Sometimes, when you learn more about an artist, you actually grow a little less impressed.
That has unfortunately been the case with Roger Waters of Pink Floyd. Don't get me wrong: he is a great artist, and has created terrific music. And also, he seems like a legitimately fascinating, intelligent guy, with a lot to say about the world.
However, he clearly has an enormous ego on him, one that gets in the way of allowing any credit for Pink Floyd's success to trickle down to anybody but him, as much as he can prevent it. It reaches points where, frankly, it gets a bit ridiculous. He has allowed his petty side to get the better of him far too frequently lately, and it feels frankly unwarranted.
This is some of what Waters had t say recently about his former Floyd bandmates:
“I wrote The Dark Side of the Moon. Let’s get rid of all this ‘we’ crap! Of course we were a band, there were four of us, we all contributed – but it’s my project and I wrote it. So… blah!”
It is unfortunate, because again, he and the rest of Pink Floyd are incredible artists and accomplished musicians, with some of the best music out there, frankly. The drama that exists between these former bandmates just seems to detract from that a bit, though.
“They said I was autocratic,” he said, adding that he had taken the attitude of “You play the guitar and sing and do as you’re bloody well told” with Gilmour.
Rogers went on to explain that his main problem with his former bandmates was that they couldn’t write material. “Well, Nick [Mason] never pretended,” he qualified, adding, “But [David] Gilmour and Rick [Wright]? They can’t write songs, they’ve nothing to say. They are not artists! They have no ideas, not a single one between them. They never have had, and that drives them crazy.”
Frankly, that sounds not merely uncharitable and unnecessarily hostile, but downright petty and childish, truth be told. Maybe the Pink Floyd albums after Waters left the band were not to his liking, but they are good albums, and show more than a little talent in writing songs and lyrics, and implementing ideas. They are good albums, even very good albums. "The Division Bell" was an album I could not get enough of back in 1994-95, and I still enjoy listening to it, especially "High Hopes." Maybe those "ideas" are not ones Waters like, and maybe he does not want to give them any credit for those two albums, or the other work that they did along with Waters when they were all bandmates. But in truth, as much as I like and very much respect Waters and his body of work, he sounds like a bitter and egotistical old man simply complaining and airing the band's dirty laundry, as if his advanced years have refused to provide him the wisdom simply to let bygones be bygones.
Pink Floyd was a historically great band. Their music will endure. Frankly, when I hear it, I do not feel like I am merely hearing the brilliance of Roger Waters, with a few largely talentless and apparently mindless bozos simply doing their part and brining the music of Waters to life. No, I hear a band, all of whom seemed to be very talented and filled with originality. Truth be told, I suspect that, like the Beatles, they made each other better. It is sad to see that Roger Waters, specifically, has on some level, only grown worse when it comes to his unhealthy perspective on the band that he was so undeniably a huge part of. He should be proud of their mutual accomplishments as musicians, and not bitter about them receiving literally any credit.
Roger Waters: “David Gilmour and Rick Wright? They can’t write songs, they’ve nothing to say” by Scott Ng, February 9, 2023:
Waters is also set to release a reworked version of Dark Side Of The Moon later this year.
https://guitar.com/news/music-news/roger-waters-pink-floyd-david-gilmour-cant-write-ukraine-russia/
Roger Waters is re-recording Pink Floyd’s Dark Side Of The Moon: “We all contributed – but it’s my project and I wrote it”
Breath has been reimagined as a slow, acoustic track, while Money has developed a country tinge among other changes.
https://guitar.com/news/music-news/roger-waters-rerecording-dark-side-of-the-moon/
Roger Waters Says He’s Re-Recording ‘The Dark Side of the Moon’ — Without Pink Floyd by Charisma Madarang, February 9, 2023:
“Because not enough people recognised what it’s about, what it was I was saying then," Waters said in an interview with The Telegraph
https://www.rollingstone.com/music/music-news/roger-waters-re-recording-pink-floyd-the-dark-side-of-the-moon-1234676350/?fbclid=IwAR3vdTLVYlXne6B3cP0_opaxBhDWVx2LKZ47xMq18GJdmpdZm75p5UH8DP8
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