Roger Waters Sucks | The Decibel Tolls

Last Friday, The Decibel Tolls received one of the most epic comments I’ve ever seen on a music blog. This bro/broette had a lot to say concerning a rather controversial entry written back in September titled A Pox on Roger Waters. Coincidentally (or synchronistically, your pick), this argument against post-1971, Waters/Wright-helmed Pink Floyd was published only a few days before Rick Wright passed. I make no bones about my allegiance to Syd Barrett, and of course, I certainly expected impassioned responses in the thread. But our fair commenter left a novella. Since the aforementioned post is nine months old, I wanted to make sure all you dudes saw it by republishing the comment(s). But, I mean, shit, if anyone else writes a veritable thesis in the comments section, I’d certainly give him/her an entry of his/her own as well. The comments, unedited and in sequence, are below…

Ok, so, I checked out Summer of 68 for the first time, at your suggestion, and it sounds trajically like the Beatles caught the flu and collaborated with the Monkees and a garage band version of Chicago. I was surprised at how horrible it was, after so much hoopla and insistence that the old Floyd was so superior, from yourself and so many others over the years, and so convincingly so. Typed in “roger waters sucks” today in google, after watching his rubbish video called “Three Wishes”. It’s depressingly and awkwardly sucky, and it’s sad to see him as a grey-haired older man, still making reference to the fact that he “wishes his old man hadn’t been gone when he was young”, and admitting “I wish someone would help me write this song”. I bet you do, Roger. Gilmour, maybe? Mason? Funny thing is, Gilmour didn’t write his lyrics either, on his solo stuff, his wife did. Pink Floyd is a classic case of “the sum is greater than the parts”, as none of Gilmour’s solo stuff, as I call it, officially referred to as “Pink Floyd minus Waters”, was top shelf like some of the other stuff – The Wall, Dark Side (sort of) and Wish You Were Here. Funny thing is, I call them top shelf, but the common element in all the Floyd I’m referring to as “top shelf” is just Gilmour’s awesome guitar playing – he makes it wail like no other. But really when you dissect it, you find the songs themselves to be as you described – overly polished, and after you listen to them a couple hundred million times, they give you a f**** headache. The Wall was Roger’s attempt at self-indulgent rock opera, and so many people liked it probably because they felt like it must be good since it was so “different, and you know, man, it’s Pink Floyd”. Who cares. Gilmour’s guitar is awesome, Wright was great, Mason was great…Waters? Well, creative, but cheesily so, and I agree, unintentionally hilarious. Just my opinion.

Wow. Felt so strongly about this, I had to ammend my above post…I’m almost speechless, but I’ll try to get through this haze of disillusion and be coherent. I listened to the other tracks as well, Vegetable Man, and Astronomy Domine, and Nightmare is playing now as I type this. How appropriately titled, for starters. Again, wow. I feel like I just watched a low-budget horror film in its entirety with a friend who insists that it’s the greatest theatrical work of all time. With art, it’s all about what it means to you, and I can’t take that away from anyone, I’m just not seeing the significance of calling this “focused”, I think they may have been focused, but the result was not. Focused, in this case, is a relative term. I suppose if you are a person who likes seemingly random, pseudo-complicated, pseudo-creative ramblings that come off sounding like the b-side tracks from a Cream album, then this is genius work. I venture to say, that those of us who prefer something a bit more “standardized”, but definitely not overly so, as in the case of pure pop, or basically anything made since 1990 that calls itself “rock” somehow, aren’t necessarily missing the boat, we just don’t have the appreciation that you do for what seems like, well “a bunch of potheads fucking around in a (cheap) studio”. The more things change, the more they stay the same, maybe? In any case, if you can get over the fact that Alan Parsons “fucked with the knobs”, and stop thinking that Yes has anything to do with this at all, it’s good stuff. But then, even though Alan Parsons isn’t daily listening to me, more like an occasional speaker test (along with some other highly polished tunes from Dire Straits), it does have musical significance, especially with regards to high fidelity, which is personally important to me as well. Not at the expense of cheesy music, but there is something to be said for clarity. So, in summary, Pink Floyd is Waters/Gilmour, and especially Gilmour’s guitar. But then, I’m not as categorically conscious as some.

Embarrasingly needed clarification: when I said [In any case, if you can get over the fact that Alan Parsons “fucked with the knobs”, and stop thinking that Yes has anything to do with this at all, it’s good stuff.], “it” was referring to Pink Floyd with Gilmour and Waters, specifically The Wall, Dark Side, Animals, Wish You Were Here.

Ok, last post. That old Floyd stuff was so horrible, I think it actually ruined my day. It was so horribly boring and under-developed, like maybe the musical equivalent of a Michael Stipe lyric, but on lots of pot, that it just took away my focus. Now my head is filled with the endless draggings on of that Nightmare song, and it has taken me from alert to mind-numb. I guess the significance of the song is just that maybe? Makes you feel like either you already did drugs, or want to? I’ve had a few cups of coffee, and now even that isn’t enough to keep me clear after that, the effects have instantly wore off. Even more coffee will not change this feeling – it’s just stuck. Crap, I can’t think of anything that will ditch it. Time heals all wounds, as they say. I certainly hope so in this case. I’d hate to find out I just caught the Syd Barrett mental state. Maybe it’s contagious, comes from the music they were making pre-Wish You Were Here, and only those band members have the antidote. I may have to call upon Roger Waters for the cure. Nevermind, judging from the lyrics Waters wrote on his solo stuff, he finally caught it too. So did Gilmour – his face puffed up in the last 15 years, and his guitar playing definitely went downhill after The Wall. If anyone knows of a cure for this, please let me know.

I’m not sure if I caught all that – but yeah, totally dude. This is my favorite Syd Barrett song – I hope this helps.

MP3 :::
Syd Barrett – No Good Trying

syd_roger A Pox on Roger Waters

UPDATE 9.15.08: I realize a lot of people will stumble upon this article as per Rick Wright’s recent passing. Please understand that this post, evidenced by the timestamp, was written a week prior. The Decibel Tolls offers nothing but condolensces to Wright’s family and friends. The primary purpose of this article was to simply express an opinion, in an irreverent sense, that early Pink Floyd albums were better, and nothing more. No disrespect is intended. Okay, soldiering on…

Never shying from controversy, it’s time once again to draw a definitive line in the sand.

In 1973, a pretty spectacular group by the name of teh Pink Floydz unleashed a pretty spectacular turd upon the world called Dark Side of the Moon. The turditude was unrelenting, with the fusion-infused Wish You Were Here, the dated and sleep-inducing Animals, and the bloated and idiotic The Wall extracting what was lousy about Dark Side and exemplifying each element across an entire discography. I say this in part due to my disdain for white blues, but also in part due to (my personal mantra) the associative listening experience. It’s hard to listen to post-Dark Side albums and not think about how amazing Piper at the Gates of Dawn, Meddle, and the like really were, both then and today. Sure, they were a different band, and good bands tend to morph throughout their career. But Pink Floyd elected, on their own volition, to suck, spewing torrents of lame from 1973 through, well, today I suppose. They proved their chops in their first five years, and then said “fuck it, let’s noodle like Clapton and make R&B records that you can’t shag to.”

Dark Side of the Moon is considered a cornerstone psychedelic rock record. Dark Side is as psychedelic as shopping for groceries or going to Six Flags. Some points:

Unless you’re in a band that begins with “S” and ends in “piritualized,” gospel singers does not a pysch rock record make.
When Roger gets those excitable throat pipes flaring like a kerosene lamp, he sounds like what I imagine one of the Dementors from the Harry Potter series sound like when they send out mating calls. Let Gilmour take over and let the sleeping dog lie, Brodeo.
Never, ever let Alan Parsons tweak your knobs, unless you really want to sound like Yessongs. The only thing about Yes that resembles psychedelia is their album covers, which decidedly look like those fractal designs Trapper Keeper used to rock hard when I was in elementary school.
As mentioned, we know they could’ve done better. If I wanted jazz and blues-infused borecore perfect for listening to while thumbing through Highlights in the dentist office lobby, I would’ve picked up The Weather Report. Where’s “Interstellar Overdrive,” mah frienzz?
Sure, Dark Side brought musique concrète into the public psyche, and that’s spiffy keen, but the found sound on Piper was not only engaging and seamlessly executed, focused and fluid, but also acted as the centerpiece for many of the songs, such as radio recording pastiche of “Astronomy Domine.” On Dark Side, it just comes off as potheads fucking around in a multi-million dollar studio.
Roger Waters, then and now, is still unintentionally hilarious.

One of the reasons I know my girlfriend Lana and I are ridin’ on an epic similar wavelength is that she, also, holds this fundamental tenet to be true – so I’m not alone in the Dark Side Sucks Doctrine. Her favorite PF excursion is “Summer ‘68″ off of Atom Heart Mother, and it’s certainly one of mine as well. “Summer ‘68″ is also post-Syd, so here’s evidence that Syd Barrett was not the lone firewall between Pink Floyd and “the suck.” When I hear this soaring, expansive, gorgeous, subdued psychedelic ballad, and then listen to, I dunno, “The Great Gig in the Sky,” I feel hurt and angry. Maybe this represents the zeitgeist with this musical movement – every other amazing late ’60s psych artist that didn’t reinvent themselves for the worse or alter their sound to the arena-centric sounds of the ’70s either broke up, went ballistic, or something else entirely (Can and their crowd tends to be the exemplary exception, though Can and “the suck” collided head-on a decade later after Damo bounced). It’s just kind of a bummer, I suppose. I hate when I’m talking about music, and someone asks about my favorite bands. I name Floyd and I usually get “oh, yeah, Dark Side is great.” Nay, it’s not. Dark Side is sordid and gives me indigestion.

Look, I love Pink Floyd, as showcased here. And I’ve included four of my favorite Floyd tracks below, which are also some of my just plain favorite songs period. I can’t listen to these triumphant songs and then turn around, crank up Dark Side and say “these jams are just as boss.” Because they’re not. I just, in good conscience, can’t do that. So for this… a pox on you, Roger Waters! A pox on you, scurvy scaliwag! Both you and Rick Wright… back away from the instruments… and the mixing board. Go! Get out of here! Count money or somethin’.

Sorry for being a hater. Nothin’ but good vibrations from here on out. Feel free to bash this entry in the comment section, I won’t take it personally. But all ye noble men should mash play on the MP3s below first.

As a quick and final aside, Roger Waters and Richard Gere bear quite a resemblance these days… which is amazing. Dang, mang. Roger’s making the same face I make every time I hear the shitfest “Shine on You Crazy Diamonds.”

roger_waters_4893 A Pox on Roger Waters _44098658_richard_gere416ap A Pox on Roger Waters