Roger Waters
Is This The Life We Really Want?

Is this the life we really want? ...

Before writing my point of view on Roger Waters' latest and just-released album: "Is This The Life We Really Want?", I read the good and rather descriptive review by Zymmi, so I'll preface by saying that in these following lines, I will not extract any excerpts from the album's lyrics and will especially try not to provide a simple description piece by piece but consider the work as a whole.

The accumulated curiosity was indeed a lot given the 25 years since Amused to Death, and especially after Live 8, when it still seemed possible for a final Floyd album all together, however, things, as we know, turned out quite differently… but evidently we cannot ignore this fact in analyzing Waters' latest work.

On the first listen, various pieces unmistakably emerge that sound like interesting scattered echoes throughout much of the Floyd discography: from "Meddl" to "The Final Cut" to be precise, all with Roger's typical songwriting made of whispered words, sometimes husky and otherwise contemptuous (see the title track), interspersed and brought out by string sessions. A ritual of overdubbing, linked concept tracks, repeating themes, and a wealth of sounds that are a founding part of the Floyd epic, with a clear predominance concerning arrangements of acoustic guitar and piano. This clear predominance of the spoken words which become object (the lyrics), subject (Waters as the singer), and almost the dominant background (numerous overdubbed voices and dialogues) at the end of the first listen, gave me the vivid impression of a record somewhat musically born, somewhat "maimed" or at the very least "strongly deprived". Listening various times, I dissected this impression, analyzing the album’s virtues and shortcomings.

Firstly: the strongly deliberate pace of the album, which among 12 tracks only includes three slightly more lively pieces (and coincidentally among the most achieved: Picture That, Bird in a Gale, and Smell the Roses), certainly makes the listen not exactly fluid (in place of the six minutes of The Most Beautiful Girl In The World I would have preferred something slightly more rhythmic but it’s a very personal opinion). Second point: the stylistic choices in the arrangements (see Nigel Godrich) between conservatism, with the whole vast range of aforementioned references, and a hint of synth-groove update for today which seems taken with full hands from “The Virgin Suicides” and/or “Talkie Walkie” by the Air (in the latter from 2004, coincidentally the same Godrich directed the works). Then the strong point of discontinuity from everything that had come before, namely the absence of solos, highlighting not only guitar solos but also real keyboard solos (whether organ, synth, or piano), combined with a series of pieces with a rather standard duration, ranging from almost two minutes to not much over six. All of this in the end can only affirm the power of words, the concept linking each track and the various stories told here, a truly invaluable added value of the album (articulating or quoting them would only be a useless spoiler), undoubtedly what once rendered Roger unique within Floyd is without a doubt reaffirmed in the most extreme manner with this work: in this sense, his greatness remains absolutely intact.

I read that this album was the genius vision of Pink Floyd in response to Trump’s election (see Wall with Mexico, immigration issues, etc.), honestly, listening and re-listening I am convinced it was only a pretext, strongly felt by Roger thematically but merely a pretext. If someone remembers well, after the "Live 8" Roger had without too many words asked Gilmour and company to return to the studio and craft what would have been the last (obviously concept) album of Pink Floyd. After 15 years of forced exile (due to court rulings) from the Floyd repertoire, in 2000 with “In the Flesh” live reassertion of the past, our Roger began a series of various tours across the world, bringing under his name, proudly and with great feedback, the Floyd trademark. So much so that perhaps “The Division Bell” sounded poorly as the last studio proof of His Band, especially when Gilmour and Mason released "The Endless River", feel free to reread Waters’ statements from about two years ago when that album came out and you’ll understand how “Is This The Life We Really Want?” from then on began to be conceived.

The comparison made after the first listen was with Roger's previous solo album "Amused to Death", a really brave and interesting album from various perspectives, where Waters decisively went beyond the Floyd style, giving way to an unleashed Jeff Beck mixing rock – gospel – blues, and classical like never before with very original sounds, but it was not the right point of comparison because in my humble opinion this solo album by Roger Waters is, without mincing words, what he would have wanted to be, no more no less, the last Pink Floyd album. Waters' typical writing with eclectic melodic construction, emerging clearly in "Animals", then predominant in "The Wall", and the sole thread of "The Final Cut" (where already the solo parts were significantly reduced) fully takes over here, becoming a unique monolith of subject and narrative subject expanding to the background, leaving a crisscross of Floyd sound references to function almost exclusively as precise and suggestive points of reference. Analyzed like this, it might appear as an inevitable evolution, something extreme and perfect that unites in the purest mode of song (where the metric and structure serve the singing) a concept album. Form serving “substance”: the polyphonic voice, the lyrics, the images, every story told, the invectives, the disoriented terror, the anger...the thematic and substantial greatness is the absolute strength of this work and it must be recognized, only Waters could lead it with his poetic sensitivity and absolute talent to such high levels.

But in ultimate analysis this "Final Evolution" does not seem like the result induced by a series of not entirely harmonious circumstances. Was this the record we really wanted?! And that even after 25 years, Waters himself would have genuinely wanted?? I doubt the contrary could be declared, in fact, it appears as the contrapasso response to the last official release by the other Floyds, "The Endless River". An almost entirely instrumental album (sort of a tribute to Wright and reflection on life and beyond it) consisting of four rather long musical suites, overflowing with 100% Floyd music like similarly orphaned almost to the same level of words. In the only track where Gilmour sings "Louder than words", it is not hard to understand how the journey leans to the opposite pole compared to Waters' work; indeed the philosophy of the "Other Floyd" travels in the background, embraces the landscape, the sound frame becomes stronger than any word, and materializes in the most authentically Floydian musical soul, certainly devoid of a real concept but tremendously free. And here is the great limit of this latest album by “Roger Pink Floyd”, the selfish choice to delimit the musical field, almost always staying to the point, to reaffirm himself as the “Deus ex Machina” of the Toy born from Barrett’s psychedelia and becoming the most ingenious band ever, thanks to an unrepeatable alchemy of four people... This act of subtraction ultimately took away quite a bit of oxygen and momentum from his latest creation.

Probably after Live 8 he would have been willing to really work four-handedly with David and the others, perhaps in that case this album could have still sounded like "Wish you were here"... assumptions, but with that possibility gone, we had two "creatures" that perhaps only brought together musically and artistically could have been worth one of the old '70s Floyd albums. And indeed in pieces like "Smell the Roses" and "Picture That" brief (unfortunately) musical moments begin to show a certain degree of personality, comparable to past glories, then a bit of regret materializes and almost definitely it was not the closure we genuinely wanted because the grandeur of Pink lay certainly also in the high conceptual level of their albums (concepts and lyrics) but even more in the sublime expressiveness of the musical and solo parts.

“Is This The Life We Really Want?” however, remains an excellent album; after 25 years one would rightfully expect more, but nonetheless it undeniably deserves to be listened to, read, and understood.