Roger Waters

Roger Waters is Pink Floyd's grand conceptualist, the driving force behind albums such as Dark Side of the Moon, Wish You Were Here, and The Wall. In the wake of Syd Barrett's departure, Waters emerged as a formidable songwriter, but it's this stretch of '70s albums -- each one nearly symphonic in its reach -- that established him as a distinctive, idiosyncratic voice within rock, one with a sober morality and sardonic sense of humor. Waters left Pink Floyd after 1983's The Final Cut, after which he recorded a triptych of concept albums -- The Pros and Cons of Hitchhiking, Radio K.A.O.S., and Amused to Death -- addressing personal and political struggles in the modern world. After 1992, Waters didn't devote himself to writing new rock music, preferring to stage live revivals of Dark Side Of The Moon and The Wall as he composed classical pieces and worked as an activist.