Album Review: Pink Floyd’s THE WALL
Just when you thought there was no way an album would ever top Dark Side of the Moon, Pink Floyd delivers another tour-de force: their eleventh studio album, released on Columbia records, The Wall. Like Dark Side Of The Moon, it was largely conceived and written by lyricist and bassist, Roger Waters, but this is anything but a copycat album. The Wall is an ambitious rock opera, similar to the Who’s Tommy, which tells the story of Pink, a rock and roll musician who is at the end of his rope. Tired, lonely, and strung out on drugs and despair, he begins to build an emotional wall that will isolate him from the rest of the world. In the process, Pink revisits his painful past through memories and pieces together the events that brought him to build the wall. Madness eventually overtakes him and Pink becomes a prisoner on trial in his own head, subjected to painful visits from a cast of volatile characters who aim to tear down his wall.
The story is told completely through the masterful musicianship of Pink Floyd, and is a feat to behold. The band moved away from the more spacey, atmospheric moods they had on Dark Side of the Moon and Wish You Were Here, and instead follow a heavier, bass driven sound that is full Pink’s deepest emotions, and is often quite theatrical without all the cheese. Water’s gives some of the best vocal performances of his career, his voice taking on numerous roles to keep up with the wide range of songs, from in your face rockers, to slower, more sorrowful acoustic numbers that are bound to bring out even the most carefully hidden feelings. Gilmore (Guitar) also delivers the performance of a lifetime throughout the album, with the hi-light being his final solo on Comfortably Numb. Full of emotion and signature Gilmore style, the song presents a guitarist at the height of his career, and is a number that is sure to bring fans screaming to their feet when played live.
Not only is the musicianship something to drool over in the album, but the production as well. Mixed with the same precision and attention to detail as Dark Side Of The Moon, the band effortlessly weaves sound effects and the spoken word into music creating an amazing layered sound that could only be found on a Pink Floyd album. Each track fits seamlessly together, like pieces to a puzzle, and flows without ever seeming like one long, dragged out song. A nice little touch to the album that most other bands would never even think to add, is that they mixed and wrote it in such a way that it is meant to be played in a continuous loop, with a spoken word bit at the very end of the album being suddenly cut off, but if you listen carefully to the beginning of the very first track, you’ll find that the same conversation continues right where it left off. This fits in perfectly with the concept, as it is all about emotional walls that people continuously build and tear down, in a vicious cycle. This truly shows the bands attention to detail, that is present in every single track, in every note, vocal, and riff.
All in all, Pink Floyd’s The Wall is an album of epic proportions, in every sense imaginable. A genius concept/rock opera album that will surely follow in Dark Side of the Moon’s footsteps to become an instant classic, it’s one of the few albums that dares you to listen, and you will, finding it impossible to turn away from one of the greatest albums you will ever hear. RANKED: 5/5
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