Former Pink Floyd member Roger Waters probably wishes he could do away with the Internet, or at least some of the folks using it to make a profit on other people’s music. It’s a debatable topic, but Waters is firm on where he stands on the music industry today following what he calls a “takeover” by the folks in Silicon Valley.
Waters joins a line of other musicians that are speaking out against streaming services like Spotify for their practices. He expanded on these views in a recent interview with The Times UK:
“I feel enormously privileged to have been born in 1943 and not 1983,” Waters told the Times UK. “To have been around when there was a music business and the takeover by Silicon Valley hadn’t happened, and in consequence, you could still make a living writing and recording songs and playing them to people. When this gallery of rogues and thieves had not yet injected themselves between the people who aspire to be creative and their potential audience and steal every f*cking cent anybody ever made.”
Rolling Stone points out that this is a sentiment echoed by his fellow Pink Floyd band mate Nick Mason, who was critical of Apple’s distribution of U2’s ‘Songs of Innocence.’
The Times also picked at Waters over a possible Pink Floyd reunion. He immediately shot down the notion by saying, “a reunion is out of the question”:
“Life after all gets shorter and shorter the closer you get to the end of it and time becomes more and more precious and in my view should be entirely devoted to doing the things you want to do. One can’t look backwards.”
It’s hard to separate Waters from Floyd obviously. I like how Waters had to write a Facebook note for fans back when The Endless River was announced, just to inform them that he hadn’t been a member of Pink Floyd since 1985. It’s hard for some folks to let go, I suppose.
(Via Rolling Stone / NME / The Times)