David Gilmour vs. Roger Waters

DSOTM and WYWH were their best, Gilmour.-

Roger is nothing more than a decent bass player, while Gilmour is capable of playing the bass much better than him and also is probably my favorite guitar player ever. it's very close, but my vote does go to Roger though. His songwriting is brilliant, where Gilmour's songwriting doesn't really do much to me. Though Roger isn't a technical vocalist at all, I do enjoy his voice incredibly. Definitely the whispering and shouting on The Final Cut is brilliant. 

I love both, but Floyd without Waters simply wasn't the same.

MLOR was a distinctly average album, whilst Division Bell was simply dreadful. I quite enjoyed the last Gilmour effort, but it is hardly an all time classic.

In contrast, Waters is responsible for the bulk of the lyrics and atmosphere that made Floyd great, and Amused to Death will, I feel, be regarded in many years to come as an incredible piece of music that was sickeningly underrated in its day. It is a work of genius, end of.

I love both of them, and Gilmour's contribution to Floyd at their peak cannot be understated, but it is Waters for me every time.

And as far as singing goes, they are also at their best when they sing together. I guess Gilmour is the better singer, but Waters has such a unique mellancholic voice that Pink Floyd just wasn't the same without his voice.

Roger Waters is Pink Floyd, at least after 1970. David Gilmour is a very, very good guitarist.

Pros and Cons and Amused to Death are better and more Floydish albums than Momentary Lapse and Division Bell, though perhaps less replay friendly. 

Look at David Gilmour's solo albums and the all the many co-writers he needs....

As a musician (bassist), Waters is very ordinary indeed. His bass parts (which I assume he writes himself) never dare to stray far from the "root note-octave-root note-octave" crotchets he learned to play in the 60s. Has he never heard of thirds and fifths? As a session musician he would have starved to death, so luckily for him, he got a permanent gig. Or maybe there lurks a secret Pastorius somewhere inside, who once heard that less is more and took it a little too literally? In interviews he comes over as a bitter man, but what has he really got to be bitter about? His failed career? Obviously not. He is one of the most successful song writers of all time. Lack of recognition as a genius? Well, he had the nerve to describe himself as "The genius behind Pink Floyd's music" on posters and ads for his last tour, without shame or irony, so I guess he believes it to be an irrefutable fact. Personally, I think the sound texture of PF is more important than the structure or subject matter of the songs, and this can be chiefly attributed to the rest of the band, but especially Gilmore.

Edited by emdiar - November 11 2009 at 16:34

DocJ wrote: floydispink wrote: I don't agree with that at all. I'm going to compare two albums: The Final Cut by Roger Waters, but performed by Pink Floyd and The Pros And Cons Of Hitchiking, by Roger. A simplistic suggestion of only two albums proves nothing.   Hitchiking?   What is that?

Edited by floydispink - November 11 2009 at 14:04

Both, I can't really choose. There's no doubt their contribution to Pink Floyd's music was equally essential in my opinion. None of them really had an outsanding solo career, but they both released one great album: Amused to death and On an Island. The rest of their albums are good but no that especial, at least for Pink Floyd standards.

cjgone wrote: DSOTM and WYWH were their best, Gilmour.-

 

Waters' ego as a bassist is respectfully small for someone who's sold a zillion records featuring his bass work. I think that on Amused to Death he plays bass on only one song, and just parts of it.