I occasionally will lurk on the Pink Floyd Reddit page, usually until I get frustrated by people correcting others with completely incorrect information and my head wants to explode.
I want to preface this by saying that I love all Pink Floyd. Syd-era: love it, the classic 4 man floyd: love it. Roger-less floyd: love it.
I know Roger doesn’t do himself any favors but i also think David (and/or Polly via social media) can sometimes be the aggressor and stir shit up sometimes.
Thinking about how the 2 are perceived led me to thinking about this:
I often read comments deriding Roger talking about how David played all these Bass parts because Roger couldn’t.
But:
1. Considering the massive egos involved, I think there’s something to be said for the fact that Roger was willing to let David record those parts in order to end up with the best possible recording at the end of the day. A lot of musicians would insist on playing the part themselves and hurting the overall outcome to satisfy their ego. I do believe that often, Roger’s focus was to make the best possible song/album at hand, and I think that is admirable.
2. Yes, David played a bunch of Bass parts. Pigs, Sheep, Hey You, and so on. And I regularly see it posited that this means Roger was incapable and is “lesser than” as a result.
but no one ever points out that Roger was playing guitar on Floyd albums as early as Meddle (and played acoustic or electric guitar on every album from Meddle until he was gone except DSOTM) and played Keyboards/synth on every album from DSOTM until he left. Yet no one says, I guess David just wasn’t up to the task of playing the rhythm parts on such and such song.
And while I think the Rick not playing so much on the Wall thing is a bit overstated, though he was not there for the several month mad rush to get the album done under deadline that saw many overdubs without him…which is largely what people are referring to when they criticize Rick’s absence on the Wall…
Roger did play a fair amount of synth on the Wall and the Final Cut, as well as a fair amount of songs that he played guitar on.
This was prompted by someone insisting on Reddit that Roger barely played on Animals at all, and I had to inform them that Roger is actually the only member on all 5 songs, and that despite David playing bass on Sheep and Pigs, Roger actually plays fairly prominent rhythm guitar parts in both songs.
I don’t care to debate his politics or how he chooses to handle himself, but this narrative that Roger just wrote lyrics is really quite mistaken. And to illustrate his importance I like to remind people that between 1970 (Atom Heart Mother) and 1983 (the Final Cut), Roger either wrote or co-wrote 93.75% of all the material they released. Maybe this person deserved more credit or Roger was stingy with credits…all totally possible…but aside from a very small handful of songs (like 5…maybe 6), Roger was either the or one of the composers.
and to be clear, I am not trying to engage in the endless Dave vs Rog debate. I love David and the band was the sum of its parts. I don’t have a preference for any member, but if you made me choose, I’d probably go Nick. He seems like the most mature of the guys and actually appreciates their work while the people in question constantly slag off the songs that I love.
I want to preface this by saying that I love all Pink Floyd. Syd-era: love it, the classic 4 man floyd: love it. Roger-less floyd: love it.
I know Roger doesn’t do himself any favors but i also think David (and/or Polly via social media) can sometimes be the aggressor and stir shit up sometimes.
Thinking about how the 2 are perceived led me to thinking about this:
I often read comments deriding Roger talking about how David played all these Bass parts because Roger couldn’t.
But:
1. Considering the massive egos involved, I think there’s something to be said for the fact that Roger was willing to let David record those parts in order to end up with the best possible recording at the end of the day. A lot of musicians would insist on playing the part themselves and hurting the overall outcome to satisfy their ego. I do believe that often, Roger’s focus was to make the best possible song/album at hand, and I think that is admirable.
2. Yes, David played a bunch of Bass parts. Pigs, Sheep, Hey You, and so on. And I regularly see it posited that this means Roger was incapable and is “lesser than” as a result.
but no one ever points out that Roger was playing guitar on Floyd albums as early as Meddle (and played acoustic or electric guitar on every album from Meddle until he was gone except DSOTM) and played Keyboards/synth on every album from DSOTM until he left. Yet no one says, I guess David just wasn’t up to the task of playing the rhythm parts on such and such song.
And while I think the Rick not playing so much on the Wall thing is a bit overstated, though he was not there for the several month mad rush to get the album done under deadline that saw many overdubs without him…which is largely what people are referring to when they criticize Rick’s absence on the Wall…
Roger did play a fair amount of synth on the Wall and the Final Cut, as well as a fair amount of songs that he played guitar on.
This was prompted by someone insisting on Reddit that Roger barely played on Animals at all, and I had to inform them that Roger is actually the only member on all 5 songs, and that despite David playing bass on Sheep and Pigs, Roger actually plays fairly prominent rhythm guitar parts in both songs.
I don’t care to debate his politics or how he chooses to handle himself, but this narrative that Roger just wrote lyrics is really quite mistaken. And to illustrate his importance I like to remind people that between 1970 (Atom Heart Mother) and 1983 (the Final Cut), Roger either wrote or co-wrote 93.75% of all the material they released. Maybe this person deserved more credit or Roger was stingy with credits…all totally possible…but aside from a very small handful of songs (like 5…maybe 6), Roger was either the or one of the composers.
and to be clear, I am not trying to engage in the endless Dave vs Rog debate. I love David and the band was the sum of its parts. I don’t have a preference for any member, but if you made me choose, I’d probably go Nick. He seems like the most mature of the guys and actually appreciates their work while the people in question constantly slag off the songs that I love.
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