Roger Waters - Is This the Life We Really Want?

A (quick) tangent to get out of the way before I try to go off on it while talking bout the music: One of the most aggravating phenomena present in music and its culture these days is the exuding of empty platitudes by artists both in their music and in their publicity regarding nuanced issues for the sake of virtue signaling to whoever their perceived target audience may be. I am aware that this is not a new phenomenon; arena country singers blatantly bark out tropes about America being great and whatever else they think their listeners want to hear them say, and punk/hardcore frontmen are well known for expressing vague surface-level opinions at shows that they think will get their audience amped up for them and on their side. Recent examples include Katy Perry’s sudden image and supposed attitude change, which was very public and so near the release of her new album anyone who denies it as a marketing/publicity move would have to be lying to themselves. Macklemore’s album last year was my least favorite of 2016 in part because it was so littered with him just listing his basic views on a bunch of hot topics with minimal expansion upon his reasoning to try to spread his appeal as far as he could. And with the context of the Trump presidency in peak relevance, it seems more artists than ever are using the discontent they perceive in whoever they seek to sell records or movies or t-shirts to over the presidency to cheaply make appeals and connections to their target demographics. It seems more amplified than before largely as a result of the misplaced aggression of the rhetorical strategies that many who exist as part of what some call the “regressive left” employ (for which this very blog platform became infamous). Rather than acknowledging opposition, many of the people under that umbrella find it easier and more gratifying to discredit their opposition by attacking their inherent ability to argue and critically assess a subject, especially when it garners sympathy from others and perception of moral high ground above their opponent. This of course trivializes many of these issues (which some people are genuinely passionate about and actually active in the mending of, by however method of mending it they see most fit) and reduces their complexity in the eyes of many to a binary of choices of being on the “left” or “right” side of the argument based on whatever aspect of the problem’s context is most loudly signaled. This has corrupted the true progress of the surrounding society within these issues because it has involved in the discussion and action upon these issues people only selfishly concerned (perhaps with selling music, with social acceptance, or with getting video views) and people with shallow understanding of said issues. It’s aggravating because it’s made having even a fraction of an unpopular opinion on a hot-button issue vilifiable in the minds of plenty of real-life people I know, and it’s aggravating as a music listener because it has given a platform to artists who have no idea what they’re talking about but are pretty sure they can get streams and views from taking a certain politically correct stance (politically correct potentially being pro-Trump if you’re Ted Nugent or Kid Rock or being anti-Trump if you’re Lena Dunham or Halsey) and it makes making more controversial or even more thoughtful music less incentivized and makes it harder for that music to gain traction. I’m aware this is but a gripe about rhetoric and anyone offended by my stance on it can lash out at me and tell me to do something about the shit I care about instead of writing about music. To those hypothetical people, music is one of the things I care passionately about; there are other things too, but not everyone has to or should be an activist, especially if they don’t know what they’re doing, and for what it’s worth, the things I believe I have enough of an understanding of to help with, I’m doing my best to help. 

I bring all this up because Roger Waters steps into the political arena, as expected, on Is This the Life We Really Want? and throws his hat in the ring for a few of the big issues of today. The pillar of Pink Floyd creativity has returned with the hopes of the current controversies surrounding the subjects he hasn’t previously sung about (the Trump presidency, the refugee crisis in Syria, the highly publicized instances of police violence, etc.) elevating his diminished creativity since the end his era of Pink Floyd. What is most noticeable about Roger Waters’ new solo album is the expected use of many of the same musical tricks that made albums like Wish You Were Here and The Final Cut so captivating and lasting. The album is covered, but not excessively so, with somber piano ballads and swelling string-driven movements. Upon my first few listens to the album, I had a hard time separating this album from Pink Floyd’s most famous work (which I still do to a degree) and a hard time hearing it as more than an attempt at repeating the processes of those works in hopes of recreating identical magic. The moments where Roger is lyrically direct (as well as the sometimes emotionally out of place swearing that seasons the album) initially had me worried that he would succumb to the type of pandering I described earlier, but luckily Roger comes through with an album favoring poetic intricacy and personal confession over trendy virtue signaling (though he does indulge in such self-righteous behavior a few times, though not nearly to an intolerable degree). This album has definitely been a grower for me, especially after spending time with the lyrics. Songs like “Wait for Her", “Part of Me Died”, and “The Most Beautiful Girl” twist the common metaphors for freedom and the American dream into more morbid and convicting icons for the abuse of the appeal of those concepts. “Déjà Vu” and the introductory track that leads into it are a solemn glimpse into the aging, but lucid, mind of Roger Waters about the only more sophisticated and evolved form of war that he spoke against during the height of Pink Floyd’s cultural impact (in a very “Wish You Were Here” kind of way) that makes for a wonderful mood-setter and introduction to the album. More lyrically upfront moments like “Picture This” and the title track show themselves to not be Roger’s strong suit on the album, the latter of which being largely inconsequential for the amount of ink on the paper, perhaps a super meta goal of the song, but I can’t really see anything concrete that would point to “meaningless” or “incomplete” being the missing adjectives in the title “Is This the Life We Really Want?”. “Smell the Roses” is probably the closest Roger gets to capturing direct lyrical aggressiveness, despite the mildly cynical and somewhat corny tone of the song, but the way it plays so directly off of “Money” is, at moments, distracting and unnecessary, especially considering how antiquated the war machinery in the song is. The album’s most prominent lyrical weakness is the lack of a full commitment to dissecting the problems surrounding the subjects Roger feels welcome to mention as if to check off his boxes, but it does seem to be more of a musing record than an analytical record, simply posing the titular question, not ever nearly answering it (except at the beginning when Roger says he’d do a better job as God). As for the music backing up all these lyrics, Roger seems to know what his audience wants to hear, if they indeed are itching to hear the Pink Floyd of old (or are totally born in the wrong generation), and he makes the task of this album a modestly unambitious one. While he is not under any obligation to reinvent himself or to try to push his instrumental boundaries (a misguided or clumsy attempt at which would likely come across disingenuous anyway), the glaring similarities to his previous work make difficult the incentive to put on this album rather than those. Fortunately though, Roger is still proficient in his signature craft and at least summons to a degree a similar atmosphere to those he helped create in the 1970’s and 1980’s. Because the album plays so much like a sparse Pink Floyd album, it has very little identity beyond the modern subject matter it covers. Overall, I’d say the album has grown on me and coming to terms with the context in which the album exists was, for me, crucial to my eventual enjoyment of it.