The Wall

The Wall (1979) is a rock-and-roll 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 Toronto, a fan's disruptive beahviour 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.

Table of contents

1 Concept 2 Hit singles 3 Live dates 4 The movie 5 Post split 6 Track Listing (album version) 6.1 Disc 1 6.2 Disc 2 6.3 Additional Movie Only Tracks 6.4 Album Only Tracks 7 External Links

Concept

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 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. The ending of the album is ambiguous: during the operatic "The Trial," the hero either goes insane (the lyrics state "Tear down the wall!"), or he is freed.

Hit singles

Around the world, the album produced a number of hit singles for Pink Floyd, including Another Brick In The Wall (Part 2), Mother, 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).

Live dates

Pink Floyd only performed a concert version of The Wall a handful of times. It was performed in the cities New York, Los Angeles, London, and Dortmund (Germany).

The performances were similar to the movie, and often included clips from it, especially from the animations.

The large stage shows required huge equipment (Including full sized cranes), and costed extrodinary amount of money to perform. As such, the band lost money from them.

The movie

A movie version of The Wall was filmed in 1982, 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 Water's 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.

Post split

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.

Track Listing (album version)

External Links

• Pink Floyd lyrics for The Wall