Roger Waters – Amused to Death (SACD hibrid multicanal)

Amused To Death is a 23-year-old album that couldn’t be more relevant. Roger Waters’ portrait of a society enslaved by television screens is being reissued in 2015 in a remastered version with new artwork. James Guthrie, who mixed the first release and has worked with Waters since Pink Floyd’s The Wall, is responsible for the reworking of the original tapes. As Amused To Death was recorded over a period of almost five years and on three different formats, collecting the master tapes was no easy task. Guthrie travelled to London – and found hundreds of them, with different takes of the same songs in different formats. The Herculean task was to re-create the album and then get on with the real work – remastering the 5.1 surround and stereo mixes.

But it was worth the effort. Amused To Death is a conceptually and musically enormously strong album, for which Waters and his co-producer Patrick Leonard have brought together outstanding musicians. The extraordinary guitarist Jeff Beck is involved in eight songs, Don Henley sings on Watching TV, Rita Coolidge on Amused to Death and soul singer P.P. Arnold on Perfect Sense Part I / Part II. The album also reunited Waters with composer Michael Kamen, who provided the orchestral arrangements for Too Much Rope and What God Wants, Part III.

The cover artwork for the 2015 edition was created by Sean Evans, the creative director of the 2010-2013 ‘The Wall Live’ tour. Instead of a gorilla, the new version features a young boy sitting in front of a giant TV screen. Waters himself says: „The way we educate young people, I fear we are encouraging our society to entertain itself to death more than ever before. What if we took the money we spend on guns and spent it on education? What if we encouraged children not to prepare themselves for a life of consumerism and production, but to become adults who are open-minded and interested in human rights? Can you imagine what our world would look like then?

Amused To Death is an album that deserves to be listened to, both for its sound and its content. It’s a look at an entertainment-obsessed society and touches on issues that have only become more complex and urgent over the last two decades. In 2015, television is just one option in an endless array of distractions available to us anytime, anywhere. But with our eyes glued to screens, we can easily lose sight of the crises and injustices of the real world.

The multi-channel hybrid SACD with 5.1 surround and stereo tracks is released in a limited edition portrait format digibook.

We recommend the use of „L’Art du Son” CD/DVD conditioner for even more sonic improvement.

Lista pieselor

1. The Ballad of Bill Hubbard

2. What God Wants, Part I

3. Perfect Sense, Part I

4. Perfect Sense, Part II

5. The Bravery of Being Out of Range

6. Late Home Tonight, Part I

7. Late Home Tonight, Part II

8. Too Much Rope

9. What God Wants, Part II

10. What God Wants, Part III

11. Watching TV (featuring Don Henley)

12. Three Wishes

13. It’s A Miracle

14. Amused To Death (feat. Rita Coolidge)