THE WALL

When this album first came out I was young enough to be utterly mystified by it. Then the film came out, and that had the same effect. I remember thinking, "This is deep. Really deep. Too deep for me." Then, time elapsed, I came back to it and found the thing not so clever after all. In fact, it started to get a little grating and I found it all so sophomoric. What once felt rich and complex thematically, now started to feel like one long drawn-out metaphor that just kept hammering me on the head over and over until I feel a bit muddled by the end. Ultimately, it's very hard to get around the impression of The Wall as a Roger Waters therapy album?"Mummy! Daddy! War!"?don't worry, it'll be okay son. (The therapy session was successful, but the patient clearly needed another round, so we got The Final Cut.)

Now this might seem unfair, and it probably is. So, I decided to go back and give it another listen, having avoided it for several years. What I find is that it's a better album than I remember, but it's definitely not a masterpiece. The great songs are still absolutely stunning ("Hey you," "Goodbye blue sky," "Comfortably numb," "Run like hell"), which notably all tend to have a stronger Gilmour presence, vocally. Plus, the whole "Another brick in the wall" motif, in its three variations . . . well, it's so normal and accepted to all of us now, such a given, that it's good to be reminded what a perfect musical theme that is.

The problem is, as others here have said, it's just too long and there's a lot of lesser, forgettable material. I think for me the absolute weakest moment on the album is "The trial," which frankly feels like a lost cut from Oliver! And there are other moments, like the spoken transitions around "One of my turns" that feel less like the great, disturbing spoken interludes on Dark Side and more like a failed attempt at musical theatre. Does The Wall threaten to be a heavy blues version of Evita?

So, I'm very glad to have come back to it and find it more enjoyable than I last remember, but I think I can go a few more years before hearing it again. Curious to see what I feel then.