Waters domination

I've thinking about something these days... Roger Waters' domination became evident during the whole activity of Floyd. It has surely brought many hits and success, but showed his obssesion for leading and commanding the band. Do you think it's good to have a person in your band that's a great songwriter but dominates the group just too much? I want your opinions...

I think it was wrong for Roger to try to take over all of the songwriting. Sure he was a great songwriter like you said but so were Dave and Rick! During the days of Meddle, Dark Side, and WYWH when the band was working together they produced their best stuff.

you took the words right out of my mouth. but then again dave and rick still helped to make the music good by writing their parts themselves.

It depends on the band. In case of bands like Jethro Tull (with one person deff. dominating) it works very well. In case of Floyd it doesn't.
Usually in most bands two persons dominate - the vocalist and lead guitarist (as in Led Zeppelin).
The band needs a leader...prolly not as dominant/dictatic as Roger though.
Dave would be a great band leader I think. Not PF but his own band. He was great PF leader too.
Love on Dave.

David is, without doubt, a very good guitarist and passably good singer, but when it comes to lyric writing, he's just not up to scratch as compared to Roger.

It probably works, as has been said already, in some bands where the leader is the dominant force and doesn't in others where there are two or more leading the band as a group.

The Byrds were always led by Roger McGuinn, but when other members (Gene Clark, David Crosby and Gram Parsons) wanted to direct things, Roger would just take a backseat until the man (usurper) in question burnt themselves out, which they inevitably did.

Perhaps the other PF band members felt they either couldn't or didn't want to take the lead and in the power vacuum, Roger assumed himself as the leader. After all, he DID write most of the lyrics.

Who knows?

Didn't Waters 'sack' Wright because he wasn't contributing anymore? Doesn't that imply that it was partially the fault of the others (particularly Wright and Mason) that Waters began to dominate?

Anyway, that aside, I think it is inevitable that someone will begin to dominate in a situation like Pink Floyd. I know that if I had a creative vision (like The Wall, or Animals) then I wouldn't want it being screwed up by other people putting in their ten cents worth.

Driven,
if you don't want other member of the bands to contribute, it'd be honest to begin a solo career...which Roger did eventually. But too late prolly.

No one seemed to mind Roger's domination of the group until it went too far. Wright admits he had nothing to contribute after WYWH and Roger made up for the others' lack of input (certainly not Dave's). Without a doubt the best combo for them was Gilmour, Waters and sometimes Wright writing material but something needs to be done when others aren't contributing and Gilmour and Waters were excellent without Wright (ie: animals). It was probably Roger's personality that made it difficult in the end but difficult personalities don't make for bad albums.

oopsie, double posted that one

Excellent without Wright ???
No way. Just no way !
I don't think so. Rick was great contribution to the sound. How can DSOTM be without Wright ???!!!
And Animals is one of my least fave PF albums, prolly because I missed Rick's contribution in there...

Apparently its a matter of preference because Animals is my favorite and that is not meant to slight Rick. I think his work is excellent but on several of the best albums albums Rick doesn't contribute. Again its a matter of preference.

...and I'm only talking about "song writing". Musicianship is a whole different story.

Hey, don't forget that Rick created that masterpiece known as "The Great Gig In The Sky"...

I think Floyd's best material was when Dave and/or Rich wrote the music and Roger wrote the words. Although, I think Dave writes the best music. Roger is no doubt very gifted when it comes it the lyrics but his music writing is weak. Vise Versa with Dave and Rich.

And Rick created the music for Us and Them, SOYCDpt9, Celestial Voices within Saucerful of Secrets and cotributed in writing the rest of SOYCD, Time, Echoes, AHM suite.... most of the greatest PF classics are actually the results of collaboration.

It depends on what you prefere in Floyd music. If your favourite aspect is that particular 'space-rock' and unearthly feeling, Rick was the mind behind that, even more than Dave.
Very little of this remains in Animals and The Wall, and absolutley nothing in The Final Cut. When Roger says the others should change the name of the band, maybe he forget the reactions of many old fans and critics, the ones who defined records like Saucerful and Ummagumma "masterpieces of contemporary music" (just a little bit exaggerated maybe, but this kind of works was very apreciated during the progressive-rock period) when they listened to Roger's PF/solo albums the first time: "What's this? Not Pink Floyd, but pop music good for a large audience of 12-years old kids" (about The Wall). [Well, let me say that I don't agree with this point of view because I really like The Wall]. And the same persons defined Animals and TFC using the words "boring" "flat" "unimaginative".
But, of course, if he hadn't wrote the music for those albums, maybe PF would have finished their career in 1975. And the others got a lot of money from his work's commercial results, expecially from The Wall.