THE WALL

This is my last review of the Pink Floyd albums. This is undoubtly Roger Water's greatest work (all but four songs have sole credit to him) and PF's best selling album (3rd in music history)

Yes this album is bleak and depressing but tells a story almost everyone can relate to. We all have something in our lives that we want to wall up and hide from, only in this album the wall was to block out the entire outside world.

It is undoubtly the greatest concept album ever simply because it was written by a man about his own expierence being the front man of on of the greatest rock bands ever. Yes, Waters was on an ego trip at the time, but that was what caused him to write this album. If he hadn't reached that leval such a great album would never have come about.

While it doesn't rech the perfection of "Wish You Were Here" or "Dark Side of the Moon", it carries on themes from those two albums and does it well.

The major flaws with the album lie in the lacking of musical quaility, only in Comfortably Numb, where Gilmour was allowed to take leading credit of a song, do we see the any great preformance on the guitar.

The lyrics are wonderful, but many songs are so short, they fail to clearly get across major parts of the story. Especially on side 4, where Pink has reached the hights of insanity and has a vision of himself as a dictator, what exactly is happening becomes unclear.

To fully understand why Waters had to make this dark and cynical album is revealed at the end of the Wall when he is sentenced to "be exposed before his peers". He exposes himself in his following album "Final Cut" which is essentially the epilouge to the previous album

The opening track "in the Flesh" makes for a great concert opener and an excellent warm up track. However, it is followed by the mediocre "Thin Ice". "Another Brick 1"/"Happiest Days of our Lives"/"Another Brick in the Wall 2" is a nice group oif songs that slowly build up in intensity. The highlight of Disk 1.

"Mother" is a slow song that drags on a bit, especially in the movie.

"Goodbye Blue Sky" is perhaps one of thier most underrated songs and is a beautiful ballad. A love the bass riffs at the beginning

"Empty Spaces"/"Young Lust" is another good set, but fairly bland in context

"One of My Turns" and "Don't Leave Me Now" are both decent songs where Pink switches from depressed to mad to depressed agian

"Another Brick 3"/"Goodbue Cruel World" is a great way to end an album even as dark and depressing as they are.

The first half of disk 2 (side 3) is the best part of the album. Opening with "Hey You" a cool ballad with an great solo, it is the second best song on the album. "Is There Anybody Out There?"/"Nobody Home" are great songs, though followd by th e weak "Vera" and "Bring the Boys Back Home". But then there is the classic masterpiece "Comfortably Numb" which by far the greatest PF song.

The story contiues with "The Show Must go On" a nice peice but then followed by the widely misunderstood "In the Flesh II". "Run Like Hell" is another classic PF song although it is far better live, as they can play it its full length. "Waitning for the Worms"/"Stop" is a another cynical song. Closing the storyt is "The Trial", a cartoonish track where we actually see the story from other points of view, via the Schoolteacher, wife, mother and judge. Closing the album is the cheesy, unclaer song "Outside the Wall". In which we are told the moral of the story, but not the fate of Pink. (that is revealed in The Final Cut, he tries to kill himself but can't do it)

So, not a great album, but by far an essential to the music history of the 1970's But not essential for Prog rock