When I listen to The Wall I understand why it has never been one of my favorite albums with Pink Floyd. It's a two-minded, almost schizophrenic, experience to take part of this creation. You've got these beautiful harmonies, but with an obsessive insistence a minor chord always finds its way into the song and darkens it. Take a song like Mother, The Thin Ice, or really any song on the album - a beautiful melody but with a text that is sad, depressive and often aggressive. The hit Another Brick in the Wall has a really catchy chorus, where the bass and the guitar create a really nice groove. But then there are those children's voices that sing about the school's oppression ...
So it continues the whole album through. Now, there are many fine records with lyrics that have sad themes, but what colors The Wall is Roger Waters often aggressive, accusatory and desperate voice. It's not subtle, sad songs, it's pitch-dark anguish.
It strikes me how different The Wall is compared to everything Pink Floyd had previously created, yet it sounds very much Pink Floyd. Contradictory, yes, but true. We are far from Dark Side Of The Moon or Wish You Were Here, I guess the closest in sound is Animals. But The Wall is more desperate, harder, darker, more bombastic and lack songs that are over 5 minutes long. If Animals is a bitter reflection on our society, The Wall is Waters' self-therapy.
However, one can hear traces of Pink Floyd's earlier works. Take the druggy introduction to Empty Spaces, which could have been on a record like Wish You Were Here or why not More. Or the song Is There Anybody Out There? which I never liked, but that is far beyond what we usually describe as music. And when I hear the extremely bombastic Bring The Boys Back Home I come to think of Atom Heart Mother, with its choirs and orchestral arrangements.
The album was released in 1979, the film had its premiere in 1982 where the music to some extent is different (different mixes, Bob Geldof sings on some songs, etc.). The story in brief is a rock star's growing isolation from the outside world and his mental collapse. My new hometown Montreal has a part in The Wall. It was at a concert in this city that Roger Waters spat a person in the audience in the face, an event that was almost traumatic for Waters and got him thinking on his and the band's increasing isolation from their fans.
Many argue that The Wall is a solo album by Roger Waters, which there is some truth in. Gilmour is co-author of only three songs, and keyboardist Richard Wright quit the group during the recording (but was hired as a musician during the tour).
The Wall is described as a rock opera. I choose to call it a musical, and just like that it belongs to the same genre as Sound Of Music and Jesus Christ Superstar. As a musical (or rock opera), it has a lot of theatrical elements that lower the experience for me. I don't know if it's music I listen to, or a play I experience. I find it hard to distinguish between the film and the album. Is the album a soundtrack to the film, or was the film created on the basis of the album? I'm really two-minded about this album.
Tracklist
Side A
1. In The Flesh?
2. The Thin Ice
3. Another Brick in the Wall Part 1
4. The Happiest Days Of Our Lives
5. Another Brick in the Wall Part 2
6. Mother
Side B
1. Goodbye Blue Sky
2. Empty Space
3. Young Lust
4. One Of My Turns
5. Don't Leave Me Now
6. Another Brick in the Wall Part 3
7. Goodbye World Cruel World
Side C
1. Hey You
2. Is There Anybody Out There?
3. Nobody Home
4. Vera
5. Bring The Boys Back Home
6. Comfortably Numb
Side D
1. The Show Must Go On
2. In The Flesh
3. Run Like Hell
4. Waiting For The Worms
5. Stop
6. The Trial
7. Outside The Wall
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