ROGER WATERS – Amused To Death [remastered & remixed 2015]

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ROGER WATERS is presenting a newly remastered & mixed version of his 1992 solo album “Amused To Death“, a guest-packed – and still very relevant – indictment of a screen-obsessed culture, it’s available in a variety of formats including CD, Blu-ray, SACD, 2xLP vinyl, through Columbia / Legacy Records.

There’s a new 5.1 surround remix of the original 1992 album on high-def Blu-ray audio, and a new remastered stereo mix by longtime Waters and Pink Floyd collaborator and co-producer James Guthrie.
Waters explained that he changed “quite a few things from the original]stereo mix. We’ve done amalgams in some places, such as adding a melody to the bridge of The Bravery of Being Out of Range”.
Also dialogue samples from Stanley Kubrick film 2001: A Space Odyssey on the album (specifically HAL 9000’s ‘dying’ monologue) were added at the beginning of “Perfect Sense, part I”.
The reissue also comes with new cover and gatefold art created by Sean Evans, the creative director of Waters’ ‘The Wall Live’ tour and movie.

“Amused To Death” didn’t get the attention it deserved when it came out 23 years ago, and both musically and lyrically deserves a revisit. “Its concept sadly still pertains today and is maybe even more relevant to our predicament as people in 2015 even than it was in 1992” said Waters.
The concept album imagined a future where the human race is lulled into oblivion by watching too much TV. Now, with people able to carry around their own entertainment devices 24/7, it seems remarkably prophetic—and sad, given that Waters’ warnings about the dangers of letting society become increasingly dumbed down have been so blithely overlooked.

The album also works as a metaphor for the rise and fall of civilization, opening and closing to the organic sound of crickets; humanity rising from, and returning to, the swamp. And maybe, Waters informs us in his dry, acerbic tone, that’s all we deserve.
There’s a withering contempt expressed throughout the album for a society that reduces the tragedy of war to simply another piece of entertainment; a number like “Perfect Sense, Part II,” in which an announcer describes an attack with the same unbridled enthusiasm as a sportscaster (a role played by Marv Albert, the real-life “voice of the New York Knicks”), is a natural stopping point in a lineage that goes as far back as the days of the gladiators and runs right up to the reality TV motif of The Hunger Games.

War and consumerism are Waters’ main targets. “The Bravery of Being Out of Range” was written in the wake of the first Gulf War (“Just love those laser guided bombs / There’s really great / for righting wrongs”), but is just as relevant in these days of drone attacks.
The biting “It’s a Miracle” celebrates the global expansion that has allowed Pepsi to be found in Peru, and Big Macs on offer in Tibet.

The meticulously crafted music on “Amused To Death” is bold and robust, with same panoramic sweep as The Wall, Waters’ magnum opus he created while with Pink Floyd.

Some of the best Rock musicians in th world play here: theres’ awesome Jeff Beck, Tim Pierce, Bruce Gaitsch and Steve Lukather solos on guitar throughout, bass parts by John Patitucci or Randy Jackson (Zebra, Richard Marx), even Toto’s genius Jeff Porcaro play drums on one track, in one of the latest recordings before his absurd death.

“Amused To Death” is a monster piece of work, that perhaps overshadowed by Waters famous The Wall, never has received the attention that largely deserves. Also was released in a year when the musical climate was changing.
Now it’s time to re-discover this really great album, fully remastered and revitalized with some better remix (even the new artwork is superior).
Highly Recommended.

01. The Ballad of Bill Hubbard
02. What God Wants, Pt. I
03. Perfect Sense, Pt. I
04. Perfect Sense, Pt. II
05. The Bravery of Being Out of Range
06. Late Home Tonight, Pt. I
07. Late Home Tonight, Pt. II
08. Too Much Rope
09. What God Wants, Pt. II
10. What God Wants, Pt. III
11. Watching TV
12. Three Wishes
13. It’s a Miracle
14. Amused to Death

Roger Waters – vocals, bass, synths, guitar
Patrick Leonard – keyboards
Steve Lukather – guitar (tracks 3, 4 and 8)
Jeff Beck – guitar (tracks 1, 2, 10-14)
Bruce Gaitsch – guitar (tracks 3 and 4)
Tim Pierce – guitar (tracks 2, 5, 9 and 12)
B.J. Cole, Rick DiFonso – guitar (tracks 3 and 4)
Andy Fairweather Low – guitars
Randy Jackson – bass (tracks 2 and 9)
John Patitucci – bass guitar (track 11)
Graham Broad, Denny Fongheiser – drums
Jeff Porcaro – drums (track 13)
Luis Conte – percussion
Don Henley, Rita Coolidge, Natalie Jackson – guest vocals
and more

BUY IT !
www.amazon.co.uk/Amused-Death-Roger-Waters/dp/B00UA1NG4G
store.roger-waters.com/music/amused-to-death-cd.html
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