SUNDAY SHOWDOWN: What Do You Want From Me? vs Smell The Roses...which artist(s) ripped themselves off the best?

[jimfisheye]

Shots fired!
... at a couple pretty big targets.

I remember all these "after the fact" albums not having any of the weird amazing surprises and odd bids of edgy music that classic Floyd albums delivered. I've tried to go back and listen a few times over the years. Thinking I was probably just being hipster with 'only the old stuff is any good' at the time. And then I reach for the skip ahead button pretty quickly and the experiment doesn't last very long!

Momentary Lapse = the sound of cocaine
Division Bell = sort of a Pink Floyd facsimile
Is This The Life We Really Want = the sound of phoning it in and laziness

I don't really listen to lyrics. Older Floyd lyrics just sound cool or something. The newer stuff doesn't do anything either direction for me. Except it sounds like the 'formula' where people make songs that are some lyric and vocal with music as secondary background. I just don't find that very interesting like weird old Floyd.

Anyway, yeah those are targets for calling out recycled bits! Speaking of later career recycling, any Hawkwind fans here?

[MrFender]

Not a huge fan but Master of the Universe is just guitar riff madness!

[stonytokes]

I'd tend to agree with your assessment of those albums. Do you have any opinion on the rest of Roger's solo work (P&C, KAOS, ATD) if you've listened to it?

[YASHA]

I am a fan of Hawkwind and I like this band for its variety of styles✌️

[aybesea]

No contest... What Do You Want

[stonytokes]

Well...it sure has been a spirited discussion so far this week, R&D! Hopefully I won't offend anyone by doing so, but I'm going to vote for Smell The Roses. I love both songs, and consider WDYWFM to be a pretty decent forgery, but in my SUBJECTIVE opinion, I can't help but FEEL that Smell The Roses, even as an obvious pastiche of Floyd tropes, succeeds wildly at doing so, and blows WDYWFM out of the water with regards to how effectively it mines that classic 70s Floyd sound. So much so that...if I may be just the tiniest bit unkind to suggest...Rog on his own decades later sounds more Floydian in that one song that anything else the other three cobbled together after he left.

[jimfisheye]

For Hawkwind, Electric Teepee was one of the last ones that sounded 'real'. Some of the Ron Tree stuff after that had moments though. The Alien album and the live ones around the same time. It's after this that the more pronounced recycling started and creativity dulled. I still check them out. Get as far as possible through their new albums. (Sometimes not very far!)

What do you do... All this stuff is head and shoulders above the corporate click track drivel! Just second class next to their heyday.

P&C = Great sounding music and playing in general. No songs or pieces of music stand out. It's just jamming that sounds good.
When the Wind Blows = Some almost Floyd-like moments. Mostly disturbing. (As intended.)
KAOS = My favorite Waters solo. Important tip though: Treat track one as part of the lead-in groove. Side 1 starting with track 2 is a great album side!
ATD = Some great moments. The insufferable element is starting to creep in though. Roger is probably salty that the Floyd fans aren't following him and understanding him and only know the popular bits of Floyd. A tour with Jeff Beck in tow would have been really great, I think. So this album is the one that's a little off and had the tour cancelled. Then Roger turned to the retrospective tour thing. The 5.1 remix has some strong elements! Classic modern day Guthrie: Phenomenal attention to fidelity! Some of the mix is wonky though. The original sounds shrill next to it and fully put to shame but the more 'rock' songs like WGWpt1 sound more proper in the original mix.

[beeco]

I think Rog really messed up not touring Amused to Death. I get that his ego had taken a beating in the 80's but even a small tour would have kept him relevant. He had his best album to tour and would have ridden that floyd wave from 87-89. Its a shame that he then fell back on the retrospective style tour. As much as I liked the DSOTM tour, my highlights were his solo stuff.