FEATURE:
Vinyl Corner
Pink Floyd – The Wall
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THERE are some bands who divide critics and fans…
when it comes to their crowning achievement. Maybe conventional wisdom suggests The Beatles’ best album is Revolver and The Rolling Stones’ is Exile on Main St. but, like them, Pink Floyd are not shy of classic albums. Maybe The Wall is not like The Beatles’ eponymous album in terms of its themes, but both are double albums and they are hugely ambitious works. Earlier Pink Floyd works like The Dark Side of the Moon and Wish You Were Here are seen as superior and more cohesive than The Wall. Granted, The Wall is a more challenging listen and it does have one or two less-than-staggering cuts – maybe the same cannot be said of Pink Floyd’s best efforts. As The Wall turns forty on 30th November, I thought it was due inclusion in Vinyl Corner. Whereas other albums celebrating big anniversaries this year – such as The Clash’s London Calling (forty) and The Rolling Stones’ Let It Bleed (fifty) – are getting vinyl packages and star treatment, I haven’t heard anything about The Wall’s fortieth. It would be a shame if the album passed by without much fuss and celebration. I know the diehard Pink Floyd fans will gravitate towards other albums, but The Wall is an important work that is this fantastic Rock opera – do they even have albums like this anymore?! Rather than string together disconnected songs or explore a few different themes, The Wall has this arc and story – I shall explore that more in a bit.
I would encourage people to buy The Wall on vinyl as it is pretty reasonable in price and is a fantastic listen! If The Wall, to some, is a minor accomplishment, one cannot argue with its success and sales. It topped the U.S. charts for fifteen weeks and hit the top-three here. Some critics at the time viewed The Wall as this pretentious and odd album that was hard to love and overblown but, in years that followed, the evaluation perspective has shifted. Few bands (apart from The Who) have released Rock opera albums, so one can understand critics who were a bit miffed and taken aback. The Wall is a very different album to Wish You Were Here, which was released only four years before The Wall. During Pink Floyd’s In the Flesh tour, bass player Roger Waters conceived the idea for The Wall. Produced by Bob Ezrin, tensions were quite high in the Pink Floyd camp for various reasons. There were financial and personal issues, so that often bled into the studio. It is an unenviable task for a producer to not only alleviate stress but help craft a solid and successful album. Long-time keyboardist Richard Wright was fired during recording and that was a huge moment for the band. The Wall arrived at a time when Pink Floyd were starting to dislike stadium touring. The fact so many people, rows back, could not hear anything and there was often trouble.
Waters, the most dissatisfied member of the band at the time, spoke with producer Bob Ezrin and his psychiatrist friends about the trouble he and the band were experiencing. The suggestion was to build this invisible wall between the stage and the audience; try and remain detached from what is happening. Whilst other members of the band were away doing other things – David Gilmour was recording a solo album -, Waters started work on the album. An incident at a concert where Waters and the band were spat at provoked the concepts that appear on The Wall. In this article, Classic Album Sundays explain The Wall’s genesis:
“While Dave Gilmour and Richard Wright went off to France to record solo albums and Nick Mason sat in the producer’s seat for Steve Hillage, Waters began writing storylines and ideas for two different albums, one of which featured a character named Pink who was somewhat based upon his own life. Like Waters, Pink is left with feelings of abandonment caused by the death of his father in World War II. He is traumatised by his dealings with authority figures such as an over-protective mother and abusive schoolteachers and in the ultimate act of defiance, becomes a rock star. The dark side of public celebrity and success rears its ugly head and Pink succumbs to drug use and infidelity and even has hallucinations of being a violent fascist.
Perhaps the remaining Floyd members were unsurprised by Waters’ dictatorial fantasies. During the recording of ‘The Wall’ inter-band relations reached new lows and producer Bob Ezrin was brought in to help smooth the collaboration. Waters was also believed Wright wasn’t pulling his weight and eventually kicked the keyboardist out of the band when Wright refused to cut short a family holiday to return to the studio in order to finish the album for a Christmas release. However, Wright had the last laugh as he did perform on The Wall tour as a salaried musician and made more money than the proper band members who had to subsidise the hefty production costs”.
It is unfortunate that an album as epic and important as The Wall is only fully appreciated years after its release. There is no doubt that the 1970s was the most productive and inspired period for Pink Floyd; the quality dipped as they headed into the 1980s. If some fans prefer the slimmer and more focused sides of Pink Floyd, there are plenty who love the sweep and scope of The Wall. There were some positive reviews back in 1979, though a lot of the praise has come more recently; critics judging the album much further down the line. With tracks such as Another Brick in the Wall, Part 2 and Comfortably Numb in the running order, The Wall still sounds incredible to this day. This is AllMusic’s take on one of the 1970s’ best albums:
“The Wall was Roger Waters' crowning accomplishment in Pink Floyd. It documented the rise and fall of a rock star (named Pink Floyd), based on Waters' own experiences and the tendencies he'd observed in people around him. By then, the bassist had firm control of the group's direction, working mostly alongside David Gilmour and bringing in producer Bob Ezrin as an outside collaborator. Drummer Nick Mason was barely involved, while keyboardist Rick Wright seemed to be completely out of the picture.
Still, The Wall was a mighty, sprawling affair, featuring 26 songs with vocals: nearly as many as all previous Floyd albums combined. The story revolves around the fictional Pink Floyd's isolation behind a psychological wall. The wall grows as various parts of his life spin out of control, and he grows incapable of dealing with his neuroses. The album opens by welcoming the unwitting listener to Floyd's show ("In the Flesh?"), then turns back to childhood memories of his father's death in World War II ("Another Brick in the Wall, Pt. 1"), his mother's over protectiveness ("Mother"), and his fascination with and fear of sex ("Young Lust"). By the time "Goodbye Cruel World" closes the first disc, the wall is built and Pink is trapped in the midst of a mental breakdown. On disc two, the gentle acoustic phrasings of "Is There Anybody Out There?" and the lilting orchestrations of "Nobody Home" reinforce Floyd's feeling of isolation. When his record company uses drugs to coax him to perform ("Comfortably Numb"), his onstage persona is transformed into a homophobic, race-baiting fascist ("In the Flesh"). In "The Trial," he mentally prosecutes himself, and the wall comes tumbling down. This ambitious concept album was an across-the-board smash, topping the Billboard album chart for 15 weeks in 1980. The single "Another Brick in the Wall, Pt. 2" was the country's best-seller for four weeks. The Wall spawned an elaborate stage show (so elaborate, in fact, that the band was able to bring it to only a few cities) and a full-length film. It also marked the last time Waters and Gilmour would work together as equal partners”.
One would only except something theatrical or filmic to follow an album like The Wall! I get the sense that bands like Pink Floyd imagine how The Wall will look on screen or the stage. The film adaptation was released in 1982, written by Waters with direction by Alan Parker and, oddly, Bob Geldof assuming the role of the album’s hero, Pink. With little in the way of conventional dialogue and this mixture of animation and live action, Pink Floyd – The Wall is not the most accessible film, though it did pick up a lot of positive press. The Wall is an album where you need several sittings just to taker it all in. Certain songs have so much detail and weight, that you find yourself pouring over them in a way you wouldn’t with a more Pop-based song. Although there hasn’t been any revision or fresh adaptation of the album for a while, I think it is a work that is constantly appealing – I would not be shocked to see a new musical or film in years to come. There is always talk of Pink Floyd reunion and, as Glastonbury is announcing its headliners, many people are (wishfully) hoping Pink Floyd take to the stage, partly so they can see some of The Wall’s monster songs brought to life. Even though this generation are unlikely to feel the grandeur and grip of The Wall on the stage from the band who created it, the original album is a treasure that, at forty, still sound out of this world.
I want to bring in one more review before I wrap things up here. Sputnik Music had their say when they assessed The Wall in 2005:
“Now, bear in mind that whole books could be written about this album. It's no exaggeration to say that The Trial alone could have long chapters written on it. According to Roger Waters, the trial takes place inside Pink's mind, with the witnesses called against him including a teacher, Pink's mother, and his ex-wife. Musically, the song's phenomenal. Teetering on the brink of insanity throughout, with orchestral effects being in place throughout, the arrival of the judge, thundering in with his judgment, of the wall being torn down, seems to lead the song into even further insanity, with the band losing structure, while a crowd chants "tear down the wall", before we hear exactly that: a wall falling down in the background. Bear in mind that I don't think there's any way of describing this song in print, but honestly, this is one of the outright strangest songs I've ever heard. Finally, Outside The Wall leaves the concept of the album, although Waters has never really explained the song, but it offers a message of hope, saying that those who really love you will do whatever it takes to blast their way through people's individual walls, as happened with Roger Waters. In other words, although people will build walls around themselves, they can all be knocked down, making the final message of the album one of hope: that although life is cyclical, it's not all dreadful.
If you've read this far, apologies for making this so long. I'm well aware that I've focused a lot on the concept of the album, perhaps at the cost of not mentioning the music as much, but I think the concept behind these songs is as important as the music itself, since the concept is so detailed. If you need any reassuring about the music, it's generally brilliant, although there are moments, particularly in the second half of disc 1, where the fragmented nature of some songs starts to grate, and the music gets repetitive. This was the last great album by Pink Floyd, and any fan of the band should own a copy , as it displays the band's most remarkable album, and one that contains all the hallmarks that made them great; ethereal, haunting at times, uplifting at others music, lyrical genius, and instrumental work, particularly from Dave Gilmour, that makes the ideas reality. The band's best album? Probably not. However, there's a definite case for saying that it may be the one that people are most interested in, and with very good reason. Although some people will disagree, this gets 5/5 from me”.
I am going to get a copy of The Wall on vinyl because, to me, an album truly reveals itself on that format. Maybe it does not hold the same acclaim and reputation as The Dark Side of the Moon, but The Wall is a classic and an album that was overlooked by some back in 1979. I have not published a feature about The Clash’s London Calling, which also arrived in 1979. There was a lot of genius music being released mere days before the 1980s began. The wonder and legacy of The Wall proves that the 1970s was…
ONE truly awesome decade for music.