Roger Waters is less shy of sharing a personal opinion than a football pundit after a couple of pints. His ethos is that too many people stay shtum and comfy when the world really should be put to rights. And that even pertains to the trivial pursuit of music. While some might call him cynical, Waters is a man who would wager that not saying anything if it isn’t nice is for meek and mild lambs sure to be slaughtered.
As he recently opined regarding modern music “I don’t listen to today’s popular music, so I am not an expert. But it seems to me from what I have listened to, the main drift for most of the people that call themselves artists is completely narcissistic and completely consumer-orientated. They don’t touch any real part of their capacity to feel love or joy. That’s how it seems.” If he is happy to share that about music that he doesn’t even listen to then it’s little wonder that his contemporaries have copped a few criticisms.
As he says himself: “As far as my contemporaries, I am monumentally surprised how fucking scared my fellow musicians are to stick their heads out.” Nevertheless, some have still ended up with their necks on Waters’ chopping block. While he might have crowned John Lennon, Paul McCartney, Neil Young, Bob Dylan and John Prine as very important songwriters, he is always quick to counter, “there aren’t many rock ‘n’ roll acts I would ever listen to or care about.”
So, who are the ones he has been unfortunate enough to listen to and hated? Well, we’ve curated this below. From the recent work of his own band Pink Floyd who he has berated since the fall-out to the hair rock that repulsed him, these are the least favourite fellows that the Floyd man has ever come across.
Seven bands that Pink Floyd’s Roger Waters hates:
The Sex Pistols
U2
The Weeknd & Drake
AC/DC & Van Halen
Pink Floyd
