Is This The Life We Really Want?
by Roger Waters

This is really a surprisingly solid album. On first listen, I was a bit turned off by how heavyhanded the references were in the album to older Pink Floyd songs, and I also wasn't in the mood for Roger's politics. My opinion started to change when I saw Roger's Us + Them show in Houston this past week. About five or six songs into his set, he launched into a small block of songs from this new album. Instantly, a solid quarter of the audience got up to get drinks and use the restroom. I was absolutely appalled by this. Yeah, I get that people are here to hear the classics and that these songs are inevitably not going to be up to par to those old albums, but this was obviously a work that Mr. Waters put a lot of heart and soul into, and I found the audience's behavior to be grossly disrespectful of a brilliant artist. This made me listen to the songs more intently, and to my pleasant surprise, I dug them quite a bit. Yes, Deja Vu sounds like Wish You Were Here, and the whole album starts with the same kind of heartbeat sound collage as Dark Side, but it's important to note that Mr. Waters is simply looking back at his youth and playing to his strengths. This album isn't supposed to supersede his previous works. No, it's more of an epic epiloque, a summary of everything that came before as he molds his old sounds to today's world. I thought that the Division Bell was a good way to cap Pink Floyd's catalog, with the Endless River just acting as an unnecessarily long and boring coda to the band's career. That's why, in a way, I hope this is Mr. Waters' last record. If it is, he sure will have gone out in style.

From JulianR TOP 100 COMMENTER 06/02/2017 06:04 | #191841 | TOP COMMENT Vote up your preferred comments and the comments with the most votes will be flagged.

Picture a sh*thouse with no f***ing drains
Picture a leader with no f***ing brains

Hows that for political

From lleon79 TOP 100 COMMENTER 06/02/2017 06:04 | #191840 | TOP COMMENT Vote up your preferred comments and the comments with the most votes will be flagged.

Much much better than expected. I didn't really think this album would interest me at all. From the singles I thought this was going to be boring, but it's very interesting. The songs in the context of the album are much better than listened to separately.

The production on this album is really top notch. Nigel Godrich's work is very welcome as always. The songwriting is also very good. Although at some points it reminds of Pink Floyd, it differentiates itself enough and as a result we have a beautiful sounding album here.

I think if the record had been a little shorter it would've been better. During the middle section it lacks a little, but the rest I think is amazing. I'll listen to it at least one more time but I don't think my opinion will change that much.

The last 3 tracks (which should've been just a 9 minute song) are simply beautiful.

Best songs: "Déjà Vu", "The Last Refugee", "Wait for Her"

From LedZep TOP 100 COMMENTER 11/29/2017 15:18 | #202308 | TOP COMMENT Vote up your preferred comments and the comments with the most votes will be flagged.

Actually pretty good. Was surprised, didn't think he had it anymore. It's not Pink Floyd, not his best solo album, but it's one of the better albums of 2017 for sure. (Edited)

From Daydreamer 06/23/2017 19:20 | #193119 | TOP COMMENT Vote up your preferred comments and the comments with the most votes will be flagged.

This was really solid, I didn't expect Roger could make such a comeback. The production is amazing and the albums sounds alot like Animals while the songs themselves definitely are more similar to The Final Cut era Pink Floyd. This will only get better once I pay more attention to the lyrics, since they are often the high point with Waters.