AAA Vinyl

Grand scale examinations of the human condition tend to be preachy, didactic and obvious. The more interesting observations tend to be small scale and personal—in other words, how individuals deal with human foibles and circumstances beyond individual control generally are more compelling and interesting.

The observations Roger Waters makes in this sonically spectacular and ambitious production are, at this point, and indeed when the album was originally produced, neither profound nor insightful. Nor are they particularly interesting, though Waters unleashes his obvious and sometimes trite pronouncements with ingenious and often compelling story telling and word play.

Yes, in the end, we value money over human life and yes the media plays an ever increasing role in shaping our values and our perceptions—almost to the exclusion of what we observe with our own eyes.

Inspired by Neil Postman’s 1985 book “Amusing Ourselves to Death”, which was published a year after the year in which George Orwell’s most famous novel took place, the album examines how media, religion, money, militarism and nationalism affect, or rule our everyday 20th and 21st century lives.

In the opener (after the set-up, “The Ballad of Bill Hubbard”), “What God Wants, Part 1”, Waters lambasts the “It’s God’s Will” fatalists by claiming for God the desire for just about everything good and bad from war to peace, to crack to voodoo to shrines and jihad, throwing in so many disparate and occasionally bizarre “desires” in order to render “god’s will” meaningless.

“Perfect Sense, Part 1” takes its “end of innocence” cue from “2001: A Space Oddity” visuals and then meanders into futility, hopelessness and endless cycles of violence exacerbated now by the invention of nuclear weapons.

Waters makes his observations using a combination of obvious clichéd generalities and starkly specific ones, moving in a phrase from the “long shot” of “And the Germans killed the Jews, And the Jews killed the Arabs, And the Arabs killed the hostages, And that is the news, And is it any wonder the monkey’s confused….” to, in “Perfect Sense, Part II” a more specified set-up in which news becomes entertainment and war sport, hosted by famed sports announcer Marv Albert whose “play by play” is the destruction of an oil rig.

In “Bravery of Being Out of Range” Waters, pre-drone strikes, is prescient about the moral dilemma of remote control warfare both in terms of active participation and the glamorized version consumed on television.

Waters takes shots at the empty music of Andrew Lloyd Webber, and in the most personal lyric on the record exclaims “I wish when I was young, My old man had not been gone”. Waters’ father was killed in WW II combat on February 18th 1944 when Roger was but five months old.

The album ends with the title tune, in which alien anthropologists visit earth absent human life and conclude that, grouped around television sets and mesmerized by the message, the human race “amused itself to death”.

Now Waters asks us all to gather around our stereo speakers (sitting precisely center-stage to fully appreciate the QSound surround sound effect) and be “aroused to life” by listening to Amused to Death.

There’s a growing industry today that’s trying to figure out what inspires well-to-do, well-educated young people to drop everything and travel to the Middle East to join ISIS. I suggest they all listen to this record. It does an excellent job of explaining the paralysis that infects the “watching society” and helps explain the “doing society” (even if it is positively evil, beheading doing) that’s attracting these young people.

Whether or not Waters’ messaging arouses and inspires you or leaves you flat because of its obviousness, is of course personal. Then there’s the issue of his “singing” or inability to do so. Clearly Waters is not a singer in the classic sense of carrying a melodic line. Mostly he narrates while changing timbre and visceral intensity. It mostly works but you have to dig way in to catch many the lyrics.

This could be the most spectacular production ever put to tape, which means it’s more spectacular sounding than anything put to ProTools—at least in my listening experience.

If for no other reason than to experience the astonishing production and sound, this album should be considered “mandatory listening”. No expense seems to have been spared in the lavish production and the great care with which Waters chose the musicians.

Co-producer and keyboardist Patrick Leonard (of Toy Matinee fame) is joined by Jeff Beck on lead guitar, James (Jimmy) Johnson on bass and a slew of other famous musicians and guest stars including Don Henley, John Patitucci, Randy Jackson,Andy Fairweather Low, John “Rabbit” Brundrick, wailing vocalist P.P. Arnold and others. There are symphonic arrangements by Michael Kamen.

And then there’s the absolutely spectacular—singularly spectacular—sound. I have the original double vinyl issue of this, that until recently went for upwards of $600, and this reissue beats that one in every possible way.

The QSound™ “surround sound” is more intensely drawn, dynamics are staggering, deep bass is monumental and the depth and width of the cinematic soundstage is beyond that of every other record I can think of in my collection. That is not hyperbole. It’s 100% true as you’ll hear or perhaps have already heard.

The 200g QRP pressing I got (sealed) was perfectly quiet and flat and after sitting through all four sides I felt as if I’d experienced a 3D IMAX movie, only with greater sonic intensity and dimensionality.

On one level, this can be a ponderous exercise in the heavy-handed but on another subjecting yourself to it to completion can be a dazzling, even liberating experience in great part because of the audacious production and mind-boggling sonics. Nothing I’ve ever heard comes close. If you do dose off here or there you will be sorry! There are some time bomb explosive moments that will scare the crap out of you if experienced in a stupor. You have been warned.

Was this reissue worth the long wait? In a word “yes” both sonically and in terms of the superior packaging: gatefold, Stoughton Press laminated “tip-on” jacket, and revised and greatly improved (though somewhat less forbidding) jacket art. The explosive, transparent sonics on this reissue make the original sound meek and mild.

(On a very personal note):

I have many conservative friends who love rock music and pop culture generally. I often wonder how they deal with the fact that most of the musicians and actors they dig are politically very liberal and/or progressive. I admire that they can compartmentalize that and just enjoy the art.

So with this album and with Roger Waters’ music generally, I am confronted by the same issue. Waters is quite outspoken when it comes to his opposition to the state of Israel, of which I am a firm supporter and for which I make no apologies.

Waters has often been accused of being anti-Semitic and of being a “Jew-hater”, and he bristles at the accusations. His response to the latter accusation in an open letter to a Rabbi Cooper was, unfortunately, to write “Some of my best friends are…”.

Really? Not good. Leaving aside the inordinate number of Jew references on this record, there’s Waters’ position on Israel, which I find offensive. It is one thing to object to current Israeli policy with regard to the West Bank and the settlement policy, which I do. I believe in a two state solution.

Regardless of what Waters claims, he is not. He is in favor of the dissolution of Israel. Yes, “the Germans killed the Jews and the Jews killed the Arabs”…but the “Arabs killed the Jews” too, as well as the hostages. Yes, Arabs were displaced in the founding of Israel in the wake of The Holocaust, but if Waters has a problem with making room for a Jewish State in the world, then his living in America should be problematic for him too: Native Americans were displaced to create the United States of America. I suggest Waters give his home up to a deserving Native American family and move to a country where no one was displaced (good luck finding one: “the Mongols killed the Tatars” etc.).

Despite all of the beheadings, the relic destruction the rounding up and murder of ethnic Muslim minorities and all of the rest of the misery in that part of the world, none of which was in any way caused by Israel, Waters is fixated on the Palestinian injustice. It seems to arouse him more than any of these other issues, or at least that’s how it appears.

I’m okay with that. Everyone has to pick his or her pet causes, but while Waters claims to not be anti-Semitic and to not be a Jew-hater” he fervently supports the “BDS Movement” (Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions) against Israel, calling Israel an “Apartheid state”. Never mind that Arabs are elected to the legislature in Israel and have the right to vote and never mind that Jews (not necessarily Israelis) are forbidden from even visiting certain Islamic states and never mind that “death to the Jews” is chanted in that part of the world as much as is “death to Israel".

The BDS platform calls for “the end of Israeli occupation and colonization of ‘Palestinian land’ (not clearly defined), full equality for Arab-Palestinian citizens of Israel (not defined), and respect for the right of return of Palestinian refugees”.

That last demand “the right of return” is code for the eradication of Israel. In all of these demands, there’s not a word about Palestinian responsibility for some very ugly behavior over the decades. Nothing about how after Israel withdrew from Gaza, dismantling settlements and leaving behind infrastructure including hydroponic farms that the Palestinians destroyed. No mention of how when supplied with cement the Palestinians used much of it not to build homes but to create tunnels from which to attack Israel. I’m done.).

Despite my diatribe I greatly respect Mr. Waters' prodigious creativity, his musical career, Pink Floyd, The Wall and particularly this album, which for now is the "last great recorded production known to man".