The goose has gotten fat on caviar and fancy bars

Continuing my trip back through the 2017 album charts.

09/06/17 : Is This The Life We Really Want? - Roger Waters


We've had a couple of solo visits with David Gilmour, but this is our first one with Roger Waters - I like Radio K.A.O.S. but don't believe I've ever listened to any of his other offerings, so I'm interested to see what I think of it.

Well, on the positive side I think this has interesting lyrics and use of various random samples over a decent Pink Floyd style musicality - all of which kept me decently engaged. There's a reasonable argument that it's not exactly subtle with the points that he's making and some of the tracks could have done with some pruning, but I do feel that most people aren't really coming here for concise nuance. However...

...he's really not a very good singer. In most places, he accepts this and works with what he's got but there are times he seems to forget and tries to do something that his voice is very much not going to let him achieve. Yes, there's an argument he's "keeping it real" and overall, I think my view remains generally positive - but I do feel it's better if an album doesn't make you wince quite as often as I did whilst listening to this. I liked the album cover though - it's very of its (and this) time.

We're at #3 in the charts this week with a new entry on the start of a five week run - possibly the shortest we've seen all year. The rest of the top five were Ed Sheeran, The Beatles (it's the fiftieth anniversary), Rag'n'Bone Man and Dua Lipa (another new entry - this is her debut, which I've never listened to but we'll get to it in '18) and we have three more new entries in the top ten for Alt-J (#6), All Time Low (#7) and Hank Marvin (#9). We also have a re-entry for U2 (#10) because this was its 30th anniversary - it's mad to think its 40th anniversary is coming up next year!

Wikipedia tells us this is his fourth solo album and it was produced by Nigel Godrich who sounds like he did an excellent job in reining in Waters - apparently they met when Nigel produced a live album of The Wall and had a frank discussion about the relative merits of his Floyd work and his solo work ("frankly unlistenable"). In return, Roger let Nigel do his stuff - "I sat on my hands with lips zipped. You've rented this dog, let it work" and I suspect everyone benefited as a result. Critically, the reviews were pretty decent and commercially it did very well globally, making the top ten in a load of places and getting to #1 in Belgium, Czechia, Norway, Poland and Switzerland - it just missed out at #11 in the US. 

discogs.com tells us you're going to have to shell out at least a fiver to get a decent copy but if you want the double 180gm vinyl offering then it's going to set you back £100. Overall, I'd say this is an interesting and very listenable "good Pink Floyd" album - except for the bits where it really isn't, but fortunately these are relatively rare.

16/06/17 - There's a nice vibe to this

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