Roger Waters – The Dark Side of the Moon Redux

The Dark Side of the Moon Redux Roger Waters has re-recorded The Dark Side of the Moon and we’re now stuck with it. Oh boy.

Pink Floyd‘s The Dark Side of the Moon is generally regarded as one of the greatest albums in music history. It probaby is Floyd‘s seminal work, spending 736 consecutive weeks in the Billboard 200 after its release, it is one of the best selling records of all time. It’s also considered by many as a masterpiece, a more or less perfect rock album. The songs on it are iconic and the album’s artwork even more so. Songs like Time, Us and Them and Money are staples on the playlist of any radio station that regularly plays classic rock tunes, and staples in the setlist of any Pink Floyd cover band, including Roger Waters and David Gilmour. Both of them, and Floyd itself back in the day, played it live in its entirety more times than you can count. Suffice to say that it’s a Big Album.

After Roger Waters’ Lockdown Sessions, which included that weird electronic version of Comfortably Numb, he somehow decided that he wasn’t done mucking about, so he decided to re-record The Dark Side of the Moon, this Redux version. Both as a celebration of the album’s 50th anniversary and a tribute, Waters’ Redux version includes all the songs you would expect, but in a stripped down version in an attempt to “readdress the political statements from the record.” I’m not quite sure if there were any hard political statements on the original to begin with, and if there were any, if anyone really cared about them, but there we have it. If Waters says it was a political record to begin with, it probably was. Or at least he thinks it was.

The Dark Side of the Moon Redux is a full five minutes longer than it’s original lean length of forty-two minutes. It feels like it’s two hours long. The versions of the songs found on Redux are stripped down to just drums and electronics with Waters talking his way through. It is essentially a spoken word album with background music; an audiobook in all but name. Waters talks about war, politics, refugees and whatnot. He talks for forty-seven minutes straight. Sometimes he grudgingly stops talking because there are song lyrics in the way, which he mumbles in a raspy, out-of-breath voice before the real talking continues.

But the music, I hear you think, what about the music? This is a brilliant collection of songs after all. The songs are slowed down and brooding, like that Lockdown Sessions version of Comfortably Numb, but not in a good way. Somehow the Redux versions have all the life sucked out of them. Gone are Clare Torry’s soaring vocals on A Great Gig in the Sky, only to be replaced by meandering keyboard sounds. The bass-driven version of Money is now a story about God knows what, but without guitars or that famous saxophone solo. Us and Them has been transformed into a lacklustre thing, with Waters sounding too bored to sing properly. Brain Damage and Eclipse, the duo of songs that rounded up the original album so spectacularly now meander and plod until Redux finally fizzles out. Unless you buy the vinyl version, which features the thirteen minute long Untitled as its conclusion, with even more talking, soundscapes and bird noises.

We really don’t know what we did to Roger that he thinks we deserve this. The Dark Side of the Moon Redux is not only a cover album, but a boring cover album. It’s like William Shatner’s spoken word albums, only not funny. It’s a grandiose, overblown and mostly aimless mess, albeit an interesting one. It’s pompous, pretentious and will bore all but the most ardent Floyd fans stiff. He even performs this thing live and talks about his childhood pets for an hour as an added bonus before the music kicks in. If you liked Waters’ Lockdown Sessions, you might be the audience for this thing. If not, please be happy that you still have your original copy of The Dark Side of the Moon left to enjoy the heck out of.

Label: SGB

Buy it here: https://rogerwaters.com/

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