THE WALL

Pink Floyd's "The Wall" is the last album of its kind--or at least the last one made that's worth listening to. After "The Wall", the long, trippy chords that characterized the most dreamy--and at times the most cerebral--popular music ever made all but disappeared as the airwaves and clubs were all but taken over by Punk and New Wave influences. Along with Pink Floyd, the carrers and reputations of nearly all other progressive and art-rock bands faded into a twilight.

What's more, I think the album is one of the last attempts any band ever made to use its music to convey, intuitively, a psychological and spiritual journey. Others wrote songs that described such a process (too often in self-pitying ways); while others beat drums and ripped through guitars and such to express rage. But The Wall is one of those rare works-- especially rare in pop music--that can be called a jeu d'esprit. Apres "The Wall," la deluge!