Roger Waters...what the he##....?!?

[pma]

One of my absolute favourite artists, both as a solo artist, and in Pink Floyd. But this..
His shows are now cancelled in Poland. I fully understand why. Read this:

Yes, he expresses his support to the invasion often. Very disappointing, I am disgusted of him.

 

[Mojo Warrior]

Seems that he has been micro-dosing Novichok.

 

[Digby]

Let's not delude ourselves thining that famous people carry further and have more weight that those of others. The voice of the last Nobel laureate in Literature is less heard than that of ..gasp... Kim Kardishian ... ( I know, a sad commentary of our societies.)..

Yes, it is a problem with our society. It should be easy to recognise somebody as an important and authoritative voice on one thing (their type of music) and practically a nobody on something else (international relations, quantum physics, whatever). Children should be taught that because someone is good at one thing, they are not good at all things.

I don't care much for a footballers ideas about quantum physics, but I also probably don't care much about a physicists views on football.

 

[retro]

One moment, please...

Very good article. Yep, Waters apparently was and still is a big dick. But there's no denying he's written fantastic music..

 

[Fregly]

Why would anyone take seriously corrupt corporatist war mongering media like CNN? Roger has some shallow erratic opinions, but at least he gives historical context in longer uncut interviews about Ukraine and Russia, which is absent from much of the cartoon dichotomy journalism we mostly get.

One of my absolute favourite artists, both as a solo artist, and in Pink Floyd. But this..
His shows are now cancelled in Poland. I fully understand why. Read this:

https://edition.cnn.com/2022/09/25/entertainment/pink-floyd-roger-waters-poland-ukraine/index.html

 

[Kuppenbender]

Why would anyone take seriously corrupt corporatist war mongering media like CNN? Roger has some shallow erratic opinions, but at least he gives historical context in longer uncut interviews about Ukraine and Russia, which is absent from much of the cartoon dichotomy journalism we mostly get.

I don’t follow you. Is Roger Waters now denying he thinks the war in Ukraine is perfectly reasonable and justified? Is CNN somehow misrepresenting his views? Please elaborate.

 

[DonR]

His views were widely published across many media outlets, this isn't a CNN thing.

 

[Deleted member 21219]

Roger has some shallow erratic opinions,

That's like saying, "The ocean has some water in it." Jim

 

[DMill]

Waters is a complete wack-job. Always has been. He's never been shy about sharing his political opinions, and just seems to be getting weirder by the day. But he is one hell of a damn good musician. Pros and Cons of Hitchhiking was playing on the first audiophile system I ever heard in my teens. Damn, it still gives me chills.

 

[Gringoaudio1]

And Picasso was a womanizing prick. But it is getting harder to separate the artist from their art these days. Probably for the better as it is time to stop giving power and fame to those undeserving. But hard to deny his output (early stuff in PF) as being anything less than staggering.
Eric Clapton seems to have survived his racist moments. Likely Waters will get through this with barely a memory of his wrongheaded (to me and many) opinions.

 

[Shadrach]

Given the amount of garbage most people of any notoriety spout when given the opportunity I'm suprised to find Roger Waters getting such a hard time.
There are plenty of others with similar views.

 

[JayGilb]

I don't care one bit about a performer's personal views, anymore than he should care about mine.

 

[teched58]

David Gilmour is a much better musician.

 

[Astoneroad]

I don't agree - taking drugs and drink with people from different nations around the world isn't what I would call exposure to different cultures. I don't think doing this kind of thing opens people up more to the cultures of other people, not more so than staying at home and borrowing some books from the library about different peoples of the world.

Hmmm... the salons of Gertrude Stein, Peggy Guggenheim and Lorenzo de Medici spring to mind. Or would staying home reading Will Durant instead been a more culturally immersive experience... c'mon... really? Intoxicants have always been at the center of culture since primates discovered fermented fruit gave them a nice buzz that made them more social. Roger needs more meds... not less.

 

[DMill]

Eric Clapton seems to have survived his racist moments

Ironically Clapton played guitar on Pros and Cons.

 

[Joe Smith]

It's sad for me, where his rhetoric has gone...also, notably, Eric Clapton these days. Well they all are just people, flawed people. I guess all we can do is focus on the music if we like it, and withhold new money to them in terms of how strongly we feel about what they say...just like I do with other "large corporations"...a drop in the bucket, but makes me feel better...

 

[Vacceo]

Because their professions usually entails travel and exposure to different cultures, beyond that of the average person who has never had that opportunity. The fact that they don't evolve is an opportunity squandered. So, one's expectation of a traveled artist can reasonably be greater than for a luddite who has never left the village... "just one more brick in the wall".

You may travel around the world but the world may not travel around you.

Probably someone like Avicii had seen a lot more of the world in his short life than many of us around here (me, for sure) yet he gained little from It.

 

[DMill]

It's sad for me, where his rhetoric has gone...also, notably, Eric Clapton these days. Well they all are just people, flawed people. I guess all we can do is focus on the music if we like it, and withhold new money to them in terms of how strongly we feel about what they say...just like I do with other "large corporations"...a drop in the bucket, but makes me feel better...

It became very fashionable for musicians to take up a cause in the 80s. Live Aid and other events had them trying to separate themselves from the excesses of the decade and try to relate by having a cause. I’m not saying all of it was made up, but it’s just what was cool at the time. I can name countless others. Record deals had become huge and major artists were raking in tons of $ for their labels. It always felt to me, they were trying to recapture the counter culture of the late 60s and make a statement about still not conforming. I think Waters might be still stuck in the 80s.

 

[posvibes]

It is as if Churchill said: let us surrender to Hitler,

Well both Churchill and FDR did not so much surrender, as make considerable concessions concerning Poland at Yalta to Stalin which in a very direct way has led us to where we are now, and so it goes. History as Churchill well knew is a 500 piece jigsaw puzzle and you only have a handful of pieces and the image on the box of what it should look like.

 

[Prana Ferox]

Roger Waters has been a notorious human sack of garbage for the extent of my living memory