Customer Reviews

Flickering Flame: The Solo Years Volume 1

5 star:		(9)
4 star:		(5)
3 star:		(9)
2 star:		(3)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

If you must buy this CD, don't put it in your computer. The destructive copy protection will crash PCs and Macs. If you have a newer Mac without a manual eject on the CD drive (such as an iMac) it will take a costly trip to an authorized repair store... This is a seriously defective product, and is unsafe at any speed. Click on the cover picture to see the little warning in the lower right corner, but there is another sticker covering this on the jewel box. Your only other warning is that it doesn't have the "CD" logo since it doesn't meet standards.

Well worth the effort. One of his rare CDs and features some great tracks.

Roger Waters must be one of the most talented song writers ever,and certainly one of the most politically conscious.
Save from few songs (Run Like Hell, Comfortably Numb and The Trial), the man has single handedly written with Pink Floyd the best conceptual rock album ever, The Wall!! A semi autobiographical masterpiece of angst mixed with great melodies.
The man has written Money, the most famous Floyd song ever, and has been instrumental in marrying the creative with the technical and experimental, hence given Pink Floyd the success they enjoy to this day.
The break up of Pink Floyd is legendary, and after The Final Cut, (as one viewer rightly put it a solo project for Waters in all but name,) the future of both Waters on one side, and Gilmour, Mason and Wright on the other seemed uncertain.
Yet each had too much creativity in them to call it a day, and while Gilmour retained the band's name and produced couple of great progressive rock CDs, Waters went solo and took total control over his music and his political message.
This Cd is a compilation of Waters solo output over the years up up until his latest masterpiece Amused To Death.
The songs are typical Waters, and many are similar in style and content to Waters latest work for Floyd,(his anguish about his father's death and his anger about the state of the world and society today) but having said that, they all have the invariable mark of depth, of great song writing. To compensate the departure of Gilmour, Waters cleverly uses the services of the best guitarists in the business today, Eric Clapton and Snowy White among others.
If you dont own any of Waters CDs, then you should buy this one and if you do not agree with Waters politics , do not judge the man for them, instead listen to a music that is rarely written these days, and whether you are a pro Gilmour Floyd, or not,Roger Waters should be regarded as one of the last greats in rock music history.

This is the kind of album that fans of Roger Waters and Pink Floyd have craved for years. It seems that so much of Waters' best work is the stuff that never gets released or only gets to be heard as snippets on soundtracks and so on, and some of these gems are included here. (There are a few more that would have been good to see canonized--the trio of unreleased songs from "Radio KAOS," including the beautiful, elusive "Molly's Song," for example--but the omissions do not diminish what we are fortunate enough to receive.)

"Knockin' on Heaven's Door" is the first official release of Waters' interpretation of this song, which appeared in the film "Dybbuk of the Holy Apple Field." If you have already heard the song as a dub from the movie, the track here is cleaner and longer. Waters' cover at first seems conventional, but after a few listens one cannot help but be struck by the ominous whispers of his vocals and the song's plodding, melancholy rhythm. The definitive version of this song is by Guns n' Roses, but this one is almost as compelling.

There are also two demos here: Waters' original take of "Lost Boys Calling" (the song that appeared on the soundtrack to "The Legend of 1900") and "Flickering Flame," which to my knowledge has never appeared anywhere before.

Expectedly, the former is not as good as either of the beautiful versions that have appeared on the official soundtrack releases (U.S. and Italian). It consists of wailing reminiscent of "Don't Leave Me Now" from "The Wall," and the tone of the music is one of anxious desperation, not detached resignation. It is nevertheless an extraordinarily interesting artifact and an insight into Waters' creative process.

"Flickering Flame" is a seven-minute masterpiece. It is mind-boggling to imagine that this song might be even better once Waters subjects it to his rigorous refinement in the studio, but who knows. It is one of those reflective anthems whose lyrical honesty manages to distill so much of what a writer spends an entire career gesturing towards. Like the coda of "Pigs on the Wing" in "Animals," in which Waters allows that he, too, is a dog (if that sounded silly, listen to the album), the final verse of this song betrays one of those rare moments of clarity. Here, Waters, the bete-noir of stadium rock, confesses that he is sometimes affected by a "quest for applause," after all. He has always seemed something of a reluctant rock star, but those who saw his recent tours (or listened to this song) can sense that he is coming to terms with himself and is now seeming quite a bit more comfortable in his own skin. It's good to see, and it's an inspiration to anyone who ever feels less than content.

It seems that bitter ex-Pink Floyd songwriter Roger Waters' release schedule has more in common with his former outfit than he realizes; most Pink Floyd fans, including myself, have complained that the band's studio albums without Waters have been too few and too far apart timewise, and to make matters more trivial, there have been a number of sometimes uninspired live albums released to fill in the void (like "Pulse" or "Is There Anybody Out There?"), not to mention a questionable 'best-of' compilation ("Echoes"). And now, it seems Roger Waters has fallen into a rut in the same vein--it took him eight years to release a new album since his last studio set in 1992, and even that was an uninspiring live set, "In the Flesh," and now Waters officially puts himself in the same situation of his former bandmates with this compilation album, "Flickering Flame: The Solo Years Volume 1."
There are the obligatory tracks taken from Waters' three solo albums, some worthy, some not, but with most compilations, there are a few "rare" or "unreleased" songs, so if you're interested in owning them you'll also have to pay for the Waters material you probably already own. Three soundtrack tunes appear on this set; a stale cover of Bob Dylan's 'Knockin' On Heaven's Door' (from an Israeli film), 'Towers of Faith' (from the 1986 nuclear-war film "When the Wind Blows"), and 'Lost Boys Calling' (from the film "The Legend of 1900"). Also included is 'Each Small Candle,' Waters' reaction to a poem written amidst violence in Kosovo, which first appeared as a diamond-track on the live "In the Flesh." The "new" title track is the only song here that hasn't appeared on release elsewhere.
"Flickering Flame" is your standard compilation album, only it proves that there are definitely inspiration problems with both Waters' release pattern and that of his former band Pink Floyd (though there have been reports that Waters is working on a new solo album). This is a trivial "best-of" package, with flashes of Waters' dominating ego all throughout. The title of this album is a bit forboding as well, suggesting a "Volume 2" is on the way.

Roger Waters has put 12 tracks on this album. Unlike the previous albums of Roger Waters they do not form a story when played after each other. No this album is more a sampler of Roger Waters Solo Projects and 3 not previously recorded tracks.

The Album starts with a Bob Dylan Song. "Knocking on Heavens Door" in wich Roger waters is joind by female background singers. His voice is unique , you either like it or your dislikte it. For those who like it, this is a good cd in good qualtiy wich Roger is known for.

Too Much Rope , from Amused To Death is a good but slightly strange song, but it is excellent for testing since there are some noises like Woodchopping , Horse sound, Ferrari and a sleigh with horses coming from left to right (if you have set your cd or dvd player well on to the amplifier)

The Tide is Turning from Radio KAOS and The Wall Live in Berlin, is a song in which Roger Waters gives his opinion to a lot of items.

Perfect Sense part I & II are of course from Amused to Death and are excellent , especially because it is a live recording
with a solo of PP Arnold who in her own way practically blows away the audience.

Three Wishes is a track i also like. no special notes nescessairy. 5.06 AM (Every strangers Eyes from The Pro's and Cons Album is in this album perhaps a bit off the other tracks wich also counts for track 7 and 8.

Flickering Flame is a new demo recording of Roger and i have to get used to it , mind that it is not a bad song , i just have to hear it more..

Towers of faith is a movie track, good and fine.

Radio Waves from Radio KAOS is strange to me because it is one of the few albums i do not own. but it sounds good.
Lost Boys Calling is the last track and same like Flickering flame i need some time to get used to it wich doesn't mean its bad

If you are a Water's fan, I wouldn't bother with this C.D. There's nothing great about it. It's not like he has 20 Cd's out, in fact he only has 3 studio and 2 live(plus a soundtrack), so i would recommend buying some of the actual releases since they can be mostly found,nowadays, in the bargin bin of most stores. As for the new songs - "knocking on heaven's door" is interesting but no different than any of the other countless covers of that song, "flickering flame" is brand new but nothing quite unique about it (though it's only a demo,"towers of faith" (new to me), i'd rather have "folded flags" from the same soundrack release - it's a better song ,and "Lost boys calling" is quite an atrocious demo compared to the studio version from the movie "legend of 1900".
On the otherhand, if you are a Pink Floyd fan who is not too familiar with Roger Waters solo work this is a decent introduction, though it does kinda diss his "pro's and con's of hitching" album, you can still get an idea of what's he's about. For me it was a waste of money but it still gets 3 stars because the songs overall are good, i'm just disappointed,being a huge Water's fan, i expected much, much more.

If you are Roger's faithful fan, you will get 2 new songs (Knockin' and the title track), 2 hard-to-find songs (Towers of Faith and Lost Boy Calling-demo), and 1 remixed song (Who Needs Info). But all these are mainly best for collectors as the folky Flickering Flame sounds more like Dylan than Roger (with "Quinn the Eskimo" in the lyrics) while Knockin' lacks fresh interpretation. Not so impressive for the first official cover song. Roger must have been very into Dylan these days! Also, it could have been better for the fan to have the official version of Lost Boys Calling in this collection as Roger seemed exhausted when singing in higher notes for the demo. And there's no Eddie Van Halen's solo here too.

From Amused To Death album, there are Too Much Rope and Three Wishes. Though both are good, they are not really highlights when compared to those selected for In The Flesh tour. And with only 1 uptempo tune (Radio Waves) placing at very near the end, this whole album seems quite monotone.

Anyhow, for non-fan, this could allow a fine glimpse for Roger's solo works though those new songs and hard-to-finds are not up to the quality of normal works. And of course, like Pink Floyd's Echoes, the individual concept from each album becomes diluted.

Roger now has Flickering Flame in his setlist of this year's world tour, replacing Each Small Candle...

I like this CD because it means that I don't have to put 3 Roger Waters CD's in the player. It is a pretty sample of his solo works. Although I'm upset that there isn't more from the Pros and Cons of Hitchhiking. (Namely the title song). The flow on this one isn't as good as the Pink Floyd Best of CDs. The songs are some of his better works. The two unreleased songs are good, but I've heard better versions that I downloaded. I wish "Each Small Candle" was a studio version rather than the live version I already have.

I'm even more upset that this is yet another greatest hits collection from Floyd (and Waters). I wish Roger Waters would finish the rumored album he is working on.

Love Roger Waters and this is such a great compilation of music. If you love Roger Waters this is a must have.