THE WALL

There's plenty of reviews and also books have been written about The Wall. "Inside Out" and "Pigs Might Fly" are two books on which it's possible to find a lot of information about the album, its background and the meanings of all the lyrics.

So instead of reviewing it song by song, analyzing the plot or speaking about the split up of Pink Floyd to come, I want just underline few facts:

Both the album and the movie have two significant predecessors: one is Tommy (The Who) and the other, less famous, is Privilege (The Blues Band). The final scenes of Privilege, in particular, seem to have inspired both "In The Flesh" (the Nazi part) and "The Trial". The concept of Privilege is represented by a rockstar entraped into an animal cage. The star system is a cage and the star is a captive animal. I don't know if Waters has seen that movie. The concept is so close to Syd's character that it's possible that it's just a coincidence.

One of the reasons why Waters has sent Rick Wright off is the lack (he said) of effort on the keyboards. On The Wall there's plenty of keyboards, even if simpler than usual. I can imagine Wright thinking: "If he has to write everything, I'll just play what he wants". The relationship was already broken actually. However Wright's work on tracks like "Hey You", "Mother" and also "Comfortably Numb" is impressive. It's not a case if the best album's songs are those where Wright is more present.

"Comfortably Numb" is considered the last collaboration between Waters and Gilmour. It's a patchwork instead. The chorus was part of a song that Gilmour was writing for his new solo album. There's a recording on an unofficial rarity boxset of this first version. The stanza is Waters' stuff. Then Waters added the lyrics and Gilmour the guitar solos. It's a masterpiece but it's the patchwork of two songs.

Micheal Kamen (RIP) is the orchestra director. He will work on The Final Cut, too and is the author of the non-Queen parts of the Highlander OST. He is the director of Mike Oldfield's orchestra on the Tubular Bells 2 live and I want to take this opportunity to mention his name to the proggers.

Rating this album? It's essential to understand the whole Pink Floyd history from the eyes of Roger Waters. So it's essential. A Masterpiece? Some songs are masterpieces, and even those that can be intended as fillers are functional to the concept.

It's not Pink Floyd's best, probably, but an album like this released by anybody else would have had 5 stars, isn't it?