Track Listing

1. Ballad Of Bill Hubbard
2. What God Wants (Pt 1)
3. Perfect Sense
4. Bravery Of Being Out Of Range
5. Late Home Tonight
6. Too Much Rope
7. What God Wants (Pt 2)
8. What God Wants (Pt 3)
9. Watching TV
10. Three Wishes
11. It's A Miracle
12. Amused To Death

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #4546 in Music
• Released on: 1999-01-25
• Number of discs: 1

Amazon.co.uk Review
Perfectly titled--conveying both its maker's mordant humour, and his underlying pessimism--Waters' third solo album allowed a faint but perceptible return to the sound of his estranged former band, Pink Floyd: there are moments here ("What God Wants", "Three Wishes") which recall nothing so much as the densely textured sound of Animals and The Wall. And like those works, this is a concept album--the concept (as ever with Waters) being how staggeringly and comprehesively crap modern life is. Fair enough, but as usual, his satire is blunt, and the targets of his scorn crashingly obvious. (So, war is bad, eh? And television saps the mind? And fast food is less than exactly nutritious? Well, blow me down.) Former Eagle Don Henley duets on "Watching TV", while Jeff Beck contributes taut, lyrical solos to a number of tracks, notably "It's A Miracle". Waters' voice, however, remains the same: a weary whisper, positively dripping with contempt. --Andrew McGuire

Customer Reviews

Superb
After the unbelievably woeful 'Radio Kaos', Waters returned in 1992 with this masterpiece, which (IMHO) is undoubtedly the best solo album by any member of Pink Floyd - even better than David Gilmour's eponymous debut!

With this album Roger rediscovered his bite, and offered a great collection of songs relating to televised war ('Perfect Sense' featuring an awesome vocal performance from P.P. Arnold, 'The Bravery of Being Out of Range'), Tianmen Square ('Watching TV', accompanied on vocals by Don Henley), imperfection ('Too Much Rope'), and the decaying of western society (the album's title track). My personal highlight is 'Three Wishes', which includes eviscerating guitar work from Jeff Beck.

That being said, the album is not perfect. 'What God Wants' does not demonstrate a great deal of progress from the material on Waters' previous album, and at times his vocals are overly shrill, as on his last Floyd album, 'The Final Cut'.

This album served as the perfect antidote to the grunge movement and is essential listening for any Floyd fan.

Superb Musical Genious
This is great stuff. A monumental piece of musical workmanship by one of the most talented musicians ever. A must have. I found it hauntingly Superb!!!

Better Than Dark Side Of The Moon
If Amused To Death, Roger Waters fourth-and-a-half solo album, (and the last one of new material he has released in his forty two year year recording career), had been released under the name Pink Floyd, then it would've sold just as many as Dark Side Of The Moon.

For those of you who think (and, mostly, rightfully so) that solo albums are generally, at best only a quarter as good as records that have the whole band on, prepare to listen to the best record Pink Floyd never made.

"Amused To Death" is a grand, brilliant statement. Based on the conceit of a future visitor to Earth seeing mankind as skeletons in front of long-defunct televisions, shadows burnt into the wall, and our species extinct through war-as-television, "Amused To Death" hardly sounds like a boatload of fun. Then again, since when has being in the Floyd been fun?

Firstly, you won't ever hear an album that sounds so much like Pink Floyd in your life. Every Floydian trademark from their career is employed here : a slow heartbeat here, a well chosen tape loop of someone talking there, the bassline for "Careful With That Axe Eugene", the rhythms from "Another Brick In The Wall", a guitar solo oddly reminiscent of "Comfortably Numb", lyrics that are lists, bird and locust sounds, breathing, backwards messages, chanting and sound effects, ringing phones, duelling male/female vocals, the harsh sound of static as someone changes channels, and the use of the same speech at the open/close of the record. It's more Pink Floyd than Floyd, to quote someone from Blade Runner.

It starts like every Pink Floyd album has started for years. A slow, atmospheric instumental coda, that echoes the central theme of the album. A heartbeat. A elegant guitar line. The sound of something distant. And a voice. A voice recounting something, something unclear that slowly comes into focus. And then, Alf Twizzell recounts a horrific experience carrying a dying man across No Man Land's of the First World War.

And how does this tie into anything? Well. War makes great television, and whilst most of mankind sits hypnotised by television, the real world just plunders on ahead towards extinction. Even now, 16 years after release the themes of war and television and foolish residents, are sadly still current : "Amused To Death" is a classic record that has been sadly overlooked.