{"id":165,"date":"2007-01-25T10:11:39","date_gmt":"2007-01-25T15:11:39","guid":{"rendered":""},"modified":"2012-01-17T09:40:25","modified_gmt":"2012-01-17T14:40:25","slug":"rock-crimes-roger-watrers","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rocktownhall.com\/blogs\/rock-crimes-roger-watrers\/","title":{"rendered":"Rock Crimes: Roger Waters"},"content":{"rendered":"<div class=\"image_block\" style=\"text-align: center;\"><img loading=\"lazy\" src=\"http:\/\/www.rocktownhall.com\/blogs\/media\/users\/frankenslade\/Roger.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"434\" height=\"311\" \/><\/div>\n<p>When I was in high school, my favorite band was <a href=\"http:\/\/pinkfloyd.co.uk\" target=\"_blank\"><strong>Pink Floyd<\/strong><\/a>. Why? Teen angst + heavy classic-rock exposure + an interest in languid guitar solos, I guess. When I hit college, I kicked the habit <em>hard<\/em>. I sold all my Floyd to used-CD shacks on South Street. The t-shirts conveniently disappeared.<\/p>\n<p>I still can\u2019t bring myself to own any Pink Floyd, but lately I find myself thinking fondly about their music. The catalyst for this is twofold. First, there was their surprisingly vital <a href=\"http:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=t0VKIuJeHaE\" target=\"_blank\"><strong>Live8 performance<\/strong><\/a>. Then, there is <strong>YouTube<\/strong>, which of course contains a dizzying amount of Floyd ephemera. It is thanks to YouTube that I am constantly reminded of something <em>very, very important<\/em>.<br \/>\n<!--more--><br \/>\n<a href=\"http:\/\/www.roger-waters.com\" target=\"_blank\"><strong>Roger Waters&#8217;<\/strong><\/a> music <em><strong>blows<\/strong><\/em>.<\/p><iframe class='youtube-player youtuber' type='text\/html' width='425' height='355' src='http:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/Ntqt0CDLKFM?rel=0&amp;fs=1&amp;ap=%252526fmt%253D18' webkitAllowFullScreen mozallowfullscreen allowFullScreen frameborder='0'><\/iframe><p>It\u2019s always been fairly de rigueur to lambaste the post-Waters Floyd as a tired nostalgia act and, yeah, I\u2019m not about to beg for a critical upgrade of <a href=\"http:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/A_Momentary_Lapse_of_Reason\" target=\"_blank\"><em>A Momentary Lapse of Reason<\/em><\/a> either. But whereas <a href=\"http:\/\/davidgilmour.com\" target=\"_blank\"><strong>David Gilmour<\/strong><\/a> at least had a grasp on both song structure and melodies that could make the most of his mellow but tonally assured singing, Waters used his solo career to highlight his didactic, hectoring lyrics with threadbare tunes and shrill vocals. Plus, he\u2019d bring in a truckload of shit-hot session players whose gussying efforts only further highlighted how very weak these songs were. Waters was committing Rock Crimes.<\/p><iframe class='youtube-player youtuber' type='text\/html' width='425' height='355' src='http:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/EUj9FrGLfsc?rel=0&amp;fs=1&amp;ap=%252526fmt%253D18' webkitAllowFullScreen mozallowfullscreen allowFullScreen frameborder='0'><\/iframe><p>All this might seem so very self-evident, so very \u201cso fucking what.\u201d I\u2019ve felt the same all these years, but happening upon these long-forgotten Roger Waters videos, the train-wreck-enthusiast in me cannot help but watch.<\/p><iframe class='youtube-player youtuber' type='text\/html' width='425' height='355' src='http:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/GvTvWJWeQ2g?rel=0&amp;fs=1&amp;ap=%252526fmt%253D18' webkitAllowFullScreen mozallowfullscreen allowFullScreen frameborder='0'><\/iframe><p>To be even more completely unfair just to belabor my point, here is David Gilmour, performing a mostly solo acoustic version of an old Pink Floyd song. (If you\u2019re not in the mood for extended acoustic noodling, fast-forward to 5:18.) Nevertheless, I maintain that this performance contains a surprising amount of feeling, humility and skill, and I\u2019ve yet to find anything in Waters\u2019 YouTube oeuvre that even begins to compare.<\/p><iframe class='youtube-player youtuber' type='text\/html' width='425' height='355' src='http:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/pAkTC6EpSmQ?rel=0&amp;fs=1&amp;ap=%252526fmt%253D18' webkitAllowFullScreen mozallowfullscreen allowFullScreen frameborder='0'><\/iframe>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>When I was in high school, my favorite band was Pink Floyd. Why? Teen angst + heavy classic-rock exposure + an interest in languid guitar solos, I guess. When I hit college, I kicked the habit hard. I sold all my Floyd to used-CD shacks on South Street. The t-shirts conveniently disappeared. I still can\u2019t <a href='https:\/\/www.rocktownhall.com\/blogs\/rock-crimes-roger-watrers\/' class='excerpt-more'>[&#8230;]<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":18,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[342,20],"tags":[76],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rocktownhall.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/165"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rocktownhall.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rocktownhall.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rocktownhall.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/18"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rocktownhall.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=165"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rocktownhall.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/165\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rocktownhall.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=165"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rocktownhall.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=165"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rocktownhall.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=165"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}