Roger Waters – Amused to Death (1992/2015) [AcousticSounds DSF DSD64/2.82MHz]

Roger Waters – Amused to Death (1992/2015)
DSF Stereo DSD64/2.82MHz | Time – 01:12:35 minutes | 2,87 GB | Genre: Rock
Official Digital Download – Source: AcousticSounds | © Columbia Records
Recorded: The Billiard Room, Olympic Studios, CTS Studios, Angel Studios, Abbey Road Studios, London; Compass Point Studios, Nassau; Devonshire Studios, Ameraycan Studios, Evergreen Recording, Johnny Yuma Recording, Los Angeles. Mix Studio: Devonshire Audio & Visual Studios, Burbank. Mastered at The Mastering Lab, Los Angeles. Remastered by James Guthrie.

DSD file created from the 192/24 digital master using Meitner DSD converters. :: An unblinking look at an entertainment-obsessed society, Amused to Death addresses issues that have only grown in complexity and urgency over the past two decades. With Amused to Death, Roger Waters sounded the alarm about a society increasingly — and unthinkingly — in thrall to its television screens. Twenty-three years later, Amused to Death speaks to our present moment in ways that could scarcely have been anticipated two decades ago. In 2015, television is just one option in an endless array of distractions available to us anytime, anywhere, courtesy of our laptops, tablets and smartphones. With eyes glued to our screens, the dilemmas and injustices of the real world can easily recede from view.

War is Roger Waters’ great muse, the impetus for so much of his work, including the semi-autobiographical 1979 opus The Wall. The Final Cut, his last album with Pink Floyd, functioned as an explicit sequel to The Wall, but 1992’s Amused to Death acts as something of a coda, a work where Waters revisits his obsessions — both musical and lyrical — and ties them together with the masterful touch of a mature artist. Certainly, Waters’ narrative of a society filtering all manners of ugliness through a television screen isn’t as sci-fi silly as that of its immediate predecessor Radio K.A.O.S., but a greater point in its favor is that it’s a richer affair than that stiff, synthesized relic of the late ’80s. Working with Patrick Leonard — a veteran collaborator of Madonna’s who also dabbled with the latter-day David Gilmour-led Pink Floyd — Waters gives Amused to Death forward momentum, an aspect conspicuously absent from the still, meditative The Final Cut and Pros and Cons of Hitchhiking, both of which seemed to be comprised of song poems. The tunes on Amused aren’t quite hooky or melodic but they do have structure, as does the production by Waters, Leonard, and Nick Griffiths. The tapestry of found sounds, choirs, televisions, washes of organ, lonely acoustic guitars, and blues leads by Jeff Beck does recall Floyd at their ’70s peak, but Amused to Death sounds grander and more expansive; it’s a creature of the CD age, using up every one of its available 72 minutes. At this length, it’s a mere ten minutes shorter than The Wall, and although it can sometimes feel indulgent, it never feels excessive. Unlike the other two Waters solo albums — or The Final Cut, which is a Waters project masquerading as a Floyd album — Amused to Death feels cohesive and complete as an anti-war rock opera. If it winds up being Waters’ last original rock album, so be it: it is a masterpiece in the sense that it brings together all of his obsessions in one grand, but not unwieldy, package. -AllMusic Review by Stephen Thomas Erlewine

Tracklist:
1 The Ballad Of Bill Hubbard 4:19
2 What God Wants, Part I 6:00
3 Perfect Sense, Part I 4:16
4 Perfect Sense, Part II 2:50
5 The Bravery Of Being Out Of Range 4:43
6 Late Home Tonight, Part I 4:00
7 Late Home Tonight, Part II 2:13
8 Too Much Rope 5:47
9 What God Wants, Part II 3:41
10 What God Wants, Part III 4:08
11 Watching TV 6:07
12 Three Wishes 6:50
13 It’s A Miracle 8:30
14 Amused To Death 9:06

Personnel:
Roger Waters – vocals (all tracks except 1), bass (tracks 2 and 13), synthesizers (tracks 2 and 4), guitar (tracks 5, 11 and 14)
Patrick Leonard – keyboards (all tracks except 6 and 7), percussion programming (track 1), choir arrangement (tracks 2, 9, 10, 11 and 13), vocals (track 4), acoustic piano (tracks 11 and 13), Hammond organ (track 5), synthetisers (tracks 5 and 13)
Jeff Beck – guitar (tracks 1, 2, 10, 11, 12, 13 and 14)
Randy Jackson – bass (tracks 2 and 9)
Graham Broad – drums (all tracks except 1, 5, 11 and 13), percussion (tracks 6 and 7)
Luis Conte – percussion (all tracks except 2, 5, 9, 11, 13 and 14)
Geoff Whitehorn – guitar (tracks 2, 8, 10 and 14)
Andy Fairweather Low – guitar (tracks 2, 6, 7, 8, 9, 11 and 12), vocals (tracks 6 and 7)
Tim Pierce – guitar (tracks 2, 5, 9 and 12)
B.J. Cole – guitar (tracks 3 and 4)
Steve Lukather – guitar (tracks 3, 4 and 8)
Rick DiFonso – guitar (tracks 3 and 4)
Bruce Gaitsch – guitar (tracks 3 and 4)
James Johnson – bass (all tracks except 1, 2, 5, 9 and 11)
Brian Macleod – snare (tracks 3 and 4), hi-hat (tracks 3 and 4)
John Pierce – bass (track 5)
Denny Fongheiser – drums (track 5)
Steve Sidwell – cornet (tracks 6 and 7)
John Patitucci – bass (track 11)
Guo Yi & the Peking Brothers – dulcimer, lute, zhen, oboe, bass (track 11)
John “Rabbit” Bundrick – Hammond organ (track 12)
Jeff Porcaro – drums (track 13)
Marv Albert – vocals (track 4)
Katie Kissoon – vocals (tracks 2, 8, 9, 12 and 14)
Doreen Chanter – vocals (tracks 2, 8, 9, 12 and 14)
N’Dea Davenport – vocals (track 2)
Natalie Jackson – vocals (tracks 2 and 5)
P.P. Arnold – vocals (tracks 2, 3, 4 and 10 )
Lynn Fiddmont-Linsey – vocals (track 5)
Jessica Leonard – vocals (track 8)
Jordan Leonard – vocals (track 8)
Don Henley – vocals (track 11)
Jon Joyce – vocals (track 13)
Stan Farber – vocals (track 13) (credited as Stan Laurel)
Jim Haas – vocals (track 13)
Rita Coolidge – vocals (track 14)
Alf Razzell – vocals (tracks 1 and 14)