Pink Floyd - The Wall

[harleyman888]

I have seen Pink Floyd, Both Animals and The Wall tour, Roger Waters Pros and Cons twice once with Clapton on guitar, Who was the guitarist on the album, and the floyd Division Bell. Was not even close to the band with Waters. There is no Pink Floyd without Waters. When I saw Clapton play with Roger it was the only time I actually thought he was good (seen him 3 times). Guess he was not drunk. I saw him on the Slowhand tour and the warm up band ate him up. Then again it was Johnny Winter, James Cotton and Muddy Waters.

 

[Gravedigger Dav]

I also think The Wall is a work of musical art that will long endure. The line I like most from the lyrics is "like a distant ship's smoke on the horizon". What fantastic imagery. I believe it is intended to be very dark and it is.
I can't fault Waters for anything. He was struggling with mental issues. When you have mental problems, you can't really be expected to function in multi human situations.
I don't think it was at all pro or con anything. It was an expression of feeling and obviously autobiographical. I can see your point about Gilmore (one of my favorite guitarists) adding light, but I never thought of it that way. I alway felt like he was expressing that feeling you get when pain releases you for a bit and you can breathe a little better, but a good analogy non the less.
I took my wife to see the movie. She said it was the most painful movie she had seen and never wanted to see it again. I asked her why she thought it was painful. She said you have to be a mother to know.
My favorite Pink Floyd album is Dark Side of the Moon. I actually wore out 2 vinyl copies and still have a CD copy I pull out when I am in the mood. Whether my state is altered or not, I still hear something different every time I listen to it. My wife and I decided we wanted to go see the Perseids once when we were living in Oregon. We packed up some lounge chairs, a thermos of hot chocolate, a bic, a baggy, and the Dark Side CD and headed for the hills. Meteor showers should always be that great.

 

[Mugre]

I LOVE Pros and Cons of Hitchhiking AND Amused to Death.
are you kidding me? somehow that's bad music?
No sir, it is wonderful! Clapton, Beck… that's not chop liver.
Talk about not being a commercial sell out!
that's my boy George!
f!

I hope you'll understand that I'm trying to be helpful when I point out that underlining text for emphasis on the web makes it look like a link. Mo' betta to use bold, italics or even bold italic to show emphasis or a raised voice.

The word that comes to mind for me with The Wall is bloated. It's far from my favorite.

 

[tangentmusic]

My wife and I decided we wanted to go see the Perseids once when we were living in Oregon. We packed up some lounge chairs, a thermos of hot chocolate, a bic, a baggy, and the Dark Side CD and headed for the hills. Meteor showers should always be that great.

Agreed. I've done similar. Everyone needs to have an experience like that

 

[MonetBass]

I go into Pink Floyd late. My roommate in the dorms my freshman year in college spent most days smoking weed and listening to Animals. (Needless to say, he flunked out within the year.) I'd only heard the songs from The Wall that I'd heard on the radio, and had seen "The Wall" movie at that point, but still didn't have an appreciation for any of it. Fast forward 10 years, and I rented "The Wall" movie. It finally clicked, so I bought The Wall on CD. Dark Side of the Moon, Wish You Were Here (now my favorite), and Animals followed. Really good stuff. As others have said, the fact that the album had commercial success was merely consequential. It was a piece of art that touched a lot of people, most likely because of the way it was produced, which was quite different from past albums. I like the motifs that run throughout the album (E-F#-G-F#) -- variations on a theme.

A couple of years ago, Roger Waters brought his "The Wall: Live" tour to Tulsa and I went with some friends. I have to say that the show was amazing. Despite the perception of Waters being jaded towards his public in the past, you could tell that he was having a lot of fun, but most of all that he appreciated his audience.

I also have A Momentary Lapse of Reason, but even though it says "Pink Floyd" on it, it's really Gilmour-Wright-Mason. If you listen to it from that perspective, it has some really good tracks on it.

 

[fnordlyone]

Animals was the last album where Roger controlled his writing by sticking using metaphor and oblique suggestion which, to me, worked MUCH better than screaming "I'm in pain - the world stinks" like he did in the wall. Sadly, once he left the band, the lyrical content just went nowhere. They were a fine example of the whole being greater than the sum of their parts.

Oh, and at no point as a bassist did I ever want to be like Roger -he's not much of a player... but that hardly matter. He was was an excellent song-writer.

Poppycock!
I love Roger's playing. As usual, it is imagined that the artist (Waters), gave up playing to write. It is utter nonsense. Listen back to the original Pink Floyd albums… Listen again when Syd was kicked out…. Listen again starting with Dark Side of the Moon… all the way through, Waters, all the way through, was the leader of the band. After Syd, it IS his band. He wrote the music and continued to be the leader of the band.
Stop all the nonsense, Gilmore lovers!
I love Gilmore, too.
But, it was from the beginning the bassist's band and without him PF is a JOKE!

FNORD!

i really tire of this debate
as there should be no debate

 

[Solarmist]

An excellent album, and I can't tell you how many times I watched the movie ... it had a great deal of meaning to me that I identified with at the time.

I really liked the older stuff like Relics, Ummagumma, and Meddle best, but The Wall was a great step in the evolution of Pink Floyd ... so was the movie.

Very nice opening thread MellowinMan.

 

[David Jayne]

I caught a Roger Water solo tour and a David Gilmour solo tour in the same summer a few years back. I forget which, but one of them had Nick Mason and the other had Richard Wright. Of the two shows, I liked the Roger show better but I definitely would've preferred seeing them together!

That would have been Nick with Roger and Richard with Dave. Those pairs were loyal to each other but not to the others.

 

[mapleglo]

It also might be an age thing. Dark Side came out in March of 1973. I was a junior in high school, and wore out the vinyl by the time I went to college. Wish You Were Here came out in September of 1975, the start of my second year in college. I must have heard Dark Side thousands of times, and I still love it as much as I did the first time I heard it. I think every note on that album is engrained in my memory. I'd go as far as to say, it is the best produced album of all time, even to this day.

The Wall is good, but doesn't hold a candle to either of the other two, IMHO. But I was older and jaded by then.

 

[Altitude]

My parents went to see the movie when it came out, and they took me. I was maybe 10, and they were younger than I am now. I wasn't ready to handle or understand a movie like that, and this many years later I am ready to say that seeing it was a deeply disturbing experience for me. I still, to this day, get a creepy sense of dread whenever I hear music from that album. I can handle the occasional cover that I hear at a concert, and other Floyd besides "The Wall" doesn't bother me.

 

[buldog5151bass]

Wow - I certainly wouldn't take someone that age to that movie. I liked the movie, and how it treated the story, but images not for young eyes and brains.

 

[Altitude]

I'm pretty sure they trusted me and were trying to be open-minded. They were big Floyd fans and were excited about the movie. At that time it was really hard to find out about a movie like that before you actually went to see it. In their defense, it was clear to them midway through that it wasn't a thing for a 10 year-old to see, and I think we may have left early. A lot of the really rough images are not at the end, though.

 

[fnordlyone]

I'm pretty sure they trusted me and were trying to be open-minded. They were big Floyd fans and were excited about the movie. At that time it was really hard to find out about a movie like that before you actually went to see it. In their defense, it was clear to them midway through that it wasn't a thing for a 10 year-old to see, and I think we may have left early. A lot of the really rough images are not at the end, though.

will (in Denver), toughen up a little would you? I saw the Shining when I was nine; still love it. Both films were made to discombobulate. Good training for life.

 

[SanDiegoHarry]

will (in Denver), toughen up a little would you? I saw the Shining when I was nine; still love it. Both films were made to discombobulate. Good training for life.

?!?!

I knew a kid - a buddy's nephew. His brain-dead father took him to see "Saving Private Ryan" when he was 10. His comment "decent special effects". If that's all a kid gets out of a movie like that, there is a problem - not of "toughness" but of desensitization; A future nut-case waiting happen.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Desensitization_(psychology)

 

[Spectrum]

I think The Wall is a great album and a great achievment by Waters, but it's a bit much in the Debbie Downer department.

Unlike other Floyd albums such as Wish You Were Here, Meddle, Animals, Atom Heart Mother, etc., I can't listen to the Wall over and over again. Once in a blue moon I'll spin it up, but it's kind of draining to sit through the whole thing for me. Earlier Floyd had some absolute beauty like Echoes and The Narrow Way and Obscured by Clouds, but starting with Animals it was all becoming a giant soul-crushing steamroller driven by Roger Waters over the band's fans and listeners.

The music is still awesome, of course, but thematically it lost that wonder and whimsy of the early stuff had.

Is it commercial? Is that a real question? Was there ever any plan to get something like The Trial on the radio? I don't think so. The unsurprising fact that a few songs from a hugely popular rock band wound up being big hits doesn't change the fact that the album as a whole is an uncompromising work of art.

 

[fnordlyone]

?!?!

I knew a kid - a buddy's nephew. His brain-dead father took him to see "Saving Private Ryan" when he was 10. His comment "decent special effects". If that's all a kid gets out of a movie like that, there is a problem - not of "toughness" but of desensitization; A future nut-case waiting happen.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Desensitization_(psychology)

Saving Private Ryan sucked; the only thing that was good were the special effects; blame that on Spielberg. Not all Art is not supposed to be kid's fare; I agree with you there. Who decides what art for what child at what age? The child… he'll find a way. Let's hold out hope for your buddy's nephew, though.
Maybe I'm just some wacky imbalanced abnormal, but I LOVE the dark themes in the Wall. There is more heartfelt anguish and true example of humanity in that one LP-- that The Pink Floyd would be legendary if that were its only album. Waters is dealing with childhood demons and I appreciated it as a kid. I would wail on the way home from the back of the bus, "Hey Teacher! Leave them kids alone!" (I had a ghetto blaster).

f n o r d!
disclaimer:
all you guys are plenty tough enough for me; didn't mean to offend anyone

 

[bftbassman]

One the best all time albums ever

 

[bftbassman]

I think it's a great LP. I love it, but it gets played to death on the classic rock stations around here. (at least it's radio cuts) As far as greatest concept album? Probably an age or a favorite bassist thing but, I prefer Operation Mindcrime by Queensryche. But that's just me....

Hello...MINDCRIME...MY fav ever...Saw it done in its entirety 6 times and 1 & 2 back to back twice...

 

[cableguy]

Hello...MINDCRIME...MY fav ever...Saw it done in its entirety 6 times and 1 & 2 back to back twice...

Almost the whole reason I play Spector........

 

[mellowinman]

I think The Wall is a great album and a great achievment by Waters, but it's a bit much in the Debbie Downer department.

Unlike other Floyd albums such as Wish You Were Here, Meddle, Animals, Atom Heart Mother, etc., I can't listen to the Wall over and over again. Once in a blue moon I'll spin it up, but it's kind of draining to sit through the whole thing for me. Earlier Floyd had some absolute beauty like Echoes and The Narrow Way and Obscured by Clouds, but starting with Animals it was all becoming a giant soul-crushing steamroller driven by Roger Waters over the band's fans and listeners.

The music is still awesome, of course, but thematically it lost that wonder and whimsy of the early stuff had.

Is it commercial? Is that a real question? Was there ever any plan to get something like The Trial on the radio? I don't think so. The unsurprising fact that a few songs from a hugely popular rock band wound up being big hits doesn't change the fact that the album as a whole is an uncompromising work of art.

I like this comment. I'm one of those people who really loves a giant soul-crushing steamroller driver over me by Roger Waters, but I'm weird that way. I was always surprised when anyone's criticism of this album was, "it's too commercial," because when it came out, they desperately tried to find the single on rock radio. They released "Hey You," and while it's a good song, I didn't see it as one everyone would sing along to.

The funky bassline and sing-along quality of "Another Brick in the Wall Part II," does qualify it as a potentially commercial song, but it starts with helicopters, insane teachers, and has a ridiculously cumbersome name. There is no way Waters was writing that one thinking, "this will be on American Bandstand for sure!" I know "Comfortably Numb," "Young Lust," and "Run Like Hell" ended up becoming rock radio staples, but surely no one thinks that is by design. The Wall is a very dark, and harrowing story, and I don't blame anyone who wants to get as far away from it as possible.

I also agree with the posters who say it's no "Dark Side" or "Wish You Were Here," but thematically, it's a great next step from Animals, and sonically, it's sort of a return to earlier form in a lot of ways, while taking a few steps in a new direction.

It's Pink Floyd for the end of the seventies, an era where we lost Lennon; gained the Reagan Revolution; stopped trying to go to the moon, and basically became a material worship culture after all the "let's party" vibe of that hole left after the Cultural Revolution broke down.

I love it, but I don't blame anyone who doesn't.

It just irks me when the given reason is "it's too commercial."

Grrrrrrrr.