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?
I tend to agree - Slashdot has slowly, but surely, been turning to shit since the Andover buyout.
Mr Malda has always posted information on his favorite groups/musicians (such as The Who), and this being his site, why shouldn't he?
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.
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/
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/
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
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.
Waters has been pretty fatalistic in the past, but this new album doesn't appear to be that way. Over the summer he played a new song from the album, "Each Small Candle." Its kind of (at least to me) like looking at Final Cut from the view of a 50 year old (err... however old Rog is these days). Interviews (probably posted on his website) have him saying that he was unsure of how to react to the war in Kosovo. In Final Cut, he is obviously very decided on what he feels. "Each Small Candle" looks at how in wartime there is really no bad guy and no good guy. The song tells the tale of a soldier stopping to help a refugee. Its worth a listen to, and you should be able to find it online. I really don't think this Album will be about the terrors of the internet... instead I see it being more about the shades of grey that exsist in life.
Just my couple of thoughts.