The Wall
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The Wall is a rock opera presented as a double album by Pink Floyd, released by Harvest Records on 30 November 1979, in the United Kingdom and by Columbia Records on 8 December 1979, in the United States. It was subsequently performed live, with elaborate theatrical effects, and made into a film.
Like their previous albums, The Wall is a concept album—specifically, it deals largely with the theme of isolation from one's peers. The concept was inspired largely by the band's 1977 tour promoting the album Animals, with regards to an incident where Roger Waters' frustration with the audience reached a point where Waters spat in the face of a fan who was attempting to climb on stage at the Olympic Stadium (Montreal) on July 6, 1977; this, in turn, led him to lament that such a wall exists. The Wall featured a notably harsher and more theatrical sound than their previous releases.
The Wall is a rock opera that centres on the character "Pink". Largely based on Waters' personal life, Pink struggles in life from an early age, having lost his father by warfare ("Another Brick in the Wall (Part 1)"), abused by teachers ("The Happiest Days of Our Lives"), nurtured by an overprotective mother ("Mother"), and deserted by his wife later on ("Don't Leave Me Now") — all of which factored into Pink's mental isolation from society ("Comfortably Numb"), figuratively referred to as "The Wall".
In 2003, Rolling Stone magazine listed The Wall as #87 in Rolling Stone's 500 Greatest Albums of All Time.
Recording history
In 1977, Pink Floyd were promoting Animals with their In The Flesh tour. There are two different accounts of what happened at the show in Montreal, Canada that inspired Waters to write "The Wall". The first is from The Wall Live booklet where Waters states that a fan was trying to climb the netting between the audience and the band. The second is from Nick Mason's book "Inside Out". He states that a fan was yelling at Roger for them to play "Careful with that Axe, Eugene".
Waters recruited Bob Ezrin to co-produce the album with Gilmour, himself, and James Guthrie (the latter credited as co-producer and engineer); therefore it became the first Pink Floyd album since "The Piper at the Gates of Dawn" not to credit the whole group as producers.
The album was recorded at four studios during eight months, owing to English tax laws and to benefit from the cheaper recording costs in the South of France. Tensions between Waters and the band were increasing significantly, largely due to his dominance over the rest of the band. During the recording, Waters dismissed Richard Wright, and told him to leave immediately after The Wall was finished, arguing that Wright was not contributing much, in part owing to a cocaine addiction.[citation needed] Waters claimed that David Gilmour and Nick Mason had supported his decision to dismiss Wright, but during 2000, Gilmour stated that he and Mason were against Wright's dismissal.[citation needed] In his book Inside Out, Nick Mason claims that Wright was dismissed because Columbia Records had offered Waters a substantial bonus to finish the album in time for a 1979 release. Since Wright refused to return early from his summer holiday, Waters wanted to dismiss Wright.[1] However, he returned for their live performances as a paid musician.
For "Another Brick in the Wall (Part II)", Pink Floyd needed to record a school choir, so they approached music teacher Alun Renshaw of Islington Green School, around the corner from their Britannia Row Studios. The chorus was overdubbed twelve times to give the impression that the choir was larger. The choir were not allowed to hear the rest of the song after singing the chorus. Though the school received a one-time payment of £1000, there was not any contractual arrangement for royalties. By 1996 UK copyright law, they became eligible, and after choir members were found by a royalties agent through the website Friends Reunited, they claimed the money.[2] Music industry professionals estimated that each student would be owed around £500.[3]
Released originally by Columbia Records in the U.S. and Harvest Records in the UK, The Wall was then re-released as a digitally remastered CD in 1994 in the UK on EMI. In 1997, Columbia Records issued an updated remastering in the United States, Canada, Australia, South America and Japan. For The Wall's 20th Anniversary in April 2000, Capitol Records in the U.S. and EMI in Canada, Australia, South America and Japan re-released the 1997 remaster with the artwork from the EMI Europe remaster. The Wall was the first Pink Floyd album since 1967's The Piper at the Gates of Dawn whose cover was not done by Storm Thorgerson and Hipgnosis. Instead, Gerald Scarfe designed the cover and gatefold sleeve. David Gilmour recalls Storm Thorgerson's dispute with Roger Waters over issues such as the credit for the Animals sleeve design.[4]
Concept and storyline
Template:Sound sample box align right Template:Sample box end The album's overriding themes are the causes and implications of self-imposed isolation, symbolized by the metaphorical wall of the title. The album's songs create a very approximate storyline of events in the life of the protagonist, Pink. Pink loses his father as a child (Waters' own father was killed in Anzio during World War II), is oppressed by his overprotective mother, and is oppressed at school by tyrannical, abusive teachers, each of these traumas becoming "another brick in the wall". As an adult Pink becomes a rock music star, his relationships are marred by infidelity, drugs and outbursts of violence. As his marriage crumbles, Pink finishes building the wall and completes his isolation from human contact.
Pink's mindset deteriorates behind his freshly completed "wall", with his personal crisis culminating during an onstage performance. Hallucinating, Pink believes that he is a fascist dictator, and his concerts are like Neo-Nazi rallies where he sets his men on fans he considers unworthy, only to have his conscience rebel at this and put himself on trial, his inner judge ordering him to "tear down the wall" in order to open himself to the outside world, and apologizing to his closest friends who are hurt most by his self-isolation. At this point the album's end runs into its beginning with the closing words "Isn't this where..."; the first song on the album, "In the Flesh?", begins with the words "...we came in?" – with a continuation of the melody of the last song, "Outside the Wall" – hinting at the cyclical nature of Waters' theme.
The LP's sleeve art and custom picture labels by Gerald Scarfe tied in with the album's concept. Side one had a quarter of the wall erected and a sketch of the teacher. Side two had half of the wall erected and a sketch of the wife. Side three had three-quarters of the wall erected and a sketch of the character of Pink, while side four had the wall completely erected and a sketch of the prosecutor. Bob Ezrin played a major part in taking Waters' demonstration material and clarifying the storyline by writing a script, which even required additional songs to complete the plot.[4]
Film version
A film version of The Wall was released in 1982 entitled Pink Floyd The Wall, directed by Alan Parker and starring Bob Geldof. The screenplay was written by Roger Waters. The film features music from the original album, much of which was re-recorded by the band with additional orchestration, some with minor lyrical and musical changes.
The film was originally intended to be intercut with concert footage and some of the live shows were actually filmed, but were not used in the final cut. Footage from these concerts has appeared on different websites from time to time. However, the only official release of this footage was that used in the documentary Behind the Wall.
Reception
Immensely successful upon release, The Wall quickly jumped to #1 on the Billboard 200 in the U.S in its fourth week (it debuted at #53) and #3 in the U.K.. Its worldwide sales are estimated at 15 million copies (30 million units), and in the U.S. it has achieved 23 times platinum (for sales of 11.5 million double-disc sets[5][6]; statistics mistakenly identifying The Wall as the best selling multiple-disc album of all-time in the U.S. and third best-selling album by any artist in the U.S. do not take into account that double albums count as two platinum sales), and is their second best-selling album in the U.S. after The Dark Side of the Moon. It was among the most popular albums of the early 1980s, to the extent that film director Alan Parker created a film based on it. The album had a string of hit singles, with "Another Brick in the Wall Part 2" being their only song to hit #1 on Billboard.
In addition to its commercial success, critical reception of The Wall was, and remains, mostly positive. Carlo Twist of Blender gave it 5 stars out of a possible 5, stating that, "For all its pomp and lofty ambition, there’s a streak of almost punk-rock venom within, not to mention some of the band’s best humping, thumping heavy rock."[7] Stephen Thomas Erlewine of AllMusic Guide was slightly more critical, but nevertheless said that, "its seamless surface, blending melodic fragments and sound effects, makes the musical shortcomings and questionable lyrics easy to ignore."[8] Kurt Loder of Rolling Stone remarked, "The Wall is the most startling rhetorical achievement in the group's singular, thirteen-year career."[9] That same magazine later ranked The Wall at #87 on its list of The 500 Greatest Albums of All Time.[10] The Wall would also be included in the book 1001 Albums You Must Hear Before You Die.
Post-split
After Waters left Pink Floyd in 1985, a legal struggle ensued over the rights to the name "Pink Floyd" and its material. In the end, Waters retained the right to use The Wall, and its material and imagery (save for three songs which Gilmour co-wrote: "Young Lust", "Comfortably Numb" and "Run Like Hell"), as his name has been most closely associated with the album. This meant that the three remaining members' 1987–1990 and 1994 tours under the name Pink Floyd required payments to Waters.[citation needed]
Waters staged a concert performance of The Wall at Potsdamer Platz in Berlin on 21 July 1990 both to commemorate the fall of the Berlin Wall and as a fundraising effort for the World War Memorial Fund for Disaster Relief. The event was produced and cast by British producer and impresario Tony Hollingsworth, and featured guest artists including Bryan Adams, Cyndi Lauper, Sinéad O'Connor, Joni Mitchell, and Van Morrison, as well as members of The Band. This performance also differed from previous shows in that some songs from the original album and Pink Floyd concert version were omitted, others were slightly modified, and one Waters solo song, "The Tide Is Turning" was substituted for "Outside The Wall" as the concluding song.
Covers
Kingston, Ontario's Luther Wright and the Wrongs, did a bluegrass cover of this album entitled Rebuild the Wall. [11]
The band Korn frequently covered Pink Floyd to close their concerts[12] and included "Another Brick in the Wall" on Greatest Hits Volume 1. This cover included excerpts from "Another Brick in the Wall" parts 1, 2, and 3, as well as "Goodbye Cruel World".
Track listing
All tracks are written by Roger Waters, except where noted
| No. | Title | Length |
|---|---|---|
| 1. | "In the Flesh?" | 3:19 |
| 2. | "The Thin Ice" | 2:27 |
| 3. | "Another Brick in the Wall Part 1" | 3:21 |
| 4. | "The Happiest Days of Our Lives" | 1:46 |
| 5. | "Another Brick in the Wall Part 2" | 4:00 |
| 6. | "Mother" | 5:36 |
| No. | Title | Writer(s) | Length |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1. | "Goodbye Blue Sky" | 2:45 | |
| 2. | "Empty Spaces" | 2:10 | |
| 3. | "Young Lust" | Waters, David Gilmour | 3:25 |
| 4. | "One of My Turns" | 3:35 | |
| 5. | "Don't Leave Me Now" | 4:16 | |
| 6. | "Another Brick in the Wall Part 3" | 1:14 | |
| 7. | "Goodbye Cruel World" | 1:13 |
| No. | Title | Writer(s) | Length |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1. | "Hey You" | 4:40 | |
| 2. | "Is There Anybody Out There?" | 2:44 | |
| 3. | "Nobody Home" | 3:26 | |
| 4. | "Vera" | 1:35 | |
| 5. | "Bring the Boys Back Home" | 1:21 | |
| 6. | "Comfortably Numb" | Gilmour, Waters | 6:24 |
| No. | Title | Writer(s) | Length |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1. | "The Show Must Go On" | 1:36 | |
| 2. | "In the Flesh" | 4:13 | |
| 3. | "Run Like Hell" | Gilmour, Waters | 4:19 |
| 4. | "Waiting for the Worms" | 4:04 | |
| 5. | "Stop" | 0:30 | |
| 6. | "The Trial" | Waters, Bob Ezrin | 5:13 |
| 7. | "Outside the Wall" | 1:41 |
Singles
- "Another Brick in the Wall (Part 2)"/"One of My Turns" - Harvest HAR 5194; released 16 November 1979 (UK, U.S., France and Italy [with One of my Turns as a B-Side])
- "Run Like Hell"/"Don't Leave Me Now" - Columbia 1-11265; released April, 1980 (Holland, Sweden and US)
- "Comfortably Numb"/"Hey You" - Columbia 1-11311; released June, 1980 (US and Japan)
Sales chart performance
- Album
| Year | Chart | Peak |
|---|---|---|
| 1979 | UK album chart | 3[13] |
| Norwegian Album Chart | 1[14] | |
| Spanish Album Chart | 9[15] | |
| Swedish Album Chart | 1[16] | |
| Swiss Album Chart | 29[17] | |
| German Album Chart | 1[18] | |
| Danish Album Chart | 19[citation needed] | |
| New Zealand Album Chart | 24[19] | |
| Italian Album Chart | 13[20] | |
| Finnish Album Chart | 21[citation needed] | |
| 1980 | The Billboard 200 | 1[21] |
| French Album Charts | 1[22] |
The album also charted in Austria.[23]
- Singles
| Year | Single | Chart | Position |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1979 | "Another Brick in the Wall (Part 2)" | UK Top 40[24] | 1 |
| 1980 | "Another Brick in the Wall (Part 2)" | US Billboard Pop Singles[25] | 1 |
| 1980 | "Run Like Hell" | US Billboard Pop Singles[25] | 53 |
| 1980 | "Another Brick in the Wall (Part 2)" | Norway's single chart[citation needed] | 1 |
Awards
| Year | Winner | Category |
|---|---|---|
| 1981 | The Wall | Grammy Award for Best Engineered Album, Non-Classical |
Selected album sales
| Country | Certification | Sales | Last certification date | Comment | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Australia | 11× Platinum | 770,000+[26] | |||
| Canada | 2× Diamond | 2,000,000+ | 31 August 1995[27] | ||
| United Kingdom | Platinum | 300,000+[28] | |||
| United States Nielsen Soundscan | 5,220,000+[29] | 16 February 2008 | Nielsen began tracking sales data on 1 March 1991 | ||
| United States RIAA | 23× Platinum | 11,500,000+ | 29 January 1999[30] | 8× Platinum on 28 May 1991 |
Personnel
- David Gilmour — guitars, vocals, co-producer, bass guitar, sequencer, synthesiser, clavinet, percussion
- Nick Mason — drums, percussion
- Roger Waters — vocals, bass guitar, co-producer, synthesiser, electric and acoustic guitar, sleeve design
- Richard Wright — piano, organ, synthesiser, clavinet, bass pedals
- Additional musicians
- Joe Chemay — backing vocals
- Ron di Blasi — classical guitar on "Is There Anybody Out There?"
- Bob Ezrin — keyboards
- Stan Farber — backing vocals
- Fourth form music class, Islington Green School, London — backing vocals
- James Guthrie — percussion, Synthesiser on "Empty Spaces" (in collaboration with David Gilmour), sequencer, drums on "The Happiest Days of Our Lives" (in collaboration with Nick Mason)
- Jim Haas — backing vocals
- Bobbye Hall — percussion
- Bruce Johnston — backing vocals
- Jon Joyce — backing vocals
- Freddie Mandel — Hammond organ on "In the Flesh?" and "In the Flesh"
- Frank Marrocco — concertina
- Bleu Ocean — marching snare drum on "Bring the Boys Back Home"
- Jeff Porcaro — drums on "Mother"[31], marching snare drum on "Bring the Boys Back Home"
- Lee Ritenour — rhythm guitar on "One of My Turns" and acoustic guitar on "Comfortably Numb"
- Toni Tennille — backing vocals
- Trevor Veitch — mandolin
- Larry Williams — clarinet on "Outside the Wall"
- Production
- Justin Dimma — engineering
- Bob Ezrin — co-producer, orchestra arrangement
- Nick Griffiths — engineering
- James Guthrie — co-producer, engineer, remastering producer
- Rick Hart — engineering
- Robert Hrycyna — engineering
- Michael Kamen — orchestra arrangement
- Darren McIntomney — engineering
- Patrice Queff — engineering
- Doug Sax — mastering and remastering
- Gerald Scarfe — sleeve design
References
- ^ Mason, Nick (2004). Inside Out : A Personal History of Pink Floyd. London: Orion Books. p. 245. ISBN 0753819066.
{{cite book}}: Cite has empty unknown parameter:|coauthors=(help) - ^ [1]
- ^ Off the Kuff: Another lawsuit in the wall
- ^ a b Sylvie Simmons "Danger! Demolition In Progress" Mojo 73, December 1999. The feature includes interviews with all the band, plus Bob Ezrin, James Guthrie and Gerald Scarfe.
- ^ RIAA - Diamond Awards
- ^ RIAA - Criteria
- ^ Blender, February 1980
{{citation}}: Cite has empty unknown parameter:|unused_data=(help); Unknown parameter|http://blender.com/guide/reviews.aspx?id=ignored (help)CS1 maint: year (link) - ^ AllMusic Guide, February 1980
{{citation}}: Cite has empty unknown parameter:|unused_data=(help); Unknown parameter|http://www.allmusic.com/cg/amg.dll?p=ignored (help)CS1 maint: year (link). - ^ Rolling Stone, February 1980
{{citation}}: Cite has empty unknown parameter:|unused_data=(help); Text "http://www.rollingstone.com/artists/pinkfloyd/albums/album/114225/review/6067347/the_wall" ignored (help)CS1 maint: year (link). - ^ 87) The Wall : Rolling Stone
- ^ http://www.lutherwright.com/thewall.php
- ^ http://jam.canoe.ca/Music/Artists/K/Korn/ConcertReviews/2007/07/25/4366510-sun.html
- ^ "UK Chart". UK Albums Chart. Retrieved 2007-07-26.
{{cite web}}: Italic or bold markup not allowed in:|publisher=(help) - ^ "Norwegian Chart". Retrieved 2007-07-26.
- ^ "Spanish Chart". Spain. Retrieved 2007-07-26.
{{cite web}}: Italic or bold markup not allowed in:|publisher=(help) - ^ "Swedish Chart". Retrieved 2007-07-26.
- ^ "Swiss Chart". Retrieved 2007-07-26.
- ^ "German Chart". Retrieved 2007-07-26.
- ^ "New Zealand Chart". New Zealand. Retrieved 2007-07-26.
{{cite web}}: Italic or bold markup not allowed in:|publisher=(help) - ^ "Italian Chart". Retrieved 2007-07-26.
- ^ "American chart positions". Billboard. Retrieved 2007-07-26.
{{cite web}}: Italic or bold markup not allowed in:|publisher=(help) - ^ "French Album Chart". Retrieved 200-05-24.
{{cite web}}: Check date values in:|accessdate=(help) - ^ "Austria Chart". Retrieved 2007-07-26.
- ^ Rice, Tim (1995). British Hit Singles. Enfield, Middlesex: Guinness Publishing Ltd. p. 241. ISBN 0851126332.
{{cite book}}: Unknown parameter|coauthors=ignored (|author=suggested) (help) - ^ a b "Pink Floyd Charts & Awards". Retrieved 2008-11-25.
- ^ Gold & Platin, aria, retrieved 2009-05-24
- ^ Canadian certification database, cria.ca, retrieved 2009-05-24
- ^ UK Awards database ([dead link] – Scholar search), bpi.co.uk, retrieved 2009-03-28
{{citation}}: External link in|format= - ^ Soundscan, Soundscan, retrieved 2009-05-24
- ^ US Certifications database, riaa.com, retrieved 2009-03-28
- ^ David Gilmour interview, Mojo Magazine, 1994
External links
- Pages with empty short description
- 1979 albums
- Albums produced by Roger Waters
- Albums produced by James Guthrie
- Albums produced by Bob Ezrin
- Albums produced by David Gilmour
- Capitol Records albums
- Columbia Records albums
- Concept albums
- Double albums
- EMI Records albums
- English-language albums
- Harvest Records albums
- Musical films
- Pink Floyd albums
- Rock operas