Preface
Introduction
Chapter 1: Dark Side of the Moon
Chapter 2: Wish You Were Here
Chapter 3: Animals
Chapter 4: The Wall
Chapter 5: The Final Cut
Chapter 6: Amused to Death
Appendix: Interview with Roger Waters
Works Cited and Consulted
Album Information
Index
About the Author
Phil Rose teaches in the Department of Communication Studies at York University in Toronto.
Phil Rose reveals the meticulous attention that Pink Floyd—largely
Roger Waters and David Gilmour—lavished on crafting the new art
form in such albums as Dark Side of the Moon and The Wall. The
reader will be surprised to discover
the intellectual depth which rock and roll can achieve
while remaining good, solid music.
*Dr. Eric McLuhan, Internationally-known and award-winning lecturer
on communication and media, co-author Laws of Media (with Marshall
McLuhan).*
Rogers Waters and Pink Floyd: The Concept Albums represents a
welcome and focused effort to examine something the author finds
largely missing in popular commercial culture.... [F]rom the start
the reader encounters an in-depth and assured investigation of the
musical dimensions of this remarkable group.
*Canadian Journal of Communication*
Roger Waters and Pink Floyd: The Concept Albums will be required
reading for any serious Pink Floyd fan.
*Explorations In Media Ecology*
Phil Rose reveals the meticulous attention that Pink Floyd—largely
Roger Waters and David Gilmour—lavished on crafting the new art
form in such albums as Dark Side of the Moon and The Wall. The
reader will be surprised to discover the intellectual depth which
rock and roll can achieve while remaining good, solid music.
*Dr. Eric McLuhan, Internationally-known and award-winning lecturer
on communication and media, co-author Laws of Media (with Marshall
McLuhan).*
Phil Rose has undertaken a rigorously thorough, yet eminently
readable, exegesis of the lyrics, music and, where appropriate,
accompanying imagery from Pink Floyd’s and Water’s live
performances... . As is the case with the best scholarly
explorations of complex material, Rose’s analysis continually spins
off into revealing discussions of other works of art and larger
societal issues that Waters alludes to or directly references in
his and Floyd’s work. The resulting book is extremely enlightening
and will reward even the most ardent Pink Floyd/Rogers Water fan
with its insights, permanently altering and enriching all
subsequent listening to this extraordinary body of work.
*Rob Bowman, Associate Professor of Musicology and Ethnomusicology
at York University, Grammy award-winning musicologist who founded
popular music studies in Canada, and author of the celebrated book
Soulsville U.S.A – The Story of Stax Records.*
With great precision and insight, Phil Rose provides us with an
analysis that ranges from a detailed examination of popular music
and lyrics as they relate to psychology and biography, aesthetic
issues, and the realities of the recording industry, to broader
issues concerning culture and counterculture, capitalism and
commercialism, and the social impact of media and technology. You
don't have to be a Pink Floyd fan to appreciate what is
accomplished in this study.
*Lance Strate, professor of Communication and Media Studies,
Fordham University*
In this articulate and nuanced investigation, Phil Rose reveals how
the concept albums of Roger Waters and Pink Floyd, in both their
musical structure and lyrics, provide a space of prolonged thought
and a mode of mediation by which people can come to see their own
culture through outsider eyes. Rose deftly discloses how
these albums enable an affirmation of hope for the human spirit in
the face of obstacles, adversity, and despair. This
interesting and interdisciplinary book will be of great interest to
serious fans of Roger Waters and/or Pink Floyd, and also to
musicologists, cultural critics, popular music theorists, and
humanities scholars more generally.
*Corey Anton, professor of Communication Studies, Grand Valley
State University*
The music of Pink Floyd, in the iterations that were both
groups—the
early Syd Barrett-led group, and the later group with
Roger Waters as
principal songwriter—has always been worthy of
serious consideration:
artistic, popular and academic. The
same of course can be said of Roger
Waters' music after he left
the band in 1985. Phil Rose, with some
measure of a fan's interest
and sensibility, but more so with the
carefully-conceived and
deeply-researched approach of a scholar, has
done exactly that.
This book is not the first full-length scholarly
work about
Pink Floyd. It is, however, the first to examine and analyze
the full measure of the body of work that is Roger Water's
contribution
to his art, and which explains how such an
idiosyncratic artist, with
such a coherent, powerful and evolving
vision and set of stories to
tell, attained such massive, global
success.
*Thom Gencarelli Gencarelli, ssociate professor and the founding
Chair of Manhattan College's Communication program*
Drawing from the concept albums, interviews, and music critics,
Rose shows how Pink Floyd is able reject the alienation of
contemporary culture and celebrate the generative power of the
individual—a powerful critique that is communicated by a complex
interplay of sound-shapes, lyrics, and tone that Rose makes
approachable and downright fascinating. This is a very
ambitious project, of interest to anyone who has listened to Pink
Floyd and struggled to explain how exactly they pulled off these
art-rock masterpieces. Rose’s reflection on Pink Floyd’s
concept albums is timely, reminding us that what is sold to us as
the good life is often crazy or misguided; Pink Floyd, with Waters
at the helm, uses every available tool, from stagecraft to
synthesizers to critique a neurotic culture, and Rose’s analysis
walks us through the craft of their musical masterpieces.
*David Franke, professor and director of the professional writing
program at SUNY Cortland*
Phil Rose writes about the work of Roger Waters and Pink Floyd with
both sweeping synthesis and painstaking attention to detail.
Well-versed in music theory and recording technology, Rose provides
an in-depth analysis of musical structure, lyrical content, and
acoustic characteristics that is sure to fascinate Pink Floyd
aficionados. However, the book is no simple listener’s guide.
Rose’s comprehensive treatment also offers insightful
interpretation of the historical, political, and cultural contexts
of this enormous body of work. The end result is a thoughtful book
that integrates musicology, music theory, and anthropology to offer
a thorough and holistic look at Waters’ recordings.
*Kate Einarson, teaches in the Psychology Department at McMaster
University*
Through music, lyrics and imagery, Pink Floyd became a clarion call
for social change and personal experimentation into the darker
regions of our collective, late-20th century consciousness; leaving
a cultural and musical legacy as complex as the turbulent times in
which the group was formed. Fortunately, Dr. Phil Rose has crafted
a thoughtful analysis of the artistic magic and personal mania of
this visionary group, going far beyond a fan-based biography to
provide a scholarly framework of understanding that incorporates
elements of philosophy, psychology, cultural and communication
studies, music theory and the science of recording technology.
Highly recommended for Pink Floyd fans and all those interested in
the intersection of music and popular culture.
*Edward E. Tywoniak, associate professor in the School of Liberal
Arts at St. Mary’s College of California*
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