Pink Floyd

The Wall

Not a Floyd album, but still fantastic

Review Score:

(10/10)
This album is not a masquerade as certain Philistines like to spout, but a genuine art album with fantastic songs, great vocals, and a truly original and layered concept. It expresses the alienation not only of an individual from society but also that which Roger Waters felt the Floyd was experiencing from the audience at the enormous, impersonal arena shows they had evolved to in the preceding decade. "Another Brick in the Wall" changes its focus but not its message on all three of its incarnations; the entire string of songs between "Empty Spaces" and "Goodbye Cruel World" describes the downfall of Waters' own marriage; "Hey You" is the central piece of the whole album, summing up the fear and anxiety of those on the wrong side of the wall; and "Comfortably Numb" is a subtle and rocking lament of the use of drugs in the rock world.
All in all, a great double album (originally a triple or perhaps even a quadruple album in Waters' first conception), although veterans of Pink Floyd's earlier albums (up to and including "Wish You Were Here") will definately detect a distinct difference from the band's famous "sound." It was with this album (and, really, "Animals" immediately before) that Roger Waters really took control of the band and made Pink Floyd essentially his backing group. This is the main complaint about the album in this reviewer's opinion, but it does not overshadow the high quality of the songs and of the band's playing.
Not Floyd's best, but certainly worth owning and warrents multiple listenings.

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