Wish You Were Here - The Pink Floyd + Solo Thread

[AndySlash]

We need one of these.


Just read the exciting (for me anyway) news that Roger Waters' 'Amused To Death' album is getting the SACD and LP reissue treatment.

http://www.brain-damage.co.uk/latest/sa ... death.html

Analogue Productions, who were responsible for the superb SACD of Pink
Floyd's Wish You Were Here, will soon reissue on double LP and SACD
Roger Waters' 1992 epic Amused to Death, first released on vinyl in 1992
in a very limited double LP edition. Original copies of the vinyl
edition fetch hundreds of pounds - if you can track one down.


The reissue, cut from the master tapes, will be overseen by engineer
James Guthrie who was there for the original release. Release dates and
retailers should be with us in due course, and we'll update you once we
have this information.

Since an AtD LP goes for hundreds of dollars, this is great news. And since the WYWH SACD was incredible- seriously, it might be the greatest, most immersive sounding recording I've ever heard- I'm also excited to see what they do with Amused.

[McParadigm]

Yeah, that could be really cool. Amused is just a stupidgreat album.

[AndySlash]

a bit more about the amused to death reissue:

Talk about a blockbuster: This is it. A very limited double LP originally released more than 20 years ago, Amused To Death is reborn on 200-gram double LP and Stereo Hybrid SACD from Analogue Productions. Amused to Death was mixed by Pink Floyd's producer/engineer James Guthrie, and now, using those same analog tapes, he's mastering the album for SACD. And Doug Sax and Guthrie are working together to master the vinyl, to be pressed to perfection by Quality Record Pressings!

A beautiful album conceptually, lyrically, and musically

For his third solo album, Roger Waters, former bassist/singer/songwriter and founding member of Pink Floyd, takes listeners on a journey through his mind as he examines how human society has been affected through mass media and particularly television. This complex concept album takes its title from a book by author Neil Postman that also explores and alerts us to the dangers of the ways the media shapes our lives. In the title track, aliens arrive on Earth after the extinction of humans - finding merely skeletons gathered around TV sets. The alien anthropologists run every imaginable test to try and determine the reason for this "sad demise." Their conclusion? "This species has amused itself to death."

Visually, the concept is depicted by a cover shot of a gorilla watching television — "just flipping channels, looking for something that interests him," Waters says. Like many of us today.

Q magazine describes Amused To Death as sounding more like a Pink Floyd album than any other Waters solo effort to date. It is the brother of The Wall, perhaps even the distant cousin of Dark Side Of The Moon, which should delight fans of those albums.

So rare are original pressings of Amused To Death that copies today sell for more than $800 in like-new condition. For this historic reissue there will be nothing spared. Let us reiterate: This edition is cut from the analog master tapes. James Guthrie is mastering his original stereo mix for SACD and he and Doug Sax are teaming up to master the vinyl version, to be pressed to perfection by Quality Record Pressings!

Amused To Death was originally mixed using QSound, a virtual surround sound, enhancing the spatial feel of the music along with the various sound effects sprinkled throughout the album. The Analogue Productions' reissue will faithfully preserve this three-dimensional experience.

Pink Floyd chose Acoustic Sounds and Analogue Productions to handle the exclusive distribution of the monumental 2012 SACD reissue of Wish You Were Here; today it remains one of the best sellers in our 25-year company history. The 5.1 surround mix by James Guthrie was so critically well-received, reviewers were effusive in their praise. Expect nothing less with the reissue of Amused To Death.

The best post "Wall" Floyd-related album to date!

Amused To Death is beautifully recorded, lavish in depth and rich in sound. The 14 tracks flow into each other, meaning the album is best consumed whole. To shuffle tracks is to read random pages from a multi-page essay in no particular order. Waters tackles subjects as varied as capitalism, war, religion, American fast food, television, film director Stanley Kubrick and Broadway composer Andrew Lloyd Weber.

Waters enlists some striking studio partnerships: Don Henley joins him on vocals for "Watching TV," the National Philharmonic Orchestra leaps in for "Too Much Rope," and Rita Coolidge pops up during the title track. Waters also recruited for musical support legendary guitarist Jeff Beck. The quality of production by Waters, Nick Griffiths and Patrick Leonard is simply superb.

Working once again with James Guthrie to craft a vital reissue of a truly significant album is a great opportunity for Acoustic Sounds, says founder and CEO Chad Kassem.

"Whenever you get the chance to work with James Guthrie, it's exciting. Our goals are to produce the highest quality product possible," Kassem said. "I think we make a good team. He brings his expertise to the project, and I bring mine. When you get to work with the guy who worked on the album originally, and who you know is a perfectionist, it makes you excited and confident that the album will be the best it can be."

Amused To Death is cinema for the ears. Food for the brain. It's an album that Waters says, "literally unfolds with repeated play. The more you listen, the more you see."

mildly disappointed the sacd will not be surround.

[Kevin Davis]

I really need to fill the gaps in my Floyd collection.

[Bob Loblaw]

Listening to Echoes right now. May be my favourite Pink Floyd + Solo song ever.

[AndySlash]

when i am old and gray i'm pretty sure seeing gilmour do echoes (with rick wright and most of the 1994-era floyd sidemen) on his 2006 tour will still be a high point of my concertgoing experiences. until that tour i had thought i would never get to see it performed. i've loved the waters shows i've seen, but there's just no way waters and his band could do that song like gilmour and his band could.

[Bob Loblaw]

It must've been sick to see that live. I keep wishing for David to tour again so I get a chance to hear it myself, but I guess there's only a slim chance of that.

[Oh, Jimmy]

when i am old and gray i'm pretty sure seeing gilmour do echoes (with rick wright and most of the 1994-era floyd sidemen) on his 2006 tour will still be a high point of my concertgoing experiences. until that tour i had thought i would never get to see it performed. i've loved the waters shows i've seen, but there's just no way waters and his band could do that song like gilmour and his band could.

That was amazing. A few of the On An Island tracks were nice, but the whole second set is the top concert going moment in my life. Just great playing and I was glad that Gilmour went decidedly more old school with it. Some of the Pulse stuff was just to much of a clean and perfect presentation all around. Easily the closest thing to classic Floyd since the breakup, outside of Live 8 obviously. Waters has done some nice stuff, but fake Gilmours and too many musicians has really detracted from alot of it musically.

[epilogue]

Dark Side of the Moon is probably still my all-time favorite album.

[Bob Loblaw]

Dark Side of the Moon is probably still my all-time favorite album.

High praise from Durden.

[Kevin Davis]

I really need to fill the gaps in my Floyd collection.

So, here are the Floyd albums I have:

Meddle, Dark Side, Wish You Were Here, Animals, The Wall, The Final Cut, A Momentary Lapse, The Division Bell.

I'm pretty much missing all of their early stuff. What's the best route to follow from here?

[AndySlash]

if you want to trace their development from space rock to the concept albums era (dark side/wywh/wall), i'd say start with saucerful of secrets, then ummagumma, then atom heart mother. meddle is the follow up to those, and it all came together on dark side.

you may even want to throw in/check out a couple of the better known live recordings from the time, the amsterdam '69 vpro broadcast ("the man and the journey") and the live at pompeii dvd.

otherwise, there's really only six albums you don't have, five of which preceded meddle. the three i mentioned above fill the gap between the syd barrett years and meddle just fine. so while i suggested otherwise, i have no problem saying just start from the beginning either, knowing that:

piper at the gates of dawn is part of its own era, though some of saucerful is closer to piper than to the latter early records since syd wasn't quite out of the band yet.

the other two albums you dont have that i haven't mentioned yet- more and obscured by clouds- are soundtracks, and don't really need to be listened to in any order. they were kind of their own things recorded quickly and without the usual attention to detail the band was known for. not that they're not worth listening to- they're kind of refreshing to hear given the other records tend to be relatively polished affairs. but they aren't really essential listening for someone getting into the earlier stuff. obscured by clouds is the better of the two, by far, but also was released between meddle and dark side, making it stand out more as a departure from their development path.

[VinylGuy]

oh pink floyd...what a band...they were so so important for me in High School...those sounds, those fucking sounds men...i remember listening to Dark side and being blown away every time.

My favorites: Animals, Dark Side, Wish you were here, The Wall...

And having the chance to see Roger twice was a blessing. Im crazy about his solo material too, specially Amused to death.

As for the others, Rick Wright has a great great solo record, i just cant remember the name..

[Kevin Davis]

Extremely useful rundown Andy, thank you.

Are any of those albums among your favorites? I've run across a handful of people over the years who like the Syd-era stuff better than all that came after it.

[Norah]

I really need to fill the gaps in my Floyd collection.

So, here are the Floyd albums I have:

Meddle, Dark Side, Wish You Were Here, Animals, The Wall, The Final Cut, A Momentary Lapse, The Division Bell.

I'm pretty much missing all of their early stuff. What's the best route to follow from here?

Go get Piper At The Gates Of Dawn.

[mastaflatch]

I really need to fill the gaps in my Floyd collection.

So, here are the Floyd albums I have:

Meddle, Dark Side, Wish You Were Here, Animals, The Wall, The Final Cut, A Momentary Lapse, The Division Bell.

I'm pretty much missing all of their early stuff. What's the best route to follow from here?

Go get Piper At The Gates Of Dawn.

fuck yeah. in fact, i'm biaised because i tend to appreciate the Barrett era more than their golden years by now but if i'm being completely honest, the first taste of Syd i got was through the Relics albums which is a beautiful mess of 60s Floyd. it's basically a compilation with a few songs that aren't available anywhere else but on their Early Singles disc from their 1992 box-set (namely Paintbox, Julia Dream, studio version of Carfeul With That Axe...) and Biding My Time (a then-unreleased Waters-penned track recorded during the Ummagumma sessions on which you can hear Wright playing tromobone and a really killer guitar solo underneath which you can hear Mason using his double bass drum for, maybe, the first and last time of his studio career). i think it's a good starting point for this very rich period. but yeah, after that, go get Piper, try to find Vegetable Man, Scream Thy Last Scream, One in a Million, Reaction in G and In the Beechwoods and then proceed to A Saucerful of Secrets

[i got bugs]

you pretty much have to be high as fuck to listen to ummagumma

[diesel]

if you want to trace their development from space rock to the concept albums era (dark side/wywh/wall), i'd say start with saucerful of secrets, then ummagumma, then atom heart mother. meddle is the follow up to those, and it all came together on dark side.
...
the other two albums you dont have that i haven't mentioned yet- more and obscured by clouds- are soundtracks, and don't really need to be listened to in any order. they were kind of their own things recorded quickly and without the usual attention to detail the band was known for. not that they're not worth listening to- they're kind of refreshing to hear given the other records tend to be relatively polished affairs. but they aren't really essential listening for someone getting into the earlier stuff. obscured by clouds is the better of the two, by far, but also was released between meddle and dark side, making it stand out more as a departure from their development path.

i think obscured by clouds really shows their development with synth and lush keys. the first song in particular.

[AndySlash]

Extremely useful rundown Andy, thank you.

Are any of those albums among your favorites? I've run across a handful of people over the years who like the Syd-era stuff better than all that came after it.

there are definitely those out there that think that the band ceased when syd left and that anything after was a disgrace to the name 'pink floyd' and to syd himself. thankfully most people who enjoy syd's work the most aren't as extreme in their views.

like i said above, i look at 'piper' and the syd years as an era unto itself, a mostly different band. they absolutely were syd's band. but the 'syd years' were brief, and though his influence was felt and recognized by the band and its members in all the years that followed, pink floyd forged their own path after his departure. some in their own management didn't think they could go on without syd, but they did and did so quite successfully. syd barrett is not pink floyd. syd barrett is syd barrett and without trying to discount the importance of his role, syd barrett's part in pink floyd only makes up the first couple chapters. that said, the syd barrett story is a book itself, and worth investing time in- there is no one quite like him.

anyway, of the early records, i like 'atom heart mother' quite a bit more than the rest. the album bookends are multi-part experimental pieces that layed the final groundwork for arguably their single greatest track, echoes, and the 'filler' solo songs that make up the middle of the record are much more realized and focused than the ones found on 'ummagumma'. 'piper' really is a wonderful listen, but not at all indicative of the band they would become (though their live shows at the time did hint at what was to follow). 'saucerful' is an uneven record by a band in obvious transition, and 'ummagumma' proves that the whole was greater than the sum of its parts- i would listen to the live disc before the studio disc if i were you.

exactly one half of their studio album output was released within the first six years of their existence. 'dark side of the moon' really did change everything for them. that's what makes investing time into their early work rewarding- you see a band make an immediate impact only to lose their creative leader and struggle to find a new identity, yet they push through on their own terms and end up making one of the most successful albums of all time. and all within six years.

god damn i love pink floyd.

[Wendy Carlos's Twin]

fuck yeah. in fact, i'm biaised because i tend to appreciate the Barrett era more than their golden years by now but if i'm being completely honest, the first taste of Syd i got was through the Relics albums which is a beautiful mess of 60s Floyd. it's basically a compilation with a few songs that aren't available anywhere else but on their Early Singles disc from their 1992 box-set

Well, the box set has the mono single versions. The versions on Relics are stereo remixes that appear nowhere else.

"Relics" was my introduction to Syd as well. However, since I've become an expert on their early recordings, I've grown disappointed with Relics as it could have been a lot better and entirely exclusive. For example, instead of including the songs that already appeared on Piper, Saucerful & More, they could have included:

Candy And A Currant Bun
Interstellar (Short Version)
Apples & Oranges
Vegetable Man
Scream Thy Last Scream
It Would Be So Nice
Point Me At The Sky

...which are completed masters that are obscure to this day.