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Why Roger Waters ?

#24
IMO the only reason anybody would put Waters at the top of any list is because they really like Pink Floyd. Stands to reason, you loooooove the music, he was part of writing and performing in it, he's at least nominally the bassist, ergo you love Waters. But he's an average bassist, with a second bassist playing in the shadows on their live shows, and it's debatable which of their classic recordings were even him on bass in the studio.

Lots of people say Sid Vicious is one of their favorites too.
 
#25
superbassman2000 said:
I would like to point out what claypool plays for his cover (and the same goes with his ozzy cover)-he doesn't veer far from the original bassline.
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Yeah. If, in an alternate universe, Primus/Claypool wrote Have A Cigar, Les wouldn't play like Rogers would. The Frog Brigade-cover is a tribute to Pink Floyd, and Les (wisely) chose not to slap. If it was his song he would play it The Les Claypool way.

Wooten on the other hand...:D
 
#28
Thanks to Roger Waters, Pink Floyd didn't crash and burn when its main creative force went nuts, due to too many people thinking he needed another dose of LSD, and doing him the "favor" of spiking his orange juice, or whatever else he was consuming that day.

Thanks to Roger Waters, we listeners got to have stoned headphone experiences that weren't just "to freak out," but actually spoke to us about the human condition, and were able to share in someone's EMOTION as expressed through ART.

Thanks to Roger Waters, stadium shows were about more than just standing on stage and looking cool.

Thanks to Roger Waters, there was music on the FM dial that had more to say than "I wanna do ya, baby."

Roger Waters is a legendary, and great artists, and there is NOTHING wrong with his bass playing. He belongs on any list of greats. Hell, I'd put him on the list of some of rock's best SINGERS, just for some of his vocals on "Animals" and "The Wall."

David Gilmour would NOT agree with me on that. :)
 
#29
He played(s) what the song demanded(s), and that's a skill in which many bassists could use a refresher course. Floyd might have been popular without him, but -- as with the Beatles -- it was the sum of the parts that made the band. I'll take a laid-back bassist every time over one that has chops but doesn't know when to use them and when to keep them under wraps.
 
#33
iiipopes said:
Gilmore in interviews has definitively stated he recorded a lot of the bass parts, including "Money," then had to teach them to Waters to play concerts.

Waters is a genius when it comes to songwriting and rendering ideas to recording. But that's all.

Any person saying otherwise would mean he was cruisin' for a bruisin, and must be able to say, "I never said I was frightened of dying," because there is no dark side of the moon. As a matter of fact, it's all dark.
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Based on interviews I've seen Gilmore still clearly hates Waters with a passion. Why do you assume he is above downplaying what Waters did out of spite?

The links to Waters original demo of "Money" in this thread would seem to contradict any claim by Gilmore to have created one of the most iconic bass riffs in history.
 
#34
I dunno. When I think of earlier PF (Meddle, Atom Heart Mother, Obscured by Clouds, to name a few) it's easy for me to see that the bass lines, while not full of a bunch of notes, were well constructed and were exactly what was needed. During that same time period, you had guys like Stanley Clarke playing more notes per measure than should be allowed by law, and rock players like Martin Turner doing the same thing with Wishbone Ash songs. None of these players are interchangeable, but all excellent players for their type of music.
 
#37
This issue comes up again and again here and in other bass forums. The reason why is undoubtedly because Pink Floyd has sold more records than so many other artists. Dark Side of the Moon alone has sold some 50 million copies on it's own. When a band and their music become that ubiquitous and a part of the collective musical conciousness, there is going to be attention for them both as an act and as individual musicians.

What made Pink Floyd great was their combined musical chemistry, their innovation in recording techniques & live shows, and Roger Waters' songwriting. If you were to look at them for individual musical excellence, David Gilmour is the standout performer. Roger Waters bass playing worked in the context of the Pink Floyd material. And ultimately it was the songs that really made him shine as a bassist, and not so much his prowess with the instrument.
 
#38
Listen to Pink Floyd Pulse to hear them without Roger. To me, the live tracks have no business having really busy playing. I was trying to jam to the Pulse versions of them in the late 90s and the slap bass playing on tunes like Time or Shine to me sound way to busy. I was thinking a lot of Floyd stuff sounded easy, but try playing along and you realize it harder than you think. Even easy sounding songs like Us and Them are harder to nail than you think.

So, I feel like he found a good solid role with Floyd.
 
#39
degroove said:
Listen to Pink Floyd Pulse to hear them without Roger. To me, the live tracks have no business having really busy playing. I was trying to jam to the Pulse versions of them in the late 90s and the slap bass playing on tunes like Time or Shine to me sound way to busy. I was thinking a lot of Floyd stuff sounded easy, but try playing along and you realize it harder than you think. Even easy sounding songs like Us and Them are harder to nail than you think.

So, I feel like he found a good solid role with Floyd.
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It's funny that you mention 'Pulse' and the way Guy Pratt played some Floyd songs, because on the recent Albert hall and Gdansk shows with Gilmour, Pratt plays much more restrained parts IMO. I actually noticed that compared to an '87 Floyd show I saw: I think Pratt sounded great back then, but I like what he has been doing lately ;^]
 

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