Its value is entirely symbolic to them, I believe.
They’ve probably seen how the experts do it (e.g. Syria and Ukraines) and assessed its effectiveness and I would not be surprised if they’d consider its infrastructure destruction eminently recoverable from - they are masters of very long-term planning, after all.
Arnold Lame?
Careful with that ask, Eugene.
If you’re off to the bar, would you remind west for me.
He hasn’t brought me back any bloody change.
Ooh, that made me wince and chuckle at the same time.
(chince? wuckle? let’s not go there?)
Great art escapes its creator. I find it interesting to learn what an artist meant when they created a piece of art, and sometimes that even helps shape how I experience it, but ultimately the important thing about art is what it means to me (or anyone else experiencing it; I’m not a narcissist).
There are lots of artist who create art that I love, even though they have political opinions that I disagree with. There are also lots of artists whose politics I agree with who create art that I don’t care for.
When an artist tells me that they don’t want me to engage with their art unless I agree with them politically, though, that touches a nerve. Pink Floyd’s music is beyond Roger Water’s control for me. He can’t say anything that will make it less meaningful for me at this point, no matter how far off the deep end he goes. I would think twice about attending his concert, though. There are some great bands playing at the bar this weekend.
It’s because they’re old, and mainly dudes, who believe that anyone at the concert gives a shit about what they’re saying instead of playing the hits they’ve shelled out to see.
No one attends an Eric Claptop show to talk about immigration, but, by golly, he’s got opinions and he’s gonna make sure you hear them before he launches into his post-Cream shlock.
@Brainspore has already pointed out very important musicians who made politics an important part of their oeuvre. (And illustrated this with my favorite example. Thanks, Woody!) There a hundreds more.
Are comic and cartoon artists “entertainers”? I’d hate to live in a world without Tom the Dancing Bug or Tom Tomorrow, etc, etc…
I’ve never understood how people can hold your position. It just seems juvenile to demand that someone give you only the safe things that you want, and not produce or contribute anything outside of that. Where there’s a lot of complexity and richness, you seem to be saying, “Nope, just give me simple, and nothing else. To anyone.”
I completely agree with you.
At the same time I wonder if we started to see more entertainers stick their necks out into politics in parallel with more politicians treating politics as a form of entertainment.
But it’s still not right to insist entertainers stay out of politics (Zelensky? Reagan? No, we don’t get to choose some but not others), but I do rather think it is ok to insist politicians stay out of entertainment (including keeping Boris off of UK panel comedy shows! HIGNFY bears its part of the responsibility for giving that fuckwit the oxygen of publicity and credibility.)
Anyone else tired of hearing from boomers?
What do Clapton and coffee have in common?
They both suck without Cream.
So, he must be for the other guy. And all this time I thought the Hammer March was an anti-fascist statement.
He didn’t believe the white hats in Syria and sided with Assad…
I found the interview rather hard to follow as they jumped around trying to one-up each other. Not much substance and nor was RW given a chance to explain his rather controversial China statement.
Found this on his twitter:
I’m a big fan of Floyd (pre- and post-Waters), Gilmour and Waters music. I like hearing their variations on their classics over the years. RW is obviously a rather cantankerous and opinionated fellow.
I watched a bootleg YT video of one of his new shows (Detroit, I think) and you’ll probably not leave with a “feel good” vibe, but did find some interesting artistic choices.
Opened with a moody/gloomy version Comfortably Numb with no guitars let alone guitar solo (mostly vocal with synth background). The show climaxed about 2/3 to 3/4 of the way thru with stuff from WYWH and DSotM but then ended with Two Suns in the Sunset - a mellow/jazzy ballad about nuclear annihilation with video to match. 
I find his stuff thought-provoking such that I find myself trying to understand, but not necessarily agree with his stance, on such subjects.
One of these days I’m going to cut you into little pieces.
He’s following The Worm.
That’s a weird line to draw. As others have already pointed out, there are lots of artists other than comics who make their political beliefs central to their art.
I do think that there is a distinction to be made between an artist and a performer. An artist creates new art, and frankly I’d say that artists who don’t infuse their art with their political beliefs are rarer than those who do. A performer, on the other hand, is not creating something new. They’re just putting on a performance of already created work.
A Pink Floyd cover band might be extremely talented, but I wouldn’t describe them as artists. Roger Waters is clearly an artist. However, I think that to some degree people would rather that older artists (at least those who are musicians) would stop being artist and just be performers. Frankly, I think that most people who go to Roger Waters’ shows really just want him to be a Pink Floyd cover band.
That’s fine to some extent, but the fact that I want to see a Pink Floyd cover band doesn’t mean that I have a right to tell Roger Waters that he no longer has a right to be an artist. Of course, if I don’t enjoy his new art, I’m also welcome to spend my time elsewhere. There are some great Pink Floyd cover bands out there who won’t tell me to fuck off if I don’t agree with them.
Why do all these old rockers turn ‘radical right’ in their old age?
Here’s the activism I like to see from old rockers.
In addition to being a rock legend and astrophysicist he also rescues hedge hogs but in concert he just plays awesome guitar.
