The Wall
| The Wall | ||
|---|---|---|
| ||
| LP by Pink Floyd | ||
| Released | November 30 1979 (UK) December 8 1979 (US) | |
| Recorded | 1979 | |
| Genre | Rock | |
| Length | 39 min 19 s (1) 42 min 01 s (2) | |
| Record label | Columbia Records | |
| Producers | Bob Ezrin, David Gilmour and Roger Waters | |
| Professional reviews | ||
| RollingStone review | Favorable | link |
| Pink Floyd Chronology | ||
| Animals (1977) | The Wall (1979) | A Collection of Great Dance Songs (1981) |
The Wall is a rock opera/concept album produced by Pink Floyd. Hailed by critics and fans as one of Pink Floyd's best albums (along with Dark Side of the Moon and Wish You Were Here), the album is known as a rock and roll classic, and its morbid, depressing anthems have inspired many contemporary rock musicians. Roger Waters was inspired to create the album during a concert tour for Animals. In Montreal, a fan's disruptive behaviour resulted in Waters spitting in the fan's face. Immediately disgusted with himself, Waters came up with the idea of building a wall between him and the audience which would later develop into the album.
Though The Wall is seen as the last true collaboration of Pink Floyd's major songwriters, Roger Waters and David Gilmour, the album's concept and most of the songs are primarily by Waters. The album's storyline portrays the fictional life of an anti-hero ("Pink") who is hammered and beaten down by society from the earliest days of his life: smothered by his mother, oppressed at school, he withdraws into a hate-filled fantasy world of his own. During a drug-induced hallucination, Pink becomes a fascist dictator only to have his conscience rebel at this and put himself on trial, his inner judge ordering him to tear down his wall and open himself to the outside world, leaving pieces of his wall left to for others the build new ones, letting the album loop over and flow into itself. Waters gives the listener a chance to break the cycle.
Around the world, the album produced a number of hit singles for Pink Floyd, including "The Happiest Days of Our Lives", "Another Brick In The Wall (Part 2)", "Mother", "Empty Spaces", "Young Lust" and "Comfortably Numb". These songs are a staple of many classic rock radio stations, receiving daily airplay over twenty-five years after the album's release (and overshadowing later efforts by Waters and the Gilmour-led Pink Floyd).
Pink Floyd only performed a concert version of The Wall a handful of times. It was performed in New York, Los Angeles, London, and Dortmund (Germany).
The performances were similar to the later movie, and often included clips from it, especially from the animations.
The large stage shows required huge equipment (Including full sized cranes), and cost an extraordinary amount of money to realize. As such, the band lost money from them, with exception to Wright, who earned money on his fixed salary for the concerts.
A movie version of The Wall was filmed in 1982 by MGM, under the title of Pink Floyd: The Wall. The film, directed by Alan Parker and starring Bob Geldof, with cameos by Bob Hoskins and Joanne Whalley, was a heavily symbolic, feature-length music video that added new elements to the storyline of The Wall. It drew on (auto) biographical material from Floyd members Roger Waters and Syd Barrett, combining Waters' early childhood (Waters' lamentation over the loss of his father in World War II was well known to Pink Floyd's fans) with Barrett's withdrawal and mental breakdown. This storyline was intercut with animated sequences by Gerald Scarfe.
After Waters left the band, a legal battle ensued over the rights to the name "Pink Floyd" and its material. Waters retained the right to use The Wall and its material, and his name has been most closely associated with the album. Waters staged a gigantic concert performance of The Wall in Berlin on 21 July 1990, with guest artists including Van Morrison, Sinead O'Connor, Cyndi Lauper, The Scorpions, Jerry Hall, and Bryan Adams, to commemorate the fall of the Berlin Wall.
Concept
Hit singles
Live dates
The movie
Post split
Track Listing (album version)
Disc one
Disc two
Additional tracks from the film
Album tracks not included in the film
External links