The Pros and Cons of Hitch Hiking

I'm a huge Pink Floyd fan but I definitely lean toward David Gilmour and the whole ambient direction that they go in in the 80s (and beyond!). This album sounds like a rejected version of the wall. The bum on the cover is quite nice.

Wow, great to see this album here. This came out when I was 18 years old, and at the peak of my Pink Floyd obsession. I bought it on vinyl, wore it out, and saw Roger in concert on this tour - only the second concert I'd ever been to, and it was amazing. I love that Roger Waters, on breaking up with one of the greatest guitarists of all time in David Gilmour, just called up his friend Eric Clapton and said, "Hey, mate, I'm making a new album. You wanna play guitar on it?" Eric was probably like, "I don't know..." so Roger says, "There's going to be a naked girl on the cover," and Eric's like, "Okay, I'll do it." It's honestly great guitar work by Clapton, a bit of a resurgence for him after making some pretty weak crap over the previous few years. The album itself is uneven at times, but the concept works. It's a lot like a dream in that there are crazy and random things happening (eating a sandwich with a puppy on it?!?) but at the same time it's a cohesive story. The lyrics are just amazing. "Fixed on the front of her Fassbinder face was the kind of a smile that only a rather dull child could have drawn." How can you not love that? Or, "Hey girl, as I've always said I prefer your lips red. Not what the good lord made, but what he intended." The song Gone Fishing is just perfect, the way it paints this idyllic picture of a family getting back to nature, but even from the beginning there are ominous undertones that portend disaster. Anyway, I love this album (obviously). Not quite up to the level of Pink Floyd's best work, but still worthy of 5 stars in my book.

According to the wiki, this movie is basically the B side to the wall and after listening to it I couldn't agree more with everything the wiki said. Picking the wall to be the pink floyd release was definitely the smart commercial move because this is a bit more out there and has a weirder concept than the wall. However, there's some stuff on here that far outshines almost everything from the wall like the title track and gone fishing. Really interesting album that I think does a pretty good job of bringing across the oddness of a bad? dream.

6/10. Hmm. I really like the idea of this album. And the title track. But the rest of it is a bit more hit-or-miss, and it's just unnerving when there are little snippets that are shared with The Wall—like that one song that sounded like Mother, and the other one that sounded like One of My Turns, and then every once in a while I'll jump in the middle of a song because it sounds like In the Flesh just came on… I just feel like this album lacks its own identity a bit because of that. Also if I could hear what the fuck Roger Waters was saying half the time it would help a lot, but the main vocals are mixed kinda low.

Obviously, very Pink Floydish in sound and execution. But somehow it lacks the urgency of what Rogers was able to create together with Pink Floyd. This album definitely has it's moments (the title track can easily compete with late-era Floyd) but there's just too many so-so tracks that have a tendency to drift off into mediocrity.

Id imagine the person that picked this album is a pretty big fan of Pink Floyd. I like this album but it does have the noticeable differences of it being a solo project. In an alternate world this was done by Pink Floyd and the wall was the solo project of Roger waters. I’m glad this was the solo project. It’s a more personal concept album and works as a solo album yet Waters could use some stronger help from Gilmour. Overall good but not as good Floyd. 7.0/10

This brings my run of fun/enjoyable albums crashing to an end. A concept album about hitchhiking in a dream. It's a load of old bollards. Rating: 1 Playlist track: 5:01AM (The Pros and Cons of Hitch Hiking) Date listened: 22/08/24

Excellent addition, I always enjoy the 80s Waters sound and the weird shit it does.

This guy is a musical genius

I really like the journey that this takes you on. I have definitely been a fan of Pink Floyd, and appreciated the heavy Roger Waters story influence that applied to the Wall, and even more so to The Final Cut. This still feels like an extension of that (i do think his output becomes less interesting with Radio KAOS and forward). But this is still visceral, emotional and engaging. The title track is the closest to something catchy and traditional, but the whole album does a great job in playing like a story. Excited to see this as a user submitted album.

Probably would've made a better final album with Pink Floyd than the "The Final Cut," which was more of a personal thing for Roger Waters anyway.

Very interesting concept. It's definitely one while story, a unity of songs.

great piece of music, emotional and enthralling at appropriate times

Listening to this filled me with a visceral sense of unease, almost fear. I have two analogies: I had a dream once where I walked into a stranger's living room and I somehow knew by their choice of couch that they meant me harm. I didn't know why the couch meant that --- it was familiar in the dream but not something from real life --- but I was sure of it and it was terrifying enough for my partner to wake me up from my audible distress. Or here's a hypothetical: choose someone close to you that you've known your whole life, a parent or a sibling, say. For the sake of illustration, I'm gonna say your dad but you choose your own person if "dad" doesn't work for you. You find out that your dad has a brother that you didn't know about. Then you meet that brother, expecting that he'll have some family resemblance, that he'll look and maybe act enough like your dad that it's obvious that they're related. BUT it turns out that THEY ARE IDENTICAL TWINS! So you're meeting someone that you do not know but they're in the body of someone you know and love. That's unsettling, right? That's how I felt listening to Roger Waters The Pros and Cons of Hitch Hiking. It's The Wall, something I know very well and love, in a different body. The same but unfamiliar. Unsettling. So, did I like it? Hard to assess. I love The Wall and don't feel like I need another one, a lesser one. But also, I love The Wall so does it make sense not to like something that sounds so much like it? I don't know. Ultimately, I like that I listened to it and that's what I'm here for. Not to like everything but to learn some stuff. If I could give Waters one note, though, it wouldn't be about the music. It would probably be to request that we give the lady on the cover some pants, a jacket, and some comfortable shoes.

I was left yearning a bit because it was almost like a favorite recipe but then not quite.

This sounded a lot like Pink Floyd to me. Makes sense, since this was his first attempt after leaving the band. I quite like Pink Floyd, so this was a warm bath.

I'm more than happy to add a real-time concept to the project, though the implications of the four-o-clock hour are unclear. Waters operates very much in the singular-theme prog mode, with welcome Americana.

Excellent music, his voice not so interesting.

This was a bit silly. I've never really been a huge PF fan and this has that same floaty, esoteric quality a lot of their stuff does. Spots of cool broken up by whimsical drivel. The concept did nothing for me, but that's ok. I can tell a lot of thought and effort went into it, and I didn't hate it. Just should've been condensed into a 30min album. 3/5.

I listened to The Wall a ton in a certain phase of life and the similarity of vibe with this sort of overshadowed it as a standalone object. This more pedestrian lyrical material doesn't suit that operatic sound so well as The Wall's tour through history, politics, conformity and madness (the fact that it's become one of my least favorite phases of Pink Floyd overall doesn't help). There are some strong moments but it didn't quite gel for me. I don't regret having listened to it though.

Honestly, still pretty enjoyable.

Ok boomer rock 3

There are no real cons to hitch hiking. Unless you can't bum a ride.

I enjoyed this album but I have a couple of gripes. Roger Waters reuses a lot of musical motifs from the Wall throughout especially a melodic line from the song ‘Mother’ which serves as a recurring melody. I know those albums were essentially written together, but it feels a bit like self plagiarism. Both albums also have similar themes involving a man who becomes isolated from people in his life though this album resolves more cleanly. I did like the idea that this album is occurring in real time during a 40 minute dream. Again, I did enjoy this album, but I prefer The Wall.

Whoa. This was a new one to me. Super cool and the backstory of this or The Wall...understand why this went to his side project. Neat regardless.

Progressive rock, blues rock. Ni fu ni fa.

Rating: 6/10 Best songs: 5:01AM

This perplexed me a little bit - I listened to the first quarter of it without any idea what this was. Coupled with the cover, I was initially a bit turned off at the theme. While I couldn’t catch all the lyrics, the start of this felt decidedly creepy in a way that 40 year old albums themed around a naked hitchhiker might be expected to. Once I was where I could pull up Wikipedia article and was able to get a handle on the concept of the album it started making more sense and gave some excuses to feel a little less creepy about it I guess (“it’s just a dream”). There are some great moments on this album and it had a very obvious Pink Floyd feel. By the end I did warm up to this substantially. I am glad Pink Floyd chose to do The Wall instead of this though.

The suggestion that I should listen to this starting at 4:30 and ending it with the last song starting at 5:11 is pretty novel. However, as I've said before, you can't/shouldn't have 15 seconds of dead air. Am I going to go bake a pie or something and wait for the music to start? Seems like there's a lot of yelling involved in a bluesy album. I'm not sure what happened to the first nine parts of the pros and cons of Hitch Hiking.

Excellent concept, with solid musicianship. I've crossed paths with this album here and there over the years, but never bothered to engage with it until today, which was my mistake because it's quite well done. The album was probably a little too smart for the time it came out, and it obviously feels very much like a lesser Pink Floyd album. I can't fault it for too much except that it drags needlessly on the back half. Also, for all of Roger Waters' attempts at expressing emotion, the album lacks much in the way of real emotional depth to make me want to return to it. Fave Songs: 4:41AM (Sexual Revolution), 4:39AM (For the First Time Today, Part 2), 5:06AM (Every Stranger's Eyes)

Long and dreary without much excitement along the way – some flashes of interesting melodies and guitar work, but mostly flat and non-dynamic for most of its runtime.

LP cover made an impression on me as a 13 year old in 1988! However I preferred ‘70s Pink Floyd and Dave Gilmour’s sound so never warmed to Roger Waters’ material after The Wall. Good blues rock guitar playing throughout (Eric Clapton).

I found Roger's screaming very irritating.

Pretentious garbage

Lyrically terrible and horrible vocals. I love Pink Floyd but this is terrible