It is possible that Roger Waters would not have released the album “If I had the power” for Pink Floyd
As a member of a band, you frequently have to accept one fundamental principle: compromise. It does not matter how ardently an individual expresses their vision for a song; there is no assurance that it will be received with excitement by the rest of the group. It is possible that the song will be accepted, that it will be completely disregarded, or that it will even be laughed off utterly. In spite of the fact that Roger Waters would normally exercise a substantial amount of creative control inside Pink Floyd, he once admitted that there was one album that he would not have published if the decision had been left entirely up to him.
Nevertheless, when one examines the discography of Pink Floyd, it is clear that Waters always had a firm grasp on the direction that he intended his music to take. The moment Syd Barrett began to lose his battle with mental health, all of Waters’ best moments were brought to the forefront. There were a few instances in which other artists would speak up, but the moment that Syd Barrett began to lose his battle, all of Waters’ best moments occurred.
It is important to note, however, that this does not necessarily imply that each and every one of his ideas was immediately fantastic. There are a number of songs on A Saucerful of Secrets in which he finds himself in the middle of different renditions of the song “Set the Controls for the Heart of the Sun.” Even when he began making some of the more grandiose statements in the band’s canon, he was not exactly diplomatic about what he wanted out of each and every one of his tracks.
Consider, for example, an album such as Animals for example. Although it is true that it flows magnificently and plays together as a single continuous piece, this is due to the fact that Waters unintentionally deleted a significant portion of David Gilmour’s guitar solo and then had him re-record parts of it in order to ensure that everything worked out properly on the recording. It was a no-brainer for the band to move on without Waters at the helm when it became too much during The Final Cut. This was the point at which it became too much.
On the other hand, even after the band had virtually retired after performing The Division Bell, there was still more to come. They had grown to be proud of the legacy that they had created together, but when Waters learned that they intended to release sections of their library for the best-of album Echoes, he had the impression that his songs were being rearranged in some way. When all was said and done, these were conceptual pieces, and now everyone would be receiving the condensed versions of everything.
In spite of the fact that the album was a huge success, Waters would have been able to sleep soundly at night if he had never received any residuals for the record. He stated, “If I had the power, I probably wouldn’t have done it.” It’s not that I’m a big fan of compilations. My work is almost entirely cohesive in terms of both its conceptual and musical content. However, it is evident that there were other individuals involved.
And taking into consideration Waters’s contempt for the lineup that was led by Gilmour, it is likely that it was much more painful for him to see songs like “Keep Talking” displayed next to songs like “Another Brick in the Wall” and “Mother.” This was about as near to a concentrated version of Pink Floyd as one could get, going from “Astronomy Domine” all the way through to the classics from Dark Side of the Moon and Wish You Were Here. For anyone who wanted to witness what Pink Floyd was like around the turn of the century, however, this was about as close as one could get.
Those who are familiar with the band’s work may have a sense of disorientation when they hear some of the band’s most operatic passages out of context; nonetheless, this was never intended to constitute a cohesive musical body of work. This instrument was designed to assist in introducing a large number of younger listeners to the sounds of progressive rock at their maximum best.