#luis conte

No Bitter End by Tarja

Roger Waters -  The Ballad of Bill Hubbard 

Released: March 27th, 1989

I Mother Earth - So Gently We Go

All Pink Floyd members worked during the 90's, though the breakup into two camps meant they never worked together. I mean, Roger Waters' Amused To Death might've benefitted greatly from the output of his former bandmates, though I must admit the album does seem to be one of his finest solo works, so perhaps this was for the best. Still, the parallels persist as there's an overarching theme, i.e. the media manipulation, and the entire tone does resemble the late period Pink Floyd. To be honest, when I listened to the tune on the link, I kept thinking the piece sounds so Gilmouresque Mr. Waters could've been sued. Of course, I always thought the 80's collapse never got emotionally resolved despite both sides trying to connect – to no avail.

We have noticed the cover albums appear on a variety of stages in a musician's career, there is no set rule for a when. However, a lot of them occur during the later phases of their players' opuses, such as, huh, Covers by James Taylor. Then again, many of his peers tend to currently look back into their formative influences to replay them. Still, this doesn't suggest their discs merely retreat to their idols, they also look outside their genre to see those that were popular at the same time as them within another idiom. I mean, Mr. Taylor did a version of a country tune by John Anderson and while he dialed down the original's twanginess, the sturdy melody got transplanted quite well into the folk rock stylings.

Jackson Browne is still musically active. However, a thing with his later records is that they feel like an obligation. Mind you, this is not just his problem, many who are similar to him have the very same issue. That is why this happens a lot – whenever they tour in support of their current albums, they sooner or later transform their concerts into a greatest hits revue. Sadly, the audience misses on some nice tunes, because they are not the hits. Looking East, for instance, may not be Lives In The Balance or Running On Empty, it is considered to be solid, nothing more, nothing less. Yes, Browne's backing band knows what they do best, they stick with it and that can occasionally make the LP sound obedient, i.e. it can veer towards Jackson Browne by the numbers. Nonetheless, there are still some good songs on it that should be played more often by him.