The Dark Side of the Moon Reclaimed | Making a questionable will

Following the celebration of the 50th anniversary of the album’s release The dark side of the moon, Roger Waters decided to reclaim the massive work he helped create while he was a member of Pink Floyd. So he returned to the studio to give new life to the listenable compositions written in 1973 The Dark Side of the Moon Redux, launched Friday. Is this appropriate? The question is correct.

From the beginning, Roger Waters declared in an interview that The dark side of the moon It was his creation. “Leave me alone with this crap,” the guitarist said. telegraph last winter, when he revealed that he had re-recorded the songs. “Of course we were a group, there were four of us and we all contributed – but it was my project and I wrote it.”

Important contribution

Roger Waters actually wrote the lyrics for all the tracks, but Nick Mason, Richard Wright and David Gilmour all participated in the composition of several tracks. This is without taking into account the very special sound signature of Pink Floyd, which is impossible without the contribution of the four members – we can add to the cocktail the clairvoyant work of Alan Parsons, the album’s sound engineer.

Roger Waters simplified the musical arrangements by adding narrated passages in the scores, some more trivial and others decidedly more sentimental. “It’s from The dark side of the moon Roger Waters would reveal himself as a creator, Mr. Trottier recalls. Through this rereading, he has the desire to remove what is less than himself, such as David Gilmour’s guitar solos. »

Gone were the guitarist solos and bottleneck accents, which had defined Pink Floyd’s sound since the early 1970s.

Gerald Côté, an ethnomusicologist from Laval University, doesn’t mince his words when it comes to Roger Waters’ qualifying exercise.

“It’s sad…in his version of money“You get the impression that you’re listening to soulless music, it’s painfully weak,” he says. Waters is a very fine songwriter, but he’s just not up to the mark. We can’t separate Pink Floyd’s musical depth from its main engineer; To separate the two is to impoverish Pink Floyd. That is why I find it difficult to believe that this is not an expression of the conflict that has been going on for 30 years. »

Internal quarrel

Indeed, it is difficult not to draw a connection between this and the quarrel that led to the departure of Roger Waters in 1984 and which continues to this day. As evidence of this, David Gilmour co-released the documentary on Thursday The Dark Side of Roger Watersproduced by BBC journalist John Weir which tends to show the anti-Semitic behavior of Roger Waters.

Last February, it was Gilmour’s wife, writer Polly Sampson, who accused the guitarist of being anti-Semitic, in addition to being an “apologist for… [Vladimir] “Putin is a liar, a thief, a hypocrite, a megalomaniac, a misogynist, a tax evader, and an envious person.” This came a few days after Waters told the Berlin daily newspaper that he would review the record The dark side of the moonIt is an interview in which he did not fail to fuel controversy related to his ambiguous position towards the Russian leader.

Far from wanting to show remorse, Waters immediately attacked his former colleagues:

“Gilmore and Rick [Wright] “They can’t write songs, they don’t have anything to say, they’re not artists,” Waters told The New York Times. telegraph, without any filter. They have no ideas […] They’ve never had one, and it drives them crazy. “It should be noted here that Richard Wright died in 2008…

Although, The dark side of the moon The band’s work was, in fact, much more than subsequent Pink Floyd albums. “The original record is a collective work, and all of that is erased as Waters rereads it,” says Danic Trottier. It still shows how big his ego is. But he also has a very classical concept of music, according to which a work can be improved over time; It’s something we’ve always seen in classical music. Often, there can be several versions of the same work. »

“In that sense, Waters does revive A very personal work, almost a testament, continues the researcher. The latest projects from music greats always have a very personal touch; If we take the rereading from this angle, we can appreciate the project better. »

However, Danic Trottier admits that presenting a new version of an old album may seem like an easy path to compromise. Certainly, some may see this as an opportunistic approach. “The album is 50 years old, it’s all part of the celebrations,” says Gerald Côté. It’s definitely a great opportunity to create and capitalize on this event. »

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The Dark Side of the Moon Redux

Roger Waters

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