Where are my GPFs? I WANT MY GPFS!!
oh, god! you know what i like! harder!
A Second Look at the Cathedral and the Bazaar by Nikolai Bezroukov
This paper provides an overview of the weaknesses of Eric Raymond's (ESR) paper The Cathedral and the Bazaar (CatB) as well as the more coherent demonstration of the fact that the bazaar metaphor is internally contradictive. It is also to a certain extent a reaction to the publication of Eric Raymond's new book The Cathedral and the Bazaar: Musings on Linux and Open Source by an Accidental Revolutionary (Sebastopol, Calif.: O'Reilly & Associates, 1999). In this paper a more objective picture of the status competition in the OSS environment is provided.
More importantly, if his lyrics are to be influenced by the Web, I doubt it will do as well as it might on its own--Waters is a powerful lyricist in his own right, carrying much of the band in that respect.
Fighting the War on the War on Drugs.
http://smokedot.org/
well now all we need is syd barrett to release a new one and us floyd fans will be set.
:D
like that will ever happen tho
Now, in a more civilized tone, the post is not just about Roger Waters, but involves the Web and other stuff. Secondly, I listen to Pink Floyd. I revel in it. It's Good Shit(tm). Am I no longer a geek or something?
Stop your whining and just skim over the post and then ignore it if you don't like the content. Geeks are just as varied as other people, with wide ranges in taste.
So like I said before--y'all can go to Hell. Stop whining.
Fighting the War on the War on Drugs.
http://smokedot.org/
And AC said: Let There Be Shite.
And there was shite...
The bands today are total shit. Plain and simple. I haven't heard an original piece of music in almost 30 years!
Now it's total gimick..."gee, let's blend disco with rap with country with rock with ______(fill in the blank here)".
It's all been done before. NOTHING out there is original. There are only so many ways you can play the same 3 chords.
The word has, in fact, not moved on. A quick look at the Billboard charts will tell you the Dark Side of the Moon(a PF album) is STILL on the top 200. It was released in 1973, for god's sake, and it's still on there. Pink Floyd's music has stood the test of time. Lets see how long Ricky Martin stands out.
...
Please, hate me enough to give me more money!! Pretty please...with sugar on top!!!
Pardon me, I have to get back to my "oldie" rock mp3s
Pink Floyd talks about what matters to me. When there's war to debate, I put on The Final Cut. When it's the treatment of others, there's "On The Turning Away." Besides, Pink Floyd isn't dead yet! they put out a new album in 1994 (?) and they could well keep putting them out 'till they're dead.
-Dave Turner, AC of convinience
that's who altavista gets first; is he being sued too? If not why not - i think he should have been sued for inflicting that icky role on that otherwise acceptable movie about the sinking boat.
The 16 yr olds might not understand, but I don't understand
lottsa what they understand so it's cool I guess.
I remember when Waters/Floyd were things that only heads and geeks
understood (along with Yes, Tangerine Dream...)
-kaha-
What will ever top the depth of "the Final Cut"? An internet album would be interesting, but it's a step down from praying for peace and sanity in the world. It's not like your average guerilla soldier or hateful politician would care about his work anyways. For that matter I'd say that your average shmuck has never bothered to listen to him either.
Whining that Roger Waters isn't as good w/out Pink Floyd is like saying some guy isn't as good without his ex-wife from 15 years ago. Leave the dude alone already!
"All you know about me's what I sold you, dumbf--, I sold out long before you ever even heard my name. I sold my soul to make a record... Now shut up and buy!" -Tool
WHo gives a fuck about this loser?
If this was about syd coming to make som more music i would be uinterested... rodger w + all the other boys kicked syd out...
I know that thought is not a strong point with most people in our society, and I know that it is discouraged by schools, governments, and of course, television. Perhaps this is why Roger Waters (and Pink Floyd, to a lesser degree) appeal to a rather tight "cult" audience. It's one of those things where you "just have to be there" to get it.
And, as someone else already mentioned, his view of the 'net (if that is the subject of his newest work) may be "fatalistic", but how else should one view it?
Read "Amusing Ourselves to Death" by Neil Postman, then listen to Roger's "Amused to Death" album,and maybe then, you'll see what I'm getting at here. Our society is a culture of entertainment, amusement, mindless inaction while staring at a screen, whether it's a television screen, or a computer screen.
The primary draw of the internet is the web. The web is structured like television, magazines, newspapers, etc... The amount of *good* or *reliable* information (also known as actual *content*) is frighteningly small compared with the endless barrage of advertising and 2-paragraph feature articles aimed at "consumers" (god, I hate that word). Ever since the 'net became popular, the educational and informational aspects have been beaten off by the commercialists and corporatists, and have now been relegated to obscure corners of the net, much like informational and educational television shows, or even books.
I could go on for volumes (and I should, as much of what I said needs clarification), but I shall refrain for now as it's unlikely that anyone will bother to read it anyway.
Nonetheless, I'd like to see Waters' take on the issue... And after having seen his live performance in Chicago, I do hope he does something next year to possibly help promote his new work... I'll be there.
--Michael Maxwell
Roger Waters has been devolving into realms not meriting attention. During the era of The Wall and Animals, Roger Waters painted a bleak picture of humanity, leaving the listener despondent. As an adolescent looking for direction, PF certainly pulled me into depths of hopeless revelry that even today can draw me into a grim sort of nostalga. After Pink Floyd, Radio K.A.O.S and Pros and Cons of Hitchhiking offered us an epiphany of sorts. He ended both albums with a trace of hope that perhaps humanity could salvage itself from its desperate state. But then came Amused to Death. Other than the first track (which integrates his "patented" sense of realism and urgency into the track through sound bites), the album comes off as a throwback to the shrill and panicked hopelessness of The Wall, without the benefit of the insightful lyrics or the tempered sound that Gilmour provided . It is as if Waters were betting on the Second Coming to realize either his hopelessness or his hope. When neither came to pass he started casting about for humanity's next tragedy. Now he's a lost soul, looking for a cause to drive him. Finding nothing left inside himself, he's looking to the New Economy (aka Internet) to draw in the next set of adolescents looking for direction. I'm sorry Roger, they aren't listening.
Geeks come with an incredible range of interests. I would think that would be obvious to most of us. We don't all listen to techno and read post-cyberpunk SF. Okay, I do both of those. And one of my all time favorite albums is Welcome to the Machine. I range from so mainstream my parents should be proud to so obscure that no one here would recognize every one of the artists.
One of the great things about open source is that we can each bring our ideas, skills, and needs to a project and come away with some fantastic tools. Is there a reason that our diversity would stop with software?
Oh, and Res Geek, you were one word short of a good Charlie Daniels reference.
The net will not be what we demand, but what we make it. Build it well.
part one - information.
:)
:)
re each small candle - looks like he'll have a song in something like an amnesty international compilation. pretty cool, though he's done that before.
on the other hand, as admitted before (on the web site and in the new york times), he's been working on an opera (!!!) called ca ira for quite a while. it's about the french revolution, and planned to be released somewhere around fall 2000.
not to mention of course the recent tour of the u.s. (anyone else seen the chicago show?), and the planned 2000 tour...
part two - critique.
re waters' lyrics - i think they've grown quite a bit. if that means the loss of quasi-intellectual vagueness, so be it. it's for the better.
just look at the final cut - musically it's a poor brother of the wall, but the lyrics carry so much more significance! it's no longer a bitter semi-autobiographical satire of the society, but an powerful political commentary. the lyrics have been given greater prominence than in previous albums, and while some people may bitch about it, i consider it a big plus.
(then of course there's radio k.a.o.s. yeah, i know. it sucked. the story was okay, but the delivery - just the fact that he had to write out the synopsis before the lyrics started should've been a warning sign. oh well. there's one in every phonography.
pros and cons of hitchhiking, on the other hand, is sheer brilliance. the leitmotif of the whole album - hitchhiking as a metaphore for relationships, and travel as a way of exploring the world and exploring yourself - works incredibly well with the lyrics. the examination of painful ways in which people treat each other is especially compelling. btw, this might be the most verbose album in the history of rock. but it works very well.
and finally, amused to death. it's definitely not a pop album. it stands against consummerism, against war, against militarism, and against unexamined patriotism (which can be a medicine especially difficult to swallow here in the u.s.). the problem is, it exposes the audience (and the society at large) as a mindless mob, following the path of convenience and thoughtlessness, unaware that it only leads towards self-destruction. but it's not a message that anyone would like. nobody wants to be told they're not as hot as they think they are. [1]
but i'll admit readily, these last two are not easy albums. almost anyone can pick up dark side and connect with the music - because the lyrics were designed to speak of simple facts of life using simple words. [2] but the same is not true of amused, pros and cons, or even the final cut. those require not just listening, but reading the lyrics, and working to understand them. less like space rock, more like literature.
---
[1] btw, in regard to this, the album goes very much in the spirit of the original neil postman book, but unlike the book, it's quite coherent.
[2] see schaffer's a saucerful of secrets - the pink floyd odyssey for a great account of the creation of dark side (not to mention the remainder of the history of the band).
My other car is a cons.
it is in a nerd category for sure, yet that it is
not the problem.
its all the ipo and stock hype / crap !?
NO! FEAR ME, MORTALS, I AM JESUS AND I HAVE COME SEVERAL TIMES....I HAVE A JAR FULL TO PROVE THIS.
Applications for the new disciples will be accepted in the new year.
I want to be able to submit patches. For example, I'll sing melodically and add my own back-masking. Boy, this is gonna be GREAT!
"It's overkill, of course. But you can never have too much overkill." - Anonymous Slashdot Coward
btw, not an AC, but email's down right now... rkirk@[nospam}calpoly.edu http://www.topflight.net
/dev/hdc (because hdb is small, and hdc is of course my ide atapi cdrom)), that Pink Floyd is not "Diety," as someone mentioned. "Meddle" downright sucks. Roger Waters is not the greatest musician ever, in fact I would say there are many even in rock who are better than him. Pink Pink Floyd wrote a lot of good stuff, but they wrote a lot of crap too. In reality they're just
Wow, it's nice to see all the non-musician "experts" write about Waters and music in general and act like they know what they're talking about. Techies hate it when non-techies act like they know it all, so I think I'll clear up a thing or two right now about Roger Waters, Pink Floyd, and music in general.
Pink Floyd is/was a Rock band. The fact that it is "rock" conjures up all the stereotypes of simple chord changes and bad soloing. These definitely apply to Pink Floyd in many instances (except for David Gilmour and soloing), albeit they apply much less than say, the Rolling Stones. Nevertheless, the music of Pink Floyd still doesn't even come close to the kind of jazz you might hear on your local college station (keep in mind, I'm not talking about "smooth" jazz, or contemporary jazz. That stuff is mostly crap. I'm talking about the real stuff: Herbie Hancock, Cannonball Adderly, Freddie Hubbbard, Stanley Turrentine; any of you musicians know who I'm talking about). I'll give it to David Gilmour, he's not the most technical player ever, but he can play the heck out of one note more than most players can get out of ten. The other players, on the other hand...
Richard Wright... where'd this guy come from? He's like Ringo Starr and the Beatles; he's just along for the ride, just got picked up along the way because they needed a keyboard player, and he happened to be there. (and they both happened to write one good song: Octopus's Garden, and Great Gig in the Sky). However, that song doesn't even have a melody! It's just one long solo, which is the easiest type of song to make! Aside from the intro, the chord pattern follow the same chord pattern that almost every single other PF song follows: A minor 7th, followed by a major 4th... These are not technical terms that are meant to impress. Anyone with the most basic music theory understands what I'm saying. And now he appears to have gotten worse over the years, not better!, if Pulse is any indication of how he plays. Probably the worst piano solo I've ever heard in my life was by Wright, on Meddle.
Nick Mason. Well it's hard to be an innovative drummer in rock (or maybe it's just there are none because all the good ones go play jazz), but it can be done, as evidenced by David Girabaldi of Tower of Power fame or the drummer from Rush, I can't think of his name right now. But Nick Mason, he just doesn't do much. He's a solid drummer, but then again there are thousands upon thousands of those. Musical genius? Nope.
David Gilmour. A good player. And a good singer (listen to him on Pulse, he's better than he used to be). Definitely a valuable asset to any band. Can solo good to almost any song. But --- the solos are the same every time he plays the song! Not spontaneous! He's scared of messing up so he memorizes it! This is not necessarily a bad thing; the solo in Comfortably Numb is one of the greatest guitar solos in Rock; people want to hear it the same. But this is not charcteristic of a true musician, who knows his instrument so well he can make a new solo (that sounds just as good) on the fly every time he plays the song. Also, as evidenced by the Division Bell, Gilmour is not that good of a writer (don't argue with me and say the songs are good; I don't care if you "like" them; I like a lot of stuff that's not technically and musically great music; but these songs are not technically or musically great, and preference plays no part in this).
Waters... he's difficult. I think he thinks more of his music as art than music. He writes music to make a statement. There's a fine line here; it's like the difference between traditional art and modern art. I personally am not a big fan of modern art, but I can appreciate the symbolism and messages that the artists are trying to get across through the abstract. Conveying ideas always in a new light is extremely that.
On the other hand, could most of these very same modern artists paint the Mona Lisa? No way. The Mona Lisa is a bad example; a better example would be a piece of art that is an extremely detailed piece of work that includes complex shading and 3d techniques, which in the end appears to emulate a real life scene, but which many great artists can do. This takes raw talent, and creativity. If I was to say who was the better artist, I'd say it's the person who can draw a perfect scene of El Capitan in Yosemite National Park rather than the person who scatters a few lines on a page and says it's art because it represents the "randomness that is life."
Waters, then, writes music to convey an idea, to make a statement. Musically speaking, his music is not great. There are those that argue that the greatness is in the simplicity, that the music perfectly goes along with the lyrics. Fine. You're arguing modern art now. Forget the lyrics: pure and simple, the music is not very complex.
So, am I saying Pink Floyd sucks? No. I like them, kind of. I think they have a few good songs, in particular, one great album (can't argue with the bestselling album of all time in history). At the same time, I hardly ever listen to their music, mostly because it's boring to me. As a musician, as a keyboard player and aspiring jazz pianist, it just doesn't do anything to help me in becoming a better player. I can play everything Richard Wright has ever played on any of his albums, ever. But that doesn't matter because what he plays is really simple. But I want to listen to something that will give me ideas, that will help me become a better player. That's why I listen predominantly to various forms of jazz.
Is jazz for everyone? No. Most people don't like it, however, because they don't understand it. To understand it requires a substantial undertaking and is a giant learning curve and requires years of playing a particular instrument. It's not meant to be an exclusive club, but pop culture makes it that way.
Basically I wanted to clear it up to everyone (and yes, I myself use Linux too, right there on
Oh yeah. The same goes for phish.
btw: not an AC, but email's down right now... rkirk@[nospam}calpoly.edu http://www.topflight.net
btw, not an AC, but email's down right now... rkirk@[nospam}calpoly.edu http://www.topflight.net
/dev/hdc (because hdb is small, and hdc is of course my ide atapi cdrom)), that Pink Floyd is not "Diety," as someone mentioned. "Meddle" downright sucks. Roger Waters is not the greatest musician ever, in fact I would say there are many even in rock who are better than him. Pink Pink Floyd wrote a lot of good stuff, but they wrote a lot of crap too. In reality they're just
(note: most of this was already written out for a different purpose, however it all applies to this topic)
Wow, it's nice to see all the non-musician "experts" write about Waters and music in general and act like they know what they're talking about. Techies hate it when non-techies act like they know it all, so I think I'll clear up a thing or two right now about Roger Waters, Pink Floyd, and music in general.
Pink Floyd is/was a Rock band. The fact that it is "rock" conjures up all the stereotypes of simple chord changes and bad soloing. These definitely apply to Pink Floyd in many instances (except for David Gilmour and soloing), albeit they apply much less than say, the Rolling Stones. Nevertheless, the music of Pink Floyd still doesn't even come close to the kind of jazz you might hear on your local college station (keep in mind, I'm not talking about "smooth" jazz, or contemporary jazz. That stuff is mostly crap. I'm talking about the real stuff: Herbie Hancock, Cannonball Adderly, Freddie Hubbbard, Stanley Turrentine; any of you musicians know who I'm talking about). I'll give it to David Gilmour, he's not the most technical player ever, but he can play the heck out of one note more than most players can get out of ten. The other players, on the other hand...
Richard Wright... where'd this guy come from? He's like Ringo Starr and the Beatles; he's just along for the ride, just got picked up along the way because they needed a keyboard player, and he happened to be there. (and they both happened to write one good song: Octopus's Garden, and Great Gig in the Sky). However, that song doesn't even have a melody! It's just one long solo, which is the easiest type of song to make! Aside from the intro, the chord pattern follow the same chord pattern that almost every single other PF song follows: A minor 7th, followed by a major 4th... These are not technical terms that are meant to impress. Anyone with the most basic music theory understands what I'm saying. And now he appears to have gotten worse over the years, not better!, if Pulse is any indication of how he plays. Probably the worst piano solo I've ever heard in my life was by Wright, on Meddle.
Nick Mason. Well it's hard to be an innovative drummer in rock (or maybe it's just there are none because all the good ones go play jazz), but it can be done, as evidenced by David Girabaldi of Tower of Power fame or the drummer from Rush, I can't think of his name right now. But Nick Mason, he just doesn't do much. He's a solid drummer, but then again there are thousands upon thousands of those. Musical genius? Nope.
David Gilmour. A good player. And a good singer (listen to him on Pulse, he's better than he used to be). Definitely a valuable asset to any band. Can solo good to almost any song. But --- the solos are the same every time he plays the song! Not spontaneous! He's scared of messing up so he memorizes it! This is not necessarily a bad thing; the solo in Comfortably Numb is one of the greatest guitar solos in Rock; people want to hear it the same. But this is not charcteristic of a true musician, who knows his instrument so well he can make a new solo (that sounds just as good) on the fly every time he plays the song. Also, as evidenced by the Division Bell, Gilmour is not that good of a writer (don't argue with me and say the songs are good; I don't care if you "like" them; I like a lot of stuff that's not technically and musically great music; but these songs are not technically or musically great, and preference plays no part in this).
Waters... he's difficult. I think he thinks more of his music as art than music. He writes music to make a statement. There's a fine line here; it's like the difference between traditional art and modern art. I personally am not a big fan of modern art, but I can appreciate the symbolism and messages that the artists are trying to get across through the abstract. Conveying ideas always in a new light is extremely hard.
On the other hand, could most of these very same modern artists paint the Mona Lisa? No way. The Mona Lisa is a bad example; a better example would be a piece of art that is an extremely detailed piece of work that includes complex shading and 3d techniques, which in the end appears to emulate a real life scene, but which many great artists can do. This takes raw talent, and creativity. If I was to say who was the better artist, I'd say it's the person who can draw a perfect scene of El Capitan in Yosemite National Park rather than the person who scatters a few lines on a page and says it's art because it represents the "randomness that is life."
Waters, then, writes music to convey an idea, to make a statement. Musically speaking, his music is not great. There are those that argue that the greatness is in the simplicity, that the music perfectly goes along with the lyrics. Fine. You're arguing modern art now. Forget the lyrics: pure and simple, the music is not very complex.
So, am I saying Pink Floyd sucks? No. I like them, kind of. I think they have a few good songs, in particular, one great album (can't argue with the bestselling album of all time in history). At the same time, I hardly ever listen to their music, mostly because it's boring to me. As a musician, as a keyboard player and aspiring jazz pianist, it just doesn't do anything to help me in becoming a better player. I can play everything Richard Wright has ever played on any of his albums, ever. But that doesn't matter because what he plays is really simple. But I want to listen to something that will give me ideas, that will help me become a better player. That's why I listen predominantly to various forms of jazz.
Is jazz for everyone? No. Most people don't like it, however, because they don't understand it. To understand it requires a substantial undertaking and is a giant learning curve and requires years of playing a particular instrument. It's not meant to be an exclusive club, but pop culture makes it that way.
Basically I wanted to clear it up to everyone (and yes, I myself use Linux too, right there on
Oh yeah. The same goes for phish.
btw: not an AC, but email's down right now... rkirk@[nospam}calpoly.edu http://www.topflight.net
Roger Waters should get David Gilmour to play guitar on his album
Please explain. People keep saying this, but I don't see a shred of evidence. I'd just like to see a few-paragraph essay from somebody, AC or otherwise, comparing pieces carried by or linked to from Slashdot, providing evidence that it has decreased in quality in any way.
I don't think such evidence will be forthcoming.
No, the new category we need is "Pompous Fool Spouting Thoretical Nonsense To Backup A Perfectly Arbitrary Opinion".
Take it from someone who has a B.A. in music composition, this guy has no idea what the hell he's talking about:
'minor seventh' isn't a chord, it's an interval. There is no such thing as a 'major fourth', only 'perfect', 'augmented', and 'diminished' fourth's, also all intervals. If he's referring to a major chord built off the 4th scale degree, it'd be called a 'major four' chord. Never believe this kind of BS. Bells went off in my head the instant he started bringing theory into explaining why PF wasn't as good as something else.
Now on to the real meat of why this guy is a goddamned ass... This arguement ALWAYS comes up when some short-sighted, under-educated loudmouth starts discussing his personal preferences in art. There's always some really powerful arguement to back up his claims that what he likes to is more 'valuable' or 'worthy' of respect/admiration/attention/praise than someone else's. These arguements may be technical, or philosophical, or even moral/ethical. Let me lay it down right here in this little corner of slashdot:
ART CAN -ONLY- BE JUDGED BY THE AUDIENCE FOR HIS OR HER OWN SAKE. You CANNOT make judgements for art that apply to other people, and you CANNOT make qualitative judgements about art that are anything but subjective. If ANYONE, and I mean ANYONE, ever tries to sell you an opinion of ANY kind of art as anything but completely subjective, ignore them. Think critically for yourself, and if art speaks to you, then cherish it. If not, make no opinion other than that it doesn't say anything to you.
Bart
Let's see.
The pro's and cons of Hitch-hiking, solo album 1 -
Sixties and Seventies entertainment: drug use and sex.
Radio Kaos:
Radio and the Cold War
Amused to Death:
Television and consumerism.
Next As Yet Unnamed Album:
The Internet & something else?
Perhaps I took a little too long to get to my point, or didn't do it well enough. The only point I was trying to make was that Pink Floyd is not "Diety," "Gods," and other such nonsense as many have posted.
You say:
"powerful arguement to back up his claims that what he likes to is more 'valuable'"
I did not say this. I simply said their music is not very technically and musically complex, although relative to most other rock, it is. A lot of their music is great and probably superior to most other rock music. However, it is unquestionably simple when compared to some of the various forms of jazz and classical music too. For you not to acknowledge that a lot of jazz (I say "a lot of", because there's been a lot of "bad" jazz written too), and even higher than that, classical, are generally considered to be more complicated forms of music, is simply ludicrous.
Your whole paragraph about the chord terms is ridiculous. First you say, "There is no such thing as a 'major fourth', then you say, "If he's referring to a major chord built off the 4th scale degree, it'd be called a 'major four' chord. Obviously that's what I was referring to. I don't know what school you went to, but music terminology is not so strict as to say that you can't leave off the -th at the end of a word. Maybe I can help you understand, since you only seem to comprehend the absolute exact technical terms of the chord:
IV = four = "a fourth" (step up from the I)
(yes, I know, in the strictest sense of English, a IV is actually three steps up from the I. That's just one of music's little quirks, and don't try to use that as an argument against me because we both know that it's still called a IV even though it's only three steps up.)
Yes, you can play a "third," or a "fourth," or a "fifth." As you should know, nobody in the music industry walks around saying, "major chord built off the 4th scale degree." You just say 4th. Or, "play a four." It's simpler. And you should also know that often in chord charting, a capital M is used to denote a Major chord if it comes after a minor chord, even though writing "C" implicitly means CM and not Cm. Nevertheless, it's done to clarify the transition so that someone doesn't actually play a Cm (C minor) if they've been playing alll minor chords prior to that. This is exactly what I was doing, in verbal terms, when I said "A minor 7th, followed by a major 4th." So I should have said IV instead of "4th", since that's confusing, and it would have been more clarifying. However, you knew what I meant, and any other musician would have seen it as a common mistake. (To everyone else, this is like writing "their" when you should be writing "they're.") A stupid mistake, and yeah, unprofessional, but I was writing in a hurry. Definitely no reason for an attack.
Everyone, this guy is rehashing exactly what I'm saying. Artistic value is always in the eye of the beholder. However, strictly in terms of musical complexity (complexity of chords, melodies, harmonies, etc.) and technicality, it is much easier to define where on the ladder a musican or group of musicians stand.
And I'm not discrediting artistic merit. If you want to think Pink Floyd are Gods for their artistic merit, fine, I can't argue with that, although my opinion would still be different. But to call them musical geniuses, no. That they are not. And you're right, the point of a lot of music is to get a message across; and all technicality and no 'soul' means jack. But blending the two, this has happened, and it's happened in jazz.
If anyone would like to test my assertion out, listen to the album "Man Child" by Herbie Hancock. One of my all-time favorites. This album has soul, and a funky beat too. A lot of classic-rock players have been wooed into the realm of jazz with this album. Seriously, try it out, you might be surprised.
Ryan Kirk
rkirk@calpoly.edu
Give me a break. Waters and PF appeal to a "cult" audience???
Waters and also PF were one of the highest grossing acts in music history.
Did you read the masthead. Its NEWS FOR NERD not LINUX CENTRAL. Get you one track mind out of your one track anus.
Poor little clams! Snap! Snap! Snap! Poor little clams! Snap! Snap! Snap! Poor little clams! Snap! Snap! Snap!
The net impacts a persons life once they start using it day in day out. DId you NOT EXPECT this to translate into music? Look at music, look at the things it talks about. It has always been, in part, a reporting of the times they were crafted in.
Townshends Quadrophenia was about a particular set of cultural and societal events speheres. All thesongs about driving your chevy with the girl you love...PUNK, at its best was always a commentary on the times and forces.
So why do we have this knee jerk reaction against any artist who starts placing the net in the fore of the tale being told? Well I think part of it might be the overexposure in the last 5 years. I have to say back in '86 i never thought the net would be this much a part of so many peoples lives. There sheer forces that moved acorss the 90's is worthy of some great works.
Townshend is finaly seeing a way to do his long itme Lifehouse project in part due to the fact that the net has grown to a point where his vision can be shared in the manner he wants. think of that, in someones life time the means to get a bizzare expression out of thier skull and into others is becomming avialable in ways not thought of before. this opens not only the possiblity of these works to be done up, but the process itself becomes a focal point.
The process becomes one of the forces of culture, of society, of the day in day out lives of so many that it is a prome topic for a work. I see Waters getting into this as a logical and welcome progression in the path of his life times work.
If it happens that in the next 5 years both Waters and Townshend will have completed and delivered works hither too unable to be done, i will be very happy .
It will also mean that it is NEWS FOR NERDS, STUFF THAT MATTERS inthat it will have used the things that impact us here on slash dot in ways that make it newsworthy. For those who have thier ONE TRACK heads stuck up their one track colons i can only say this, your mindset is part of the problem. You are in no uncertian terms part the force that degrades the progress of things. You have been around from the beging and will be around to the end, but know that you will have your teeth kicked in by those forces of excelence that you so despise. Water's "amused themselves to death" is all about you. Please, Die young and dont spawn.
Poor little clams! Snap! Snap! Snap! Poor little clams! Snap! Snap! Snap! Poor little clams! Snap! Snap! Snap!
The band passing itself off these days is simply Dave Gilmor's solo effort. Pink Floyd is nothing without Waters....and really Waters pails without the other members. Pink Floyd to me was Waters lyrics and Gilmors singing and haunting guitar.