Roger Waters - Amused To Death (Hybrid SACD)
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New 5.1 Surround Remix by James Guthrie! Hybrid Multichannel & Stereo SACD!
Synthesizer, piano - Patrick Leonard
Guitar - Jeff Beck, Tim Pierce, Geoff Whitehorn, Steve Lukather, Rick DiFonzo
Vocal, bass - Roger Waters, Don Henley
Choir - London Welsh Chorale
Conductor - Kenneth Bowen
Bass - James Johnson
Drums - Jeff Porcaro, Denny Fongheiser, Jeff Porcaro
Background vocals - Jon Joyce
Pedal steel guitar - B.J. Cole
Acoustic guitar - Bruce Gaitsch
Hammond organ - David Paich, John "Rabbit" Bundrick
Cornet - Steve Sidwell
Bass - Randy Jackson, Jimmy Johnson
Bass guitar - John Pierce
Upright bass, electric bass
Dulcimer, lute, zhen, oboe, bass - Guo Yi & the Peking Brothers
Drums, percussion - Graham Broad
Snare - Brian Macleod
Percussion - Luis Conte percussion
Strings arranger and conductor - John Dupree
Orchestra - National Philharmonic Orchestra Limited
Orchestral arranger and conductor - Michael Kamen
Backing vocals - Katie Kissoon, Doreen Chanter, N'Dea Davenport, Natalie Jackon, Lynn Fiddmont-Linsey, Jon Joyce, Stan Farber, Jim Haas
Vocals - P.P. Arnold, Rita Coolidge
Sportscaster voice - Marv Albert
Jessica Leonard, Jordan Leonard – screaming kids
TV evangelist speech - Charles Fleischer
All songs written by Roger Waters
Hybrid SACD
Original analog Master tape : YES
Stereo
Studio
Label : Analogue Productions
Original Label : Columbia
Recorded 1987–1992 by Nick Griffiths
Engineered by Hayden Bendall, Jerry Jordan, Stephen McLaughlan, Sean O'Dwyer, Andy Bradfield, Brian Burrows, Chris Brown (8), Dary Sulich, Jeremy Wheatley, John Lowson, Marc Moreau, Mike Bosley, Ross Donaldson, Roy Sweeting, Steve Heinke
Produced by Patrick Leonard, Roger Waters, Nick Griffiths
Remastered and Mixed by James Guthrie
Originally released in September 1, 1992
Reissued in July 2015
Tracks :
1. The Ballad of Bill Hubbard
2. What God Wants, Part I
3. Perfect Sense, Part I
4. Perfect Sense, Part II
5. The Bravery of Being Out of Range
6. Late Home Tonight, Part I
7. Late Home Tonight, Part II
8. Too Much Rope
9. What God Wants, Part II
10. What God Wants, Part III
11. Watching TV
12. Three Wishes
13. It's A Miracle
14. Amused To Death
2. What God Wants, Part I
3. Perfect Sense, Part I
4. Perfect Sense, Part II
5. The Bravery of Being Out of Range
6. Late Home Tonight, Part I
7. Late Home Tonight, Part II
8. Too Much Rope
9. What God Wants, Part II
10. What God Wants, Part III
11. Watching TV
12. Three Wishes
13. It's A Miracle
14. Amused To Death
Awards :
Grammy Award for Best Surround Sound Album
Reviews :
« 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
The 2015 SACD edition of Amused to Death features a new 5.1 surround remix of the album completed by longtime Roger Waters / Pink Floyd collaborator and co-producer, James Guthrie. The art has been updated for 2015 by Sean Evans, the creative director of Waters' 2010-2013 "The Wall Live" tour and movie.
Amused to Death 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.
“I’m remembering the record from [over] 20 years ago, that most of what I had to say then sadly still pertains today and is maybe even more relevant to our predicament as people in 2015 even than it was in 1992,” says Roger Waters.
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. 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.
Produced by Roger Waters and Patrick Leonard, Amused to Death is a musically ambitious work featuring a stellar lineup of musicians. Guitar legend Jeff Beck figures prominently on the album, bringing his signature virtuosity to eight songs. Guest vocalists include Don Henley (“It’s a Miracle”), Rita Coolidge (“Amused to Death”) and soul singer P.P. Arnold (“Perfect Sense” Parts I and II).
“Jeff was hugely important to the making of the record, and it was one of the peaks of my musical life,” says Waters. “To have him sitting in my billiard room playing harmonics and then playing the melody on the whammy bar – which he does all the way through the first song, ‘The Ballad of Bill Hubbard’– it was absolutely extraordinary.”
Also contributing were Waters’ longtime collaborators, guitarist Andy Fairweather Low and drummer Graham Broad; percussionist Luis Conte; and Pat Leonard, who played keyboards on several tracks. The album reunited Waters with composer/arranger Michael Kamen, who supervised orchestral arrangements for The Wall, Waters’ semi-autographical concept album with Pink Floyd. Kamen arranged and conducted the National Philharmonic Orchestra Limited’s contributions to the songs “Too Much Rope” and “What God Wants, Part III.”
With Amused to Death, Roger Waters painted a picture of a society serenely tethered to its televisions and increasingly untethered to the realities of an unjust world. Like most of Waters work, it is a concept-driven album that revisits themes and characters throughout its 14 songs. At its core, Amused to Death is a timeless reflection on the potential dangers of human excess – whether it’s consumerism, war, religion, or the vapidity of the 24-hour news cycle – all inching us closer to becoming “amused to death.”
Amused to Death was inspired by Neil Postman’s seminal critique Amusing Ourselves to Death: Public Discourse in the Age of Show Business. Postman argued that electronic media had transformed all information, including news, into entertainment. In such an image-driven culture, he warned, people were less likely to give close thought to matters of real significance. “Postman talked about a propaganda machine so powerful human intellect couldn’t resist it,” Waters remarks. “Given all the distractions that there are in modern life, it is very easy to take our eye off the ball.”
When Amused to Death was originally released, television was king and the digital age was in its infancy. Today, of course, we have an ever-growing menu of potential amusements at our fingertips, while circumstances in the world have grown darker and more dangerous. There are lyrics on Amused to Death that could easily describe recent events. “The Bravery of Being Out of Range” refers to “laser-guided bombs” that “hit the target/and win the game/from bars 3,000 miles away.” Though written in the wake of the first Gulf War, the song stings in this era of drone strikes. Comments Waters, “Now that we have drones, I think that song is even more sinister.”
Amused to Death is a record that rewards close listening, for its sound no less than its lyrical content. The songs are richly layered; sound effects course beneath vocals, instruments, orchestras. The diverse elements work together to enrich meaning and pure musical pleasure.
All the album’s nuances come through clear as a bell in the new mix by James Guthrie, who mixed the original release and has worked with Waters since Pink Floyd’s The Wall (1979). The restoration was no small task, given the fact that Amused to Death was written and recorded over a period of nearly five years, using three different formats (one analog, two digital). Guthrie traveled to London to track down the original masters – and found hundreds, with multiple takes of the same song in different formats. He essentially had to rebuild the album before he could begin working on its sound.
The effort was well worth it, says Guthrie. “This is such a rich album, conceptually and musically. You have Jeff Beck playing on eight songs. Duets with Don Henley, P.P. Arnold and Rita Coolidge. Orchestral arrangements by Michael Kamen. And you have Roger at his best, writing and singing his arse off. In my opinion, this album contains some of Roger’s finest work.”
Continuing his collaboration with Waters that dates back to 2005, visual artist/filmmaker Sean Evans created new gatefold and cover art for the re-release. For the gatefold, Evans sourced news footage and photographs from AP, and then used digital tools to achieve the effect of distressed, low-bit images. “The artwork is meant to complement the lyrics,” Evans explains. “We never identify where the images are taken from, but you get a sense of ‘Something’s not right. We’re doing something wrong.’”
The new cover art for Amused to Death focuses on a little boy bathed in the glow of a giant TV screen, reflecting the sense of urgency Waters feels about the album’s themes. “In terms of the way we educate young people, I fear we are encouraging our society to amuse itself to death at a greater rate than we ever were,” he comments. “What if we spent on the education the money we spend on building weapons? What if children were asked not prepare themselves for lives as consumers and producers, but to prepare themselves to become adults who think about things, who have open minds, and care about the rights of the human being? Can you imagine what the world might be like?”
"...damned if Roger Waters’ 14-track rumination on some of our choicest social ills doesn’t score some serious points, especially in ‘Late Home Tonight,’ which, with music that evokes both a kiss at a drive-in and the peace of the wide-open sky, shows us an American pilot soaring toward Libya to bomb children, giddy as an exuberant teen with the sheer joy of flight.” Grade: A-, Entertainment Weekly, September 11, 1992
“It is the poet's responsibility to foresee the future, and it is his neighbor's duty to prevent the worst of it from taking place. With Amused To Death, surely one of the most provocative and musically dazzling records of the decade, Roger Waters has fulfilled his part of the bargain." -Timothy White, “Music to My Ears,” Billboard Magazine, July 1992
Ratings :
AllMusic : 4.5 / 5 , Discogs : 4.3 / 5