Pink Floyd - The Wall
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Free Music Notes for The Wall
Free Music Review: Inside The Floyd's Wall
Hit: 5 Stars
"The Wall," Pink Floyd's 1979 concept album about a rock star's mental breakdown, is a towering monster. It's an album with SO many audio, lyrical, musical & emotional nooks and crannies contained within, that one listen simply will not cut it. "The Wall" is not just an album to listen to, it's an album to be *explored*. It was inspired by then-bandleader Roger Waters' own mental collapse at the end of the Floyd's tour for the "Animals" album. Due to the grind of the mammoth stadium tour for "Animals," and sickened by seeing his own band, in his opinion, become part of the rock business "circus," Waters was mentally & emotionally exhausted beyond comprehension. At the final gig in Montreal, Waters finally snapped, spitting in the face of a young fan sitting up front. Coming home to England to recover, Waters finally decided to exorcise his demons by writing a conceptual piece about his disgust with his life as a rock star, and he began building "The Wall"....With the bulk of the double-album composed by Waters (with a few co-writing contributions from guitarist David Gilmour & producer Bob Ezrin), "The Wall" tells the story of a rock star named Pink and his downward spiral into madness, and all the things in his life that led him there: his father killed in the war when he was only a baby ("Another Brick In The Wall Part 1"), being smothered by his overbearing mother ("Mother"), subjected to abuse at school ("The Happiest Days Of Our Lives"/"Another Brick In The Wall Part 2"), and later, the pressures of his rock-star lifestyle ("One Of My Turns") and the breakdown of his marriage ("Don't Leave Me Now"). Quite simply, "The Wall" is a rock masterwork, and arguably Roger Waters' greatest achievement as a composer. However, to think of the album simply as a "Roger Waters production" would be wrong. Though Waters IS, indeed, the main architect of "The Wall," bravely wearing his heart on his sleeve with his powerful songwriting and tortured singing (not to mention playing a mean bass throughout), the album still would not be what it is without the excellent contributions of guitarist/vocalist David Gilmour, who also shines on tracks like the smash hit, "Another Brick In The Wall Part 2" (featuring his most famous guitar solo ever recorded with the band), "Goodbye Blue Sky," "Young Lust," "Hey You" and "Comfortably Numb" (featuring yet another classic Gilmour guitar solo). Keyboardist Richard Wright & drummer Nick Mason are, admittedly, dwarfed somewhat on "The Wall" by the inclusion of various session players (that's Jeff Porcaro playing drums on "Mother," to name one example). Still, Mason & Wright appear often enough, and they make their contributions count. The production on "The Wall" is also astounding---from the great stereophonic mix of the tunes themselves, to the treasure trove of sound effects & voices (such as fighter planes, helicopters, objects being smashed, singing schoolchildren, a telephone operator, a TV set playing "Gomer Pyle," and on and on), "The Wall" is truly a listening *experience*. Thankfully, Roger Waters, having left Pink Floyd in 1983, is living quite comfortably these days, no longer bothered by his rock star demons, and he continues to make great music on his own (he's also much more appreciative of his live audiences these days, thank goodness). Obviously for Waters, making "The Wall" was much-needed therapy. For Pink Floyd, "The Wall" became one of the group's biggest best-sellers, second only to "Dark Side Of The Moon." For the listener, "The Wall" is a spellbinding musical journey. It's music is at turns beautiful, haunting, and unquestionably powerful, and it's story is an absolutely gripping one. "The Wall" is a timeless, undisputed Pink Floyd classic.Free Music Review: So you thought you'd might like to go to the show....
Hit: 5 Stars
With songs like "In the flesh?", "Run Like Hell," and "Another Brick In The Wall pt.2," The Wall just might be Floyd's darkest, hardest album. The lyrics certainly reflect that, telling the story of a disturbed young man whose life becomes so chaotic that he creates a sort of mental barrier between himself and the world, only to have it torn down, "exposing him in front of his peers," as the second to last song suggests. Throughout his life, our flawed protagonest deals with the death of his father, vicious teachers, an overbearing mother, the pain of growing up in a harsh world full of war and pain. He has a chaotic marriage ("Day after day, love turns gray..."). He becomes a drug-addicted rock star, and loses all of his privacy to the media and to fans. In the end all of demons come back to confront him in the absolutely stunning climatic song "The Trial." The story is dark, engrossing, and symbolic of our lives, and the trouble we go to in order to seperate ourselves from others. Wall could have made an excellent novel, if you ask me.But above and beyond the story is the music in which it is contained. While Dark Side Of The Moon featured longer, slower songs which unfolded slowly and bled into one another, the songs on Wall are shorter and louder, more hard rock than progressive. "Young Lust," for example, is a fast paced flat out rocker reminescent of Physical Grafitti era Led Zeppelin. It's driven by a tough as nails guitar riff, a pounding bass line, and an instantly memorable chorus I need a dirty woman!")
The album's oppener, "In The Flesh?," is a darkly cynical number that is a bit slower than most of The Wall's songs. It makes up for this with some of David Gilmour's most intense guitar work, as well as some of Waters' snarliest, most bitter and sarcastic lyrics ("Tell me is something eluding you, Sunshine/ Is this not what you expected to see?/ If you want to find out what's behind these cold eyes/ You'll just have to crawl your way through this disguise").
The album does have its softer moments, though. "Mother" is a tuneful accoustic ballad whose lyrics go from refreshingly sweet to darkly disturbing ("Hush my baby, baby don't you cry/ Mamma's gonna make all your nightmares come true/ Mamma will put all her fears into you").
"Comfortably Numb" is a rich and textured song about drug addiction. It's extremely engrossing, and easy to get lost in. Its lush accoustic guitar chords make it sound like a DSOTM cut.
"Hey You" is a seemingly tender cry for help, which contains my favorite lyric on the album: "But it was only fantasy. The wall was too high, as you can see. No matter how he tried he could not break free.... And the worms ate into his brain."
"Run Like Hell" is the darkest, hardest, and most cynical track on the album. It's music sounds like something from a queen album (Which is a good thing), and the lyrics talk about a guy who just can't get any privacy.
And how could I leave out the Wall's most famous feature, the infamous "Happiest Days Of Our Lives/ Another Brick In The Wall pt. 2" medely? The ultamite song of adolescent rebellion, with the immortal line "Hey! Teachers! Leave them kids alone!" That's one of the harder songs on the album, and one of my early favorites. But, as any Floyd fan will tell you, its not the best thing the Wall has to offer.
More than any other Pink Floyd record, the Wall is epic. Its a perfect balance of thought provoking lyrics and great music. Its what makes Floyd great.
Free Music Review: Outstanding album
Hit: 5 Stars
I was only 11 years old and growing up in a small town in England when this album came out, but even then, the video to 'Another Brick in the Wall' made a deep impression on me (it was number 1 in the charts at the time). I remember it being actually quite frightening and, at the time, the weirdest thing I'd ever seen on British TV.I've since listened to the album an awful lot and seen the movie, and I have a much better understanding now of why it's so weird. Roger Waters is clearly an angry man, and doesn't hold his bitterness back. And why should he? I always think the best songs are those that are the most honest, and these ones are clearly written from the heart - admittedly a fairly dark one. The childhood anguish and resentment of having lost your father in what you perceive to be a pointless war is a dominant theme, and when this is set against a backdrop of unhappy, (and lonely?) schooldays at the hands of vicious, dictatorial teachers, don't expect to be dancing to this album in your local disco. Having said that, there is some deliciously black humour in some of the songs (especially Waiting for the Worms and The Trial).
This is generally considered to be one of the first, if not the first, concept albums, and Pink Floyd deserve credit for having the bravery to do it. They went out on quite a limb, and it could very easily have been ridiculed as a bloated extravagance. The musical score is incredibly ambitious, but I think it represents a real strength of the album. The songs are incredibly varied, I genuinely can't think of any other album that contains slow piano-based songs (e.g. Nobody Home), soaring guitar solos (e.g. Comfortably Numb), thumping stadium rock (e.g. Another Brick Part 3, Run Like Hell), theatricals (the Trial, Waiting for the Worms) and practically whispered poems (One of My Turns intro).
The lyrics themselves are also remarkably wide-ranging, representing anger (e.g. Mother, Another Brick), seedy seduction (Young Lust), plaintive sadness (Nobody Home, Vera), creepy (Anybody Out There?), childhood reflection (Comfortably Numb) and just plain weirdness (In the Flesh). Some of the songs are just so well-written they are profoundly moving - try listening to Nobody Home while sitting in a comfortable chair with the lights off and you will see what I mean.
The lyrics and music are so finely matched that I really consider this album to be a work of genius. I just love the richness and depth of the vocals in songs like Mother and Nobody Home, and the album is liberally scattered with neat vocal tricks and effects that fit in so well (e.g. the voice through the loudhailer in Waiting for the Worms, the sniggering laughs that appear in several songs). The backing vocals/switching between singers is also very professional.
Be warned that you may not like this album the first time you listen to it, but it definitely grows on you, even to the point that you appreciate it in its entirety rather than just dipping into a song here and there.
In sum, I heartily recommend this outstanding album to anyone who has an appreciation of *real* music (i.e. more than 3 chords, the use of some great words, limited use of the words 'love' and 'baby', and no delimitation of songs into verse, chorus, verse, chorus ad nauseum).
I am desperately sorry for Roger Waters that he had such an awful childhood, but, without wanting to sound superficial or insensitive, I sincerely hope that writing this superb album helped him in some way. Thank You Roger and Pink Floyd.
Free Music Review: The best rock album ever made
Hit: 5 Stars
I am constantly telling people who have grown up in the "post-rock era" or who have never been Pink Floyd fans because they were scared away by subliminal messages and drug references like I still am turned off by them, that this is by far the best album ever made in the rock era. I am a huge Beatles fan but I would still tell anyone to this day that this album is so head and shoulders over Seargent Pepper that it's pitiful and that to me Seargent Pepper may have been "The Wall" of it's time but in my opinion only paved the way for the concept, artistry, and awesome studio production and musicianship of this masterpiece called "The Wall" (oh, and by the way I always thought Magical Mystery Tour was always a better album than Seargent Pepper anyway). I actually started off hating Pink Floyd as I was growing up because my older brother kept hitting me over the head with constant, constant playings of "Dark Side of the Moon" coming out of his room, and coupled with the fact that Pink Floyd released probably the most lame song on the album "Money" as it's main single which has always been played ad nauseum for 30 years on classic rock stations didn't help either. The sound of that album even did begin to grow on me as I got older but it wasn't until high school when a fellow student and huge fan of Pink Floyd would hijack the huge high school choir room's awesome high fidelity stereo system and blast "The Wall" throughout the halls of the music department that I really began to like that album. I wasn't wild about it at first but I would see the (future Minnesota State Senator)'s enthusiasm while he cranked up the wall, especially on the part which goes "when we grew up and went to school, there were certain teachers who..... with it's great bass guitar and helicopter sound effects that I began to like the album, and it wasn't until after I graduated and looked back to the "Floyd" lunch hours as some of the "happiest days of our lives" that I began to really see how awesome that album really was and enjoyed all of the classic rock airplay of the hits on that album over the years, many until later I didn't even realize were all on "The Wall". Because of this album I became a major Gilmour-guitar fan and was lucky enough to see the Floyd in concert before they went dormant, and I even developed an appreciation for Roger Waters' musical concept of the world and although he doesn't have the greatest voice and that a lot of people hate his "concept" I think some people's voices and perspectives absolutely fit the unique kind of music that they do perfectly. I've only found 2 other albums that have the same effect on me musically as "The Wall" because they have the same type of somewhat dark, etherial, conceptual, and sophisticated studio production and feel as The Wall, and that is "Hounds of Love" by Kate Bush and "So" by Peter Gabriel and parts of "Tales of Mystery and Imagination" by Alan Parsons Project, if you haven't heard these albums and are a big "Wall" fan it would be definitely worth a listen to you. And finally I want to give props to a Floyd man who I think was so instrumental in making the wall and some other Floyd albums so awesome is Michael Kamen who died this past year. If you don't know who he is just listen to Gilmour's great guitar solos over the violin/orchestral parts of "Comfortably Numb" and you'll hear the orchestral arranging genious of Michael Kamen.Free Music Review: Brilliant! Absolutely BRILLIANT!!!
Hit: 5 Stars
1) In The Flesh?: great way to begin an album. It's loud, unexpected, and sets the tone for the rest of the story
2) The Thin Ice: has a very doowop feel to it...almost. Leads to things to come.
3) Another Brick In The Wall (Part I): the first time what I consider to be "the theme" is stated. Very similar lyrics to The Thin Ice.
4) The Happiest Days Of Our Lives: my personal favorite song from The Wall. I like the way how it sounds like one long run-on sentence. The transition to Another Brick In The Wall (Part II) has got to be one of the greatest things of all time!
5) Another Brick In The Wall (Part II): everybody knows this song...
6) Mother: fun to sing with. Guitar solo reminds me of a Ford commercial
7) Goodbye Blue Sky: if anyone has seen the movie, this seen is the best. Sorry to say, it's not as impressive on the album, but still good song. The synth at the beginning sends chills down my spine.
8) Empty Spaces: great transitional song.
9) Young Lust: it took me a little while to like this one, but it eventually grew on me. It's one of the few Floydian "rock 'n' roll" songs. Now it's one of my favorites though.
10-12) One Of My Turns/Don't Leave Me Now/Another Brick In The Wall (Part III): I group these three all together because to me, they're all the same thing. Not that impressive. I usually tend to skip these when listening.
Goodbye Cruel World:
14) Hey You: this song gets way too much radio play. I also don't think it's the best way to begin the second half of the story, but who am I to say?
15) Is There Anybody Out There?: very mysterious and cool. The instrumentation at the end is really good. Great atmosphere. In my opinion, I think this should have started out the second half. The words, "is there anybody out there," sets the mood for all to come.
16) Nobody Home: I never use the word "beautiful" to describe a song, but that is what this song is.
17) Vera: pointless...
18) Bring The Boys Back Home: this song is also pointless, but it is so cool! It's definitely one of my favorites on the album.
19) Comfortably Numb: everybody knows this one...
20) The Show Must Go On: brings the audience back to the beginning with similar melodies.
21) In The Flesh: brings the audience even more to the beginning...duh! It has the same name and almost the same lyrics. I like it better though. The main character, Pink, becomes a fascist dictator here. Weird.
22) Run Like Hell: if you think this is good, you should hear the version from The Wall Live (Is There Anybody Out There?).
23) Waiting For The Worms: more dictator stuff.
24) Stop: Waiting For The Worms crescendos up and up and out of nowhere Pink yells, "Stop!" A new song begins and it is a great effect. And now, the grand finale:
25) The Trial: don not be fooled, you are listening to rock music still, but you can't tell. All of the previous charaters (the teacher, the mother, the girlfriend/wife figure) come back for the final trial. The entire thing is orchestrated until the end when the "theme" is stated in the electric guitar. Brilliant! Absolutely BRILLANT!!!
26) Outside The Wall: the wall crumbles down and this business happens. The melody from the very beginning is stated again and a loop is created.