Pros and Cons of Hitch Hiking

Today I rediscovered one of my all-time favourite albums — Roger Waters’ The Pros and Cons of Hitch Hiking.

Although known mostly for his work with British Rock band Pink Floyd, some of Roger’s best work — in my opinion — was in his solo albums. Though to be fair his Pink Floyd work is incredible.

The concept, as envisioned by Waters in 1977, rotated around a man’s scattered thoughts during a road trip through somewhere in Central Europe, focusing on his midlife crisis, and how he dreams of committing adultery with a hitchhiker he picks up along the way.

Along the way he also faces other fears and paranoia, with all of these things taking place in real time in the early morning hours of 4:30am to 5:12am on an unspecified day.

The Pros and Cons of Hitch Hiking — This concept album was offered to the rest of Pink Floyd along with the early concept for The Wall. The band went on to do The Wall and Roger completed Pros and Cons in 1983 as a solo piece.

From Wikipedia.

It features great guitar work from none other than Eric Clapton as well as featuring Jack Palance, who takes on the role of the Hell’s Angel in the story.

To be honest you could do yourself a favour and listen to anything that Roger Waters has created.

Cherlene’s New Album

Any fans of the TV series Archer will know that — while the rest of the ex-ISIS agents are figuring out what to do with a literal tonne of cocaine — Cheryl/Carol has renamed herself to Cherlene and is on her way to becoming the star of outlaw country music.

Archer is one of my favourite shows on TV at the moment. As well as this I have been getting into listening to more country music thanks to this post by Andrew Clarke. So imagine my surprise when I found out that a full album of both original and cover songs sung by Cherlene herself had been recently released for digital purchase. Woooohoooo!

But this isn’t just a novelty TV series album filled with parody songs. This is actually a genuinely good country album. The songs are actually sang by country artist Jessy Lynn Martens, who is also classically trained on violin, mandolin and guitar.

The album also features a duet with none other than Kenny Loggins on a country version of Danger Zone — yes, it’s that good.

Cherlene Track Listing

  1. Danger Zone feat. Kenny Loggins
  2. Swing Shift
  3. Midnight Blues
  4. 40 Miles of Mountain Road
  5. Baby Please Don’t Go
  6. Cherlene’s Broken Hearts and Auto Parts
  7. I’ll Burn It Down
  8. It’s All About Me
  9. Eastbound and Down
  10. Chattahoochee Coochie Man
  11. Gypsy Woman
  12. Straight To Hell

If you only listen to one song from this album, listen to Danger Zone. But I promise if you do, you’ll probably end up listening to the whole album.