Amused to Death
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| Amused to Death | ||
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| Missing image Roger_Waters_Amused_to_Death.jpg Amused to Death | ||
| CD by Roger Waters | ||
| Released | September 1, 1992 | |
| Recorded | 1992 (?) | |
| Genre | Rock | |
| Length | 72:45 | |
| Record label | Columbia Records | |
| Producers | Roger Waters, Nick Griffiths, Patrick Leonard | |
| Professional reviews | ||
| All Music Guide | 4/5 | link (http://www.allmusic.com/cg/amg.dll?p=amg&sql=Aogw67ub0h0jg) |
| RollingStone | NR | link (http://www.rollingstone.com/reviews/cd/review.asp?aid=222611) |
| Roger Waters Chronology | ||
| Radio K.A.O.S. (1987) | Amused to Death (1992) | In the Flesh Live. (2000) |
Amused to Death is a solo album by former Pink Floyd member Roger Waters, released in 1992 (see 1992 in music).
Featuring Jeff Beck on guitar, "Amused to Death" further explores Waters' disillusionment with modern western society, focusing specifically on the influence of TV and the mass media, and was inspired by the book "Amusing Ourselves to Death", a critique of television and its related culture, by Neil Postman.
In typical Waters fashion, "Amused to Death" is a concept album--this one organized loosely around the idea of a monkey randomly switching channels on a television--but explores numerous political and social themes, including a critique of the first Gulf War in which Waters has a choir sing the "global anthem" : "Can't you see? It all makes perfect sense. Expressed in dollars and cents, pounds, shillings, and pence." The song "Watching TV" explores the influence of mass media on the Chinese protests for democracy in Tiananmen Square.
The album is mixed in "Q-Sound" in an attempt to produce three dimensional sound from stereo speakers. Occasional sound effects - at a rifle range; sleighbells; cars, planes, distant horses and dogs all seek to make use of the facility.
It reached #21 on The Billboard 200 aided by "What God Wants, Part I" which hit #4 on Billboard's Mainstream Rock Tracks in 1992.
Quotes
" The album title came from a book by Neil Postman, who wrote a short book called Amusing Ourselves to Death, which is about the history of the media, particularly as it relates to political communication -- i.e., how things have changed since such works as Lincoln's speeches were made available for the general public to read.
"And I had at one point this rather depressing image of some alien creature seeing the death of this planet and coming down in their spaceships and sniffing around and finding all our skeletons sitting around our TV sets and trying to work out why it was that our end came before its time, and they come to the conclusion that we amused ourselves to death.
"Things coalesced slowly as I became more and more interested or obsessed, pick your word, with the inordinately powerful and all-encompassing effect that television seems to have on the human race. My general view is that television when it becomes commercialized and profit-based tends to trivialize and dehumanize our lives.
"So I became interested in this idea of television as a two-edged sword, that it can be a great medium for spreading information and understanding between peoples, but when it's a tool of our slavish adherence to the incumbent philosophy that the free market is the god that we should all bow down to, it's a very dangerous medium. Because it's so powerful.
"I think the motivation is at the root of its current evil, ie it's because they have to compete in an open marketplace that their standards get reduced so the programming tends to end up as the cheapest possible saleable item. I don't believe that wanting to beat the opposition makes for good programming, but it's an ideology that is still rigidly adhered to."
- - Roger Waters, speaking about the album to the LA Times, September 1992
Track listing
- "The Ballad of Bill Hubbard" - 4:19
- "What God Wants, Pt. 1" - 6:00
- "Perfect Sense, Pt. 1" - 4:16
- "Perfect Sense, Pt. 2" - 2:50
- "The Bravery of Being Out of Range" - 4:43
- "Late Home Tonight, Pt. 1" - 4:00
- "Late Home Tonight, Pt. 2" - 2:13
- "Too Much Rope" - 5:47
- "What God Wants, Pt. 2" - 3:41
- "What God Wants, Pt. 3" - 4:08
- "Watching TV" - 6:07
- "Three Wishes" - 6:50
- "It's a Miracle" - 8:30
- "Amused to Death" - 9:06
All songs composed by Roger Waters.
Personnel
- Roger Waters - synthesizer, bass, guitars, vocals
- Jeff Beck - guitar
- Rita Coolidge - vocals
- Don Henley - vocals
- Michael Kamen - arranger, conductor
- John Patitucci - bass and electric guitars
- Andy Fairweather-Low - acoustic, rhythm and electric guitars, vocals
- Geoff Whitehorn - guitar
- National Philharmonic Orchestra
- Marv Albert - voices
- Charles Fleischer - voices
- P.P. Arnold - vocals
- Graham Broad - percussion & drums
- Luis Conte - percussion
- John Brundrick - organ (Hammond)
- John "Rabbit" Bundrick - organ
- Denny Fongheiser - drums
- Jeff Porcaro - Drums
- B.J. Cole - steel guitar
- Bruce Gaitsch - guitars
- Rick DiFonzo - guitar
- James Johnson - bass
- Kenneth Bowen - conductor
- John Dupree - arranger, conductor, string arrangements
- Doreen Chanter - vocals
- Linsey Fiddmont - vocals
- N'Dea Davenport - vocals
- Natalie Jackson - vocals
- Jon Joyce - vocals
- Katie Kisoon - vocals
- Lynn Fiddmont - background vocals
- Jim Haas - background vocalsde:Amused to Death