Pros And Cons Of Hitchhiking [Import]

In his Pink Floyd days, Roger Waters's tendencies toward self-pity and self-absorption in his music were at least somewhat muted by David Gilmour's (and various producers') more accessible approach. Left to his own devices, Waters creates a mess of half-finished "songs" with perhaps the worst lead vocals in the history of rock music. Nothing more clearly shows the emptiness of Waters' long-held contention that he "was" Pink Floyd than this absurd, nearly unlistenable effort. If anything, the album sounds like a virtual parody of his former band (complete with self-plagiarism, as Waters lifts the main melody from "In the Flesh" for use here). "The Pros and Cons of Hitch-hiking" is for the terminally pretentious only. As a review at the time of release stated, the album is nothing more or less than hideous.

Out of great respect for Roger Waters, I gave this album a try. Needless to say, much as I love Floyd and Waters, this was the worst album my expectant ears ever had the misfortune to hear. A pre-schooler could concoct more rhythm and melody than what Waters gave us on this solo outing, and I'm positively mystified by all these rave reviews for this album. Talk about resting on your laurels and trying to do the whole thing yourself! "The Wall" wouldn't have been half as good without David Gilmour and Bob Ezrin, and this stinking, vile excuse for an album is the fool-on proof. Sterile to the point of agonizing boredom, with lyrics and a voice so cryptic you want to slap the guy out of his self-possessed sense of being, not once semblance of an original riff, despite Eric Clapton's "invaluable" help, this album goes nowhere at a pace of 1 mile per hour. I don't care how deep, smart, or how good of a lyricist Roger Waters is, if the music ain't somewhat sonically good, what's the point? His entire genius is wasted on empty albums like this. You'd think that after years of great associations and albums.......Oh, forget it. If this is what it takes to be musically cerebral, count me out.

Right before Roger Waters left Pink Floyd, he released The Pros and Cons of Hitch Hiking. The album was originally supposed to be a Pink Floyd album, but it got shelved in favor of The Wall. 5 years later, Roger releases it under his own name.

How to describe the music and lyrics. It sounds much like The Final Cut but more "rocking" if you should say. Roger's lyrics are usually very deep and meaningful, but the lyrics to this album can be read like a book. I'll try to explain the plot of the album:

There's a man who is dreaming about driving around country with two hitch hikers in the back seat. As he keeps driving he keeps having sexual fantasies about the female passenger. He then awakens and his wife threatens to leave him. He then suggests that to save their marriage they move to his wife's native land, but she soon cheats on him and the man leaves her for good and he then goes out on his own again. He get's picked up by a trucker and tells his story about his marriage and the trucker feels sorry for them. They then stop at a truck stop and there is a waitress there who is kind to him and he then begins to feel better about himself. After that he wakes up to see that it was all a dream, and then he looks over at his wife and tells her that he loves her.

There's more to the story than that, but I tried my best at explaining it. It's a very bizarre album to say the least, but if you appreciate Roger Waters like I do you'll realise the masterpiece this album truly is. Eric Clapton plays guitar aswell to add to it! I usually give a run down of the songs but it's hard to explain them, you'll have to hear it for yourself.