Amused to Death
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Amused to Death is a solo album by former Pink Floyd member Roger Waters, released in 1992 (see 1992 in music).
Overview
Featuring Jeff Beck on guitar, Amused to Death further explores Waters' disillusionment with modern Western society, focusing specifically on the influence of television and the mass media. The album was inspired by the book Amusing Ourselves to Death, a critique of television and its related culture by Neil Postman.In typical Waters fashion, Amused to Death is a concept album— this one organized loosely around the idea of a monkey randomly switching channels on a television— but explores numerous political and social themes, including a critique of the first Gulf War, in which Waters has a loud choir sing his "global anthem" : "Can't you see? It all makes perfect sense. Expressed in dollars and cents, pounds, shillings, and pence." The song "Watching TV" explores the influence of mass media on the Chinese protests for democracy in Tiananmen Square.
The album is mixed in QSound to enhance the spatial feel of the audio, and the many Waters-style sound effects on the album - rifle range ambience, sleighbells, cars, planes, distant horses and dogs all make use of the 3-D facility.
Amused to Death reached #21 on The Billboard 200, aided by "What God Wants, Part I", which hit #4 on Billboard's Mainstream Rock Tracks in 1992.
Trivia
- The third song, "Perfect Sense (Part I)" begins with a loud, unintelligible scream, and after that one can hear backwards-uttered words scattered about for the first two minutes of the song. Played on reverse, this message tells that Roger has decided to record a backwards message "to Stanley and all the other book burners". The message climaxes with the loud scream, which interestingly enough makes no more sense in reverse (although it can be said that it sounds angry in the way of cartoon swearing). Waters stated in an interview with Rockline on 8 February 1993 that he wanted to use samples of HAL 9000 on the album, but Kubrick turned him down on the basis that it would open the door to many other people using the sound sample, which is why he mocks Kubrick in the song.[link]
- Red Hot Chili Peppers bassist Flea recorded a part for the album, but this was not used.
- Waters wrote portions of the lyrics by verbally improvising over the music.
- BBC Radio 1 refused to play the first single from the album, "What God Wants (Part I)" due to its lyrical content, outraging Waters.
Quotes
" The album title came from a short book by Neil Postman, Amusing Ourselves to Death, which is about the history of the media, particularly as it relates to political communication - i.e., how things have changed since such works as Lincoln's speeches were made available for the general public to read."
"And I had at one point this rather depressing image of some alien creature seeing the death of this planet and coming down in their spaceships and sniffing around and finding all our skeletons sitting around our TV sets and trying to work out why it was that our end came before its time, and they come to the conclusion that we amused ourselves to death."
"Things coalesced slowly as I became more and more interested or obsessed, pick your word, with the inordinately powerful and all-encompassing effect that television seems to have on the human race. My general view is that television when it becomes commercialized and profit-based tends to trivialize and dehumanize our lives."
"So I became interested in this idea of television as a two-edged sword, that it can be a great medium for spreading information and understanding between peoples, but when it's a tool of our slavish adherence to the incumbent philosophy that the free market is the god that we should all bow down to, it's a very dangerous medium. Because it's so powerful."
"I think the motivation is at the root of its current evil, i.e. it's because they have to compete in an open marketplace that their standards get reduced so the programming tends to end up as the cheapest possible saleable item. I don't believe that wanting to beat the opposition makes for good programming, but it's an ideology that is still rigidly adhered to."
- — Roger Waters, speaking about the album to the LA Times, September, 1992
Track listing
- "The Ballad of Bill Hubbard" - 4:19
- "What God Wants, Pt. 1" - 6:00
- "Perfect Sense, Pt. 1" - 4:16
- "Perfect Sense, Pt. 2" - 2:50
- "The Bravery of Being Out of Range" - 4:43
- "Late Home Tonight, Pt. 1" - 4:00
- "Late Home Tonight, Pt. 2" - 2:13
- "Too Much Rope" - 5:47
- "What God Wants, Pt. 2" - 3:41
- "What God Wants, Pt. 3" - 4:08
- "Watching TV" - 6:07
- "Three Wishes" - 6:50
- "It's a Miracle" - 8:30
- "Amused to Death" - 9:06
The album was certified Gold by the RIAA.
Personnel
- Roger Waters - synthesizer, bass, guitars, vocals
- Jeff Beck - guitar
- Rita Coolidge - vocals
- Don Henley - vocals
- Michael Kamen - arranger, conductor
- John Patitucci - bass and electric guitars
- Andy Fairweather-Low - acoustic, rhythm and electric guitars, vocals
- Geoff Whitehorn - guitar
- National Philharmonic Orchestra
- Marv Albert - voices
- Charles Fleischer - voices
- P.P. Arnold - vocals
- Graham Broad - percussion & drums
- Luis Conte - percussion
- John "Rabbit" Bundrick - organ
- Denny Fongheiser - drums
- Jeff Porcaro - Drums
- B.J. Cole - steel guitar
- Bruce Gaitsch - guitars
- Rick DiFonzo - guitar
- James Johnson - bass
- Kenneth Bowen - conductor
- John Dupree - arranger, conductor, string arrangements
- Doreen Chanter - vocals
- Linsey Fiddmont - vocals
- N'Dea Davenport - vocals
- Natalie Jackson - vocals
- Jon Joyce - vocals
- Katie Kisoon - vocals
- Lynn Fiddmont - background vocals
- Jim Haas - background vocals
Charts
Album - Billboard (North America)| Year | Chart | Position |
|---|---|---|
| 1992 | The Billboard 200 | 21 |
Singles - Billboard (North America)
| Year | Song | Chart | Position |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1992 | What God Wants Pt. 1 | Billboard's Mainstream Rock | 2 |
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