The Wall

The Wall
Studio album by Pink Floyd
Released	30 November 1979 (UK) December 8, 1979 (US)
Recorded	April–November 1979. CBS Studios, New York City, New York, United States; Producers Workshop, Los Angeles, California, United States; and Super Bear and Miraval, France
Genre	Progressive rock
Length	81:09
Language	English
Label	Harvest Records/EMI Records (UK) Columbia Records (US) Capitol Records (US reissue)
Producer	Bob Ezrin, David Gilmour, James Guthrie and Roger Waters
Professional reviews
Allmusic link Blender link Robert Christgau (B−) link Rolling Stone (favourable) link
Pink Floyd chronology
Animals (1977) The Wall (1979) The Final Cut (1983)
Singles from The Wall
"Another Brick in the Wall, Part II" Released: November 1979 "Comfortably Numb" Released: 1979 "Run Like Hell" Released: 1980
Alternate cover
Cover with title sticker; text also printed on cover on some re-issues

The Wall is a rock opera presented as a double album by Pink Floyd, released by Harvest Records on 30 November 1979, in the United Kingdom and by Columbia Records on 8 December 1979, in the United States It was subsequently performed live, with elaborate theatrical effects, and made into a film.

Like their previous albums, The Wall is a concept album which deals largely with the theme of personal isolation. The concept was inspired by the band's 1977 tour promoting the album Animals, with regards to an incident where Roger Waters' frustration with the audience reached a point where Waters spat in the face of a fan who was attempting to climb on stage at the Olympic Stadium on 6 July, 1977; this, in turn, led him to lament that such a wall exists. The Wall featured a notably harsher and more theatrical sound than their previous releases.

The Wall is a rock opera that centres on the character "Pink". Largely based on Waters' personal life, Pink struggles in life from an early age, having lost his father in in World War II ("Another Brick in the Wall (Part 1)"), abused by teachers ("The Happiest Days of Our Lives"), smothered by an overprotective mother ("Mother"), and deserted by his wife later on ("Don't Leave Me Now") — all of which factored into Pink's isolation from society ("Comfortably Numb"), figuratively referred to as "The Wall".

In 2003, Rolling Stone listed The Wall as #87 in Rolling Stone's 500 Greatest Albums of All Time.

Recording history

In 1977, Pink Floyd were promoting Animals with their In The Flesh tour. There are two different accounts of what happened at the show in Montreal, Canada that inspired Waters to write "The Wall". The first is from The Wall Live booklet where Waters states that a fan was trying to climb the netting between the audience and the band. The second is from Nick Mason's book Inside Out: A Personal History of Pink Floyd. He states that a fan was yelling at Waters for them to play "Careful with that Axe, Eugene".

Waters recruited Bob Ezrin to co-produce the album with David Gilmour, himself, and James Guthrie (the latter credited as co-producer and engineer); therefore it became the first Pink Floyd album since The Piper at the Gates of Dawn not to credit the whole group as producers.

The album was recorded at four studios during eight months, owing to English tax laws and to benefit from the cheaper recording costs in the South of France. Tensions between Waters and the band were increasing significantly, largely due to his dominance over the rest of the band. During the recording, Waters dismissed Richard Wright, and told him to leave immediately after The Wall was finished. Waters claimed that Gilmour and Mason had supported his decision to dismiss Wright, but during 2000, Gilmour stated that he and Mason were against Wright's dismissal.^{[citation needed]} In his Inside Out, Mason claims that Wright was dismissed because Columbia Records had offered Waters a substantial bonus to finish the album in time for a 1979 release. Since Wright refused to return early from his summer holiday, Waters wanted to dismiss Wright.^[1] However, he returned for their live performances as a paid musician.

For "Another Brick in the Wall (Part II)", Pink Floyd needed to record a school choir, so they approached music teacher Alun Renshaw of Islington Green School, around the corner from their Britannia Row Studios. The chorus was overdubbed 12 times to give the impression that the choir was larger. The choir were not allowed to hear the rest of the song after singing the chorus. Though the school received a one-time payment of £1000, there was not any contractual arrangement for royalties. By 1996 UK copyright law, they became eligible, and after choir members were found by a royalties agent through the website Friends Reunited, they claimed the money.^[2] Music industry professionals estimated that each student would be owed around £500.^[3]

Released originally by Columbia Records in the U.S. and Harvest Records in the UK, The Wall was then re-released as a digitally remastered CD in 1994 in the UK on EMI. In 1997, Columbia Records issued an updated remastering in the United States, Canada, Australia, South America and Japan. For The Wall's 20th Anniversary in April 2000, Capitol Records in the U.S. and EMI in Canada, Australia, South America and Japan re-released the 1997 remaster with the artwork from the EMI Europe remaster. The Wall was the first Pink Floyd album since 1967's The Piper at the Gates of Dawn whose cover was not done by Storm Thorgerson and Hipgnosis. Instead, Gerald Scarfe designed the cover and gatefold sleeve. Gilmour recalls Thorgerson's dispute with Waters over issues such as the credit for the Animals sleeve design.^[4]

Concept and storyline

	"Isn't this where...we came in?" The last second of Outside the Wall and the first second of In the Flesh?
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The album's overriding themes are the causes and implications of self-imposed isolation, symbolised by the metaphorical wall of the title. The album's songs create a very approximate storyline of events in the life of the protagonist, Pink. Pink loses his father as a child (Waters' own father was killed in Anzio during World War II), is oppressed by his overprotective mother, and is tormented at school by tyrannical, abusive teachers, each of these traumas becoming "another brick in the wall". As an adult Pink becomes a rock music star, his relationships marred by infidelity, drugs and outbursts of violence. As his marriage crumbles, Pink finishes building the wall and completes his isolation from human contact.

Pink's mindset deteriorates behind his freshly completed "wall", with his personal crisis culminating during an onstage performance. Hallucinating, Pink believes that he is a fascist dictator, and his concerts are like Neo-Nazi rallies where he sets his men on fans he considers unworthy, only to be tormented with guilt and put himself on trial, his inner judge ordering him to "tear down the wall" in order to open himself to the outside world, and apologising to those who are hurt most by his self-isolation. At this point the album's end runs into its beginning with the closing words "Isn't this where..."; the first song on the album, "In the Flesh?", begins with the words "...we came in?" – with a continuation of the melody of the last song, "Outside the Wall" – hinting at the cyclical nature of Waters' theme.

The LP's sleeve art and custom picture labels by Gerald Scarfe tied in with the album's concept. Side one had a quarter of the wall erected and a sketch of the teacher. Side two had half of the wall erected and a sketch of the wife. Side three had three-quarters of the wall erected and a sketch of the Pink character, while side four had the wall completely erected and a sketch of the prosecutor. Bob Ezrin played a major part in taking Waters' demonstration material and clarifying the storyline by writing a script, which even required additional songs to complete the plot.^[4]

Film version

A film version of The Wall was released in 1982 entitled Pink Floyd The Wall, directed by Alan Parker and starring Bob Geldof. Waters wrote the screenplay. The film features music from the original album, much of which was re-recorded by the band with additional orchestration, some with minor lyrical and musical changes.

The film was originally intended to be intercut with concert footage and some of the live shows were actually filmed, but were not used in the final cut. Footage from these concerts has appeared on different websites from time to time. However, the only official release of this footage was that used in the documentary Behind the Wall.

Reception

Immensely successful upon release, The Wall quickly jumped to #1 on the Billboard 200 in the US in its fourth week (it debuted at #53) and #3 in the UK. In the U.S. it has achieved 23 times platinum (for sales of 11.5 million double-disc sets^[5][6]; The Wall is the best-selling multiple-disc album of all-time in the US and their second best-selling album in the US after The Dark Side of the Moon. It was among the most popular albums of the early 1980s, to the extent that film director Alan Parker created a film based on it. The album had a string of hit singles, with "Another Brick in the Wall Part 2" being their only song to hit #1 on Billboard.

In addition to its commercial success, critical reception of The Wall was, and remains, mostly positive. Carlo Twist of Blender gave it five stars out of a possible five, stating that, "For all its pomp and lofty ambition, there's a streak of almost punk-rock venom within, not to mention some of the band's best humping, thumping heavy rock."^[7] Stephen Thomas Erlewine of AllMusic Guide was slightly more critical, but nevertheless said that, "its seamless surface, blending melodic fragments and sound effects, makes the musical shortcomings and questionable lyrics easy to ignore."^[8] Kurt Loder of Rolling Stone remarked, "The Wall is the most startling rhetorical achievement in the group's singular, thirteen-year career."^[9] That same magazine later ranked The Wall at #87 on its list of The 500 Greatest Albums of All Time.^[10] The Wall was also included in the book 1001 Albums You Must Hear Before You Die.

Post-split

After Waters left Pink Floyd in 1985, a legal struggle ensued over the rights to the name "Pink Floyd" and its material. In the end, Waters retained the right to use The Wall, and its material and imagery (save for three songs which Gilmour co-wrote: "Young Lust", "Comfortably Numb" and "Run Like Hell"), as his name has been most closely associated with the album. This meant that the three remaining members' 1987–1990 and 1994 tours under the name Pink Floyd required payments to Waters.^{[citation needed]}

Waters staged a concert performance of The Wall at Potsdamer Platz in Berlin on 21 July 1990 both to commemorate the fall of the Berlin Wall and as a fund-raising effort for the World War Memorial Fund for Disaster Relief. The event was produced and cast by British producer and impresario Tony Hollingsworth, and featured guest artists including Bryan Adams, Cyndi Lauper, Sinéad O'Connor, Joni Mitchell, and Van Morrison, as well as members of The Band. This performance also differed from previous shows in that some songs from the original album and Pink Floyd concert version were omitted, others were slightly modified, and one Waters solo song, "The Tide Is Turning" was substituted for "Outside The Wall" as the concluding song.

Covers

Kingston, Ontario's Luther Wright and the Wrongs, did a bluegrass cover of this album entitled Rebuild the Wall. ^[11]

The nu-metal band Korn frequently covered Pink Floyd to close their concerts^[12] and included "Another Brick in the Wall" on Greatest Hits Volume 1. This cover included excerpts from "Another Brick in the Wall" parts 1, 2, and 3, as well as "Goodbye Cruel World".

Scissor Sisters released a charting cover version of "Comfortably Numb".

Track listing

All songs written and composed by Roger Waters, except where noted. 

Singles

• "Another Brick in the Wall (Part 2)"/"One of My Turns" - Harvest HAR 5194; released 16 November 1979 (UK, U.S., France and Italy [with One of my Turns as a B-Side])
• "Run Like Hell"/"Don't Leave Me Now" - Columbia 1-11265; released April, 1980 (Holland, Sweden and US)
• "Comfortably Numb"/"Hey You" - Columbia 1-11311; released June, 1980 (US and Japan)

Sales chart performance

Album

Singles

Awards

Selected album sales

Personnel

• David Gilmour — guitars, vocals, co-producer, bass guitar, sequencer, synthesiser, clavinet, percussion
• Nick Mason — drums, percussion
• Roger Waters — vocals, bass guitar, co-producer, synthesiser, electric and acoustic guitar, sleeve design
• Richard Wright — piano, organ, synthesiser, clavinet, bass pedals

Additional musicians

• Joe Chemay — backing vocals
• Ron di Blasi — classical guitar on "Is There Anybody Out There?"
• Bob Ezrin — keyboards
• Stan Farber — backing vocals
• Fourth form music class, Islington Green School, London — backing vocals
• James Guthrie — percussion, Synthesiser on "Empty Spaces" (in collaboration with David Gilmour), sequencer, drums on "The Happiest Days of Our Lives" (in collaboration with Nick Mason)
• Jim Haas — backing vocals
• Bobbye Hall — percussion
• Bruce Johnston — backing vocals
• Jon Joyce — backing vocals
• Freddie Mandel — Hammond organ on "In the Flesh?" and "In the Flesh"
• Frank Marrocco — concertina
• Bleu Ocean — marching snare drum on "Bring the Boys Back Home"
• Jeff Porcaro — drums on "Mother"^[40], marching snare drum on "Bring the Boys Back Home"
• Lee Ritenour — rhythm guitar on "One of My Turns" and acoustic guitar on "Comfortably Numb"
• Toni Tennille — backing vocals
• Trevor Veitch — mandolin
• Larry Williams — clarinet on "Outside the Wall"

Production

• Justin Dimma — engineering
• Bob Ezrin — co-producer, orchestra arrangement
• Nick Griffiths — engineering
• James Guthrie — co-producer, engineer, remastering producer
• Rick Hart — engineering
• Robert Hrycyna — engineering
• Michael Kamen — orchestra arrangement
• Darren McIntomney — engineering
• Patrice Queff — engineering
• Doug Sax — mastering and remastering
• Gerald Scarfe — sleeve design

References

External links

• Complete Analysis of the Movie
• Pink Floyd The Wall at the Internet Movie Database