Roger Waters: Is This The Life We Really Want?

roger-waters-is-this-the-life-we-really-want-lanzamientos-rock-lanzamientos-sin-categoria Por Psychonaut

Roger Waters es sin duda uno de los músicos más aclamados en nuestro país, ya sea por cosas externas a la música como insultar al presidente o por un pasado de mucho peso. Waters es alguien que siempre se voltea a ver y no es para menos; es uno de los tres genios y líderes que tuvo Pink Floyd, pero ese mismo pasado hace que lo que saque sea analizado a conciencia y criticado fuertemente.

Con 25 años desde su último disco Amused To Death, las expectativas eran muy altas y más, después de súper exitosas giras. Sin embargo, el disco no es lo que uno podría esperar; sí es muy Pink Floyd pero al estilo del Final Cut que es un disco que no todos disfrutan; o al estilo de los múltiples interludios de The Wall. Es la clásica narrativa de Waters antiimperio, antimonopolio y muy politizada, solo que sin la rabia y la agresividad del pasado.

El disco en sí, no se llevó 25 años en escribirse, pero al parecer si fueron al menos 7. Lo primero que nos dio de este material nuevo fue “Smell The Roses” muy del estilo de los años setentas con Pink Floyd, con una producción no muy buena, pero sin duda, la canción más fuerte del álbum; nos hacía esperar más.

“Deja Vu”, el segundo sencillo ya había sido debutado en vivo en el año 2014, con mucho piano que nos recuerda a “The Show Must Go On” en The Wall. Rápidamente da lugar al tercer sencillo, “The Last Refugee” y en esta ocasión podemos oír sonidos de ambientación, sin embargo el aburrimiento es total y absoluto.

En general un disco que dejó mucho qué desear en cuanto a lo musical, parece mucho a canciones como “Nobody Home”, “The Fletcher memorial Home” o “The Show Must Go On” pero con una menor calidad compositiva y de producción.

Narrativamente es un muy buen disco, pero al final de cuentas esto es rock; si eres de los que gozan del Final Cut de Pink Floyd sin duda este disco te va encantar. Entre más se acepte el pasado de Waters al final de Pink Floyd más te va a gustar, sin embargo, si lo que buscabas eran temas más obscuros, largos y psicodélicos, entonces vas a salir altamente decepcionado.

Llevar el nombre de Pink Floyd en tus espaldas pesa mucho y si se compara con lo hecho por Gilmour (su excompañero de banda) en sus últimos discos solistas, Waters nos queda a deber y más cuando esperamos 25 años.

Tracklist:

  1. When We Were Young
  2. Déjà Vu
  3. The Last Refugee
  4. Picture That
  5. Broken Bones
  6. Is This the Life We Really Want?
  7. Bird in a Gale
  8. The Most Beautiful Girl
  9. Smell the Roses
  10. Wait for Her
  11. Oceans Apart
  12. Part of Me Died

 

6/10

2 thoughts on “Roger Waters: Is This The Life We Really Want?”

  1. Pobre crítica… Pobre crítico… Mejor vuelve a escucharlo y enterderlo… Y deja a Pink Floyd afuera… RW. Y este álbum. Seran para siempre mas alla de tus palabras

    1. Hola gracias por tu comentario,

      Aqui varias reseñas mas donde sale muy mal parado el disco, en general el disco saco un promedio de 72 puntos entre las criticas es decir 7, aqui mas reseñas y donde leerlas, lastima que no te gustase la reseña pero no a todos les gusto lo mismo que a ti.

      Esta del Independent de UK que le da 4 de calificación 2 de 5 estrellas.

      http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/music/reviews/album-reviews-the-beatles-sgt-pepper-50th-anniversary-alt-j-relaxer-dan-auerbach-waiting-on-a-song-a7766306.html

      Roger Waters, Is This The Life We Really Want?

      ★★☆☆☆

      Download: The Last Refugee; Is This The Life We Really Want?

      Roger Waters’ first new work in 25 years bristles with echoes of former obsessions, from childhood anxieties and the lingering fallout of the Second World War, to the numbing effect of TV. References to xenophobia and “a nincompoop becomes the president” lend the title track a veneer of contemporaneity, but these wounds clearly run deep.

      The trouble is, whether he’s claiming he could have done a better job than God in “Deja Vu”, or criticising our adherence to abundance in “Broken Bones” – pretty rich coming from the man who toured The Wall around the world – he just sounds like a grumpy geriatric for whom age has brought little of the reflective wisdom of Leonard Cohen.

      By far the best piece here is “The Last Refugee”, an ominous evocation of a refugee father’s painful plight; but as throughout the album, Nigel Godrich’s production leans too heavily on collaged radio fragments, which tend to swamp the sombre grace that is its most noble characteristic.

      Por su parte The Observer le dio 3 de 5 es decir 6 igual que nosotros.

      https://www.theguardian.com/music/2017/jun/04/roger-waters-is-this-the-life-we-really-want-review-pink-floyd-linchpin

      Roger Waters: Is This the Life We Really Want? review – protest prog
      3 / 5 stars

      Musically, Roger Waters’s first album of new material in 25 years, produced by Nigel Godrich (Radiohead, Beck etc), is like a compendium of best moments and motifs from Pink Floyd’s early- to mid-70s heyday, from the ticking clock and heartbeat that run through opening numbers When We Were Young and Déjà Vu to vintage synths, swelling strings and station platform announcements. Lyrically, the album finds Waters in pissed-off older man mode and is none the worse for it. Picture That is a litany of modern outrage, from prosthetic limbs in Afghanistan to having an idiot for president. Waters’s voice is nicely cracked these days, weathered by the years but unmistakably his, and a pleasing growl on the likes of Is This the Life We Really Want?, a mid-tempo rocker with weird modulations and stabs of cello. The closing suite, starting with Wait for Her, is touchingly honest.

      Por otro lado Pitchfork le dio 6.9 de calificación.

      http://pitchfork.com/reviews/albums/23266-is-this-the-life-we-really-want/

      The Pink Floyd frontman teamed with producer Nigel Godrich for his new album. They don’t take many risks, but Roger Waters presents some of his most focused songs since the mid-’70s.
      It’s been abundantly well documented that by the time Pink Floyd set out to record their sprawling 1979 double album The Wall, internal friction over bassist/frontman Roger Waters’ push for creative control had reached a breaking point. In a sense, The Wall crushed the classic lineup of Pink Floyd, but it’s been Waters who’s had the hardest time getting out from under its weight. For much of his solo career—1987’s Radio K.A.O.S. and 1992’s Amused to Death in particular—he has more or less repeated The Wall’s musical style and conceptual grandiosity, at times appearing both stuck and ungrounded without his former bandmates. Waters has even staged his own productions of The Wall and released two different live recordings of it.

      On paper, his decision to work with famed producer Nigel Godrich for Is This the Life We Really Want? looks like a much-needed injection of new blood. After all, Godrich’s signature sound has been a cornerstone in the legacies of Radiohead and Beck. His touch is immediately apparent from the outset, as Is This the Life opens with a ticking clock, bass played in the pulse of a heartbeat, and muffled voices—like Radiohead’s OK Computer interlude “Fitter Happier” meets the iconic intro to Pink Floyd’s The Dark Side of the Moon cut “Time.” Before you can make out what the voices are saying, their cadence and tones suggest a broadcast of some kind—a motif that runs through both Radio K.A.O.S. and Amused to Death.

      As the voices come into focus, you realize you’re hearing multiple tracks of Waters himself. At first, the words come tumbling down in a heap of unrelated gibberish. “Where are you now?” asks one of the voices. Then, after a slight pause: “Don’t answer that.” Another: “I’m still ugly; you’re still fat.” Eventually, a train of thought begins to form: “Our parents made us who we are. Or was it God? Who gives a fuck; it’s never really over.” Now craggy and deep, Waters’ speaking voice could probably give the late Orson Welles a run for his money. Without question, he would excel at doing radio theatre. And though Waters’ singing voice was already sounding nicely age-worn in ’92, here he switches with great agility between his usual confidence and a newfound frailty that recalls Johnny Cash’s final output.

      Is This the Life leaves little doubt that Waters has seasoned in the 25 years since Amused to Death. But aside from his 2005 opera Ça Ira, he’s still hung up on the same themes. Depending on your perspective, this will either strike you as reassuringly familiar or maddeningly one-track minded—maybe even both. To be fair, Waters was ahead of the curve in lamenting our attachment to media saturation on *Amused to Death—*modern life has basically become what that album anticipated. So it makes sense that Is This the Life answers back with a plea for sanity. And to his credit, much of it comes across as both sincere and necessary—albeit draped in Waters’ habit of being preachy and pedantic. (Two years ago, he described the new material as his way of sending humanity a mediocre report card.)

      Yes, the radio-style announcements at the top of “The Last Refugee” would indicate that Waters hasn’t stretched much beyond his now-predictable arsenal of sound effects. The same goes for its languid drumbeat. The album even calls Godrich into question—tunes like “The Last Refugee” and “Is This the Life We Really Want?” are sometimes hard to tell apart from Sea Change-era Beck. Godrich and Waters didn’t push each other to break new ground as much as one might have hoped. But “The Last Refugee,” with its images of lovers lying “Under lemon tree skies” and “Dreams/Up to our knees/In warm ocean swells,” also shows that Waters has grown into an evocative poet—that is, when he isn’t spelling out his message on songs like “Picture That.” “Picture your kid with his hand on the trigger,” he sings, “Picture prosthetics in Afghanistan.” Then again, it’s hard to argue with a verse like “Picture a shithouse, with no fucking drains/Picture a leader, with no fucking brains.”

      Waters’ predictability doesn’t diminish his effortless songwriting, and Is This the Life We Really Want? presents his tightest, most focused songs since the mid-’70s. “Wish You Were Here in Guantanamo Bay,” he sings on “Picture That.” The first letters of the phrase are capitalized in the lyric sheet, a sly nod to both the popular tourist postcard and, of course, to the Pink Floyd song and album of the same name. Even casual fans will spot Waters’ hint of the old melody right away. Is This the Life’s myriad sonic references to his work with Pink Floyd suggest that Waters is comfortable with his past. The more you accept how much his past reflects in his present, the more receptive you’ll be to this album’s charms.

      Lastima que no se coincidio con tu opinión pero despues de todo para eso están abiertos los comentarios, y tambien la barra para votar, gracias por tu punto de vista de la reseña, muy valido, tanto como el de la misma, ya esperemos en otra reseña coincidan las opiniones

      Saludos

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