THE WALL

The Wall is the last of the four Pink Floyd classic albums from the 1970's. One of the reasons for this is that the Floyd are coming part at the seems. Roger Waters has continued to assert more control over the band; so much so that he had keyboardist and vocalist Richard Wright fired from the band during the recording process. (Side note: Wright is brought back as a wage employee and is the only one of the four that makes money on The Wall shows). While it seems to be true that Wright didn't bring much to the table for this album, David Gilmour, the band vocalist and guitarist ups the anty and said why don't they fire drummer Nick Mason too. Waters saves his friends job but this is a good indication of the poor shape of the band at the time.

Waters came to the band with two song cycles, one which turned out to be The Wall and the other that he took solo a few years later, The Pros and Cons of Hitchiking. The Wall song cycle is part autobiographical, part composite of the lives of others and is full of angst, relationship problems, paranoia, loneliness, and drugs and more. That only scratches the surface of Waters lyrics. A light read it is not.

Musically, Waters also takes more of the reigns here too. It generally takes a back seat to words, and the long spacey tunes are gone. Waters has plenty of stuff to get off his chest and a good idea on how it wants the music to sound to convey his message. While the some of the best tracks are cowritten with Gilmour and one suspects that more of the songs had a lot of input from others but they were not credited. There is stellar Gilmour's guitar work throughout and Wrights presence is felt on a few tracks, most notably on Hey You. The drum are solid but never spectacular as again Waters ideas for this album is more direct and functional than prior albums. There are several main songs that the album hangs on while many others help fill out the story, but that does not mean they are fluff or filler. Of the 'major' songs ( Another brick in the Wall part II, Hey You, Young Lust, Mother), Comfortably Numb is the standout track on the album. The orchestra, changing vocalists, and slow, powerful buildup of keys and drums, accompanied by one of rocks most impressive guitar solos mark CN as on of rocks greatest songs.

Sonically, this album is a standout. The production like Dark Side of the Moon and Wish You Were Here is excellent. There is plenty of musique concrete here and the attention to detail on every note is great. A musical pleasure for the ears but listening to the album again for this review, the story does not hold together quite as well as I remembered. It is still very intriguing and I spent a ton of time listening to It when it was originally released.

The Wall is a weak 5 star album and the last Pink Floyd album to have the talents of all four members.