Amused to Death
- The Ballad of Bill Hubbard
- What God Wants, Pt. 1
- Perfect Sense, Pt. 1
- Perfect Sense, Pt. 2
- The Bravery of Being Out of Range
- Late Home Tonight, Pt. 1
- Late Home Tonight, Pt. 2
- Too Much Rope
- What God Wants, Pt. 2
- What God Wants, Pt. 3
- Watching TV
- Three Wishes
- It s a Miracle
- Amused to Death
BEST ALBUM OF THE 90 S......... - While some of you call this Waters best solo effort I ll go one step further. I rate Amused to Death as the Best Album of the entire 90 s. This period was not the high point in recorded music but still produced some great work, including some by Pink Floyd [The Division Bell and Pulse]. Good as these albums are they can t top the creative genius in this album. Themed? Yes........ Anti War? Of course [The Bravery of Being Out of Range being perhaps the best antiwar song ever recorded]. Musically great? Yes, with a combination of great writing, studio magic and Jeff Beck s incredible guitar work [What God Wants part 2 may possess some of the nastiest guitar licks ever laid down]. The title cut provides provocative insight into how we lived and, far into the future, what Alien Anthropologists see as evidence of our existence and demise This species has amused itself to death. Not a good work, a great work that should be part of every Floyd/Waters/Gilmour/classic rock/history-making music lovers collection.5 HUGE STARS..........
Like a cool mountain stream - A damn fine bit of rock opera, after the rubbish pop they play on the radio this is like drinking from a cool mountain stream after living on fizzy drink.
Roger Waters - His Best Solo Album - This is Waters best solo album and although it has some flaws is probably the closest he has come to the glory days of Pink Floyd. Guitar god Jeff Beck guests on this one and helps to bridge the guitar gap missing on Waters albums ever since he split with David Gilmour. The album is another concept piece mainly revolving around war, politics, and more war. The themes of the album are as relevant today as when they were written in 92. Waters tends to be a bit wordy at times and has a tendency to drive his points home probably more than needed, but for the most part this is a solid effective disc. As with his other solo efforts the album failed to generate a lot of interest at the cash registers. 15 years later he has yet to do another solo album. It s a pity because I think with each solo release Waters was producing better material.
Let it grow on you.... - I don t know what it is about Roger s work since 1977, but as much as I love the guy with Floyd and without and as much as I expect to like his work, I almost never do when I first hear it. The Wall is probably the exception as I d heard enough of that on radio to have some familiarity with it before I heard the whole thing, so the songs I knew and the overall theatrical nature of it pulled me in right away.But the Final Cut (which is actually Pink Floyd, but many consider to be something of a Waters solo album since he wrote and sang pretty much all of it), The Pros and Cons of Hitchiking, Radio KAOS and now Amused To Death all didn t appeal to me on first listen, probably because there aren t many catchy songs that have immediate appeal. But that s not what Pink Floyd was about (they rarely released singles), and it s certainly not what Waters solo career has been about either. He creates ALBUMS that tell a story or touch on concepts, so to evaluate it song-by-song is to miss the point. One really has to listen to the whole thing, and more than once, before forming an opinion.Plus, did you ever notice how the immediately catchy/appealing songs are usually the ones you tire of most quickly and the ones that grow on you are the ones you love for life? Well, so it is for Waters.Songs like the single What God Wants grabbed me right away as well as a couple of others early on in this one (Perfect Sense, The Bravery Of Being Out Of Range), but then the lengthy sound effects between songs and just the overall length of the cd made me lose some interest. It wasn t as appealing to me as the previous album (Radio KAOS), which grew on me tremendously after repeated listenings and seeing the concert, so I wanted and expected to immediately love Amused To Death. When I didn t, I just set it aside and said Oh well..... So there this cd sat for years with my opinion of it as being so-so until Waters went on tour in 1999. When I found he was doing the song Amused To Death and It s A Miracle as part of his set (the two last songs on the cd), I figured I should give them a listen to familiarize myself with them, and when I did.... wow. Those are two really great songs!! So naturally, I went back and listened to the whole cd to let more of the album s concepts sink in and find out how these two final songs fit in with the earlier songs I had liked. Then I listened again. Then again. And again. And again and again and again until it was quite obvious that this was indeed a(nother) Waters masterpiece. So I can actually understand the reviews here that are luke-warm or even downright negative, but I will say that those posters would probalby like this album a lot more if they listened to it thoroughly at least 2-3 times in its entirety with special attention paid to the lyrics. The music is solid too, particularly with Jeff Beck on guitar, but not so strong or catchy that much of it will grab you without the extra emotion that the lyrics deliver.At the end of the day though, I agree with Roger that if you re going to have just 1 of his solo albums, this is the one to have, and that the holy trinity of Waters albums is definitely Dark Side of the Moon, The Wall and this one, AMUSED TO DEATH. Now if he would just put out ANOTHER one!!
overly long - imo, theres only about 1 lp worth of good music which is about 40min.i get bored halfway through and his voice is shot. my fav track is 3 wishes i think.i recommend pros and cons and radio kaos over this.