THE WALL

As ambitious, brilliant and dramatic as the concept of this double album set was in 1979, it musically pales in comparison with the monstrous three studio records which preceded it. Pieces are in a shorter, more pop-oriented song format. Gilmour's voice and guitar are great on the record and Waters' lyrics are genius. The creative influences and keyboard textures of Richard Wright are regretfully stifled and suffocated under the grandiosity of Waters' highly theatrical scheme. The end result of it all was an excellent double album recording which established new heights in the arts, but that new height was reached more at the level of theater than at the level of music, with much of the musical elements and textures that made much of Pink Floyd's work earlier in the decade great conspicuously absent on this recording. The band's focus (or should I say Waters' focus, as by now, it was quite clear who was in charge) became that or spectacle rather than that of sound. In the execution of the concept, the work is exceptional. In its totality therefore, although this is a progressive music page rather than a progressive "performing arts" page, the result still rates as a five star masterpiece, despite a modest "let-down" in the music as compared with The Dark Side of the Moon, Wish You Were Here and Animals.