Pink Floyd - The Wall: Classic or Dud?

I went through a phase of hating it, but now I think maybe it's just a good album unnecessarily bloated into a double.

Sampled by Kate Bush, therefore classic.

What sample?

apparently the helicopter sound in waking the witch is from the wall, but they sound different to me. in fact, i'm not sure I remember a helicopter sound in the wall at all

in fact, i'm not sure I remember a helicopter sound in the wall at all

Right in between "Another Brick In The Wall (Pt.1)" and "The Happiest Days of Our Lifes" (when the Teacher character is screaming STAND STILL, LADDIE!. Or something.

oh right. well it might have been the same helicopter sound from the same source, but it doesn't sound lifted from the album per se.

I don't appreciate being led by the hand through The Wall via "music concrete"
Its extremely off-putting and unnecessary with such a work
and Its too much Roger Waters pretension, story-telling and ego; not enough Gilmour brilliance; or Rick Wright accessibility.
Also, everything classic by the Floyd, with the exception of Dark Side(A notable exception, I know) invoked the memory of Syd, and this was never going to be another Dark Side.
Maybe when they recorded/wrote with him in mind, they had him on their mind, overlooking them, therefore filtering out all this Waters Bollocks.
Although mild applause for 'Pros and Cons'

Gilmour brilliance

i'm still trying to wrap my head around this...like trying to imagine dry water.

Oh please. Dave Gilmour is an exceptional guitarist -- like him or not.

Gilmour brilliance

i'm still trying to wrap my head around this...like trying to imagine dry water.

-- Lawrence the Looter, Wednesday, 26 September 2007 00:05

cold.

dark side doesn't invoke syd? what's "brain damage" about then?

Richard Wright was more or less thrown out of the group by the time, which is why "The Wall" doesn't work out. It would have benefited from synths being more prominent, like on "Dark Side Of The Moon" and "Wish You Were Here".

-- Geir Hongro (GeirHong), Friday, February 10, 2006 6:36 AM (2 years ago) Bookmark Link

^^^^^^^^
every now and then, geir is 1,000% OTM.

i love the wall and find it to be a very potent work. some fantastic songwriting and arrangements with a really cohesive narrative holding the whole thing together. the concept is definitely the product of a very self-absorbed individual, but it works well in terms of touching on more universal themes, such as loss, loneliness, and lethargy.

Only makes sense to me in context with the movie. As a musical item it is frankly poor.

Well, it predates the film rather significantly, you realize.

Then what I really meant is that the movie is definitely a classic but the soundtrack is dud.

"Comfortably Numb" plus a load of stuff I never need to hear. Might be interesting to listen to it all thru again now. Remember the film being A Bit Rub.

kind of sad, people who don't get how much this album rules

Nobody Home

the obligatory hendrix perm
and the inevitable pin-hole burns, all down the front of my favorite satin sheets

shirt, not sheets, I think.

Gotta admit the TV sample kicking in at the end of Nobody Home is pretty poignant

album is all about The Trial, obv

....FILLS ME WITH THE URGE TO DEFECATE!!!!

Yeah, "The Trial" is freakin' superb.

i've got wild, staring eyes
and i got a strong urge to fly

lots of urges examined on that album

roger rapping through a megaphone in racist terms during "waiting for the worms" is a watershed moment in hip hop history

when i pick up the phone
-surprise, surprise, surprise
there's still nobody home

^^^yeah this

dud, okthxbye

good, leave, because you suck

kneejerk hatred of the wall is BORING

To paraphrase an ILXor, The Wall's a great album, but I cannot for the life of me foresee any future circumstance that will ever lead me to listen to the whole damn thing ever again.

This immensely overrated and uneven record is about 30% brilliant, 40% passable, and 30% dreadful. I fucking love "Comfortably Numb." I have a soft spot for "Nobody Home" even though it's pretty stupid. The parts with Roger Waters screaming get annoying after a while.. yeah, I get it.. he's going crazy.. shut up and sing. I can no longer listen to the medley of "Another Brick Part 1" "The Happiest Days Of Our Lives" and "Another Brick Part 2" due to becoming absurdly overplayed on US classic rock stations.

It gains points for containing reversed hidden messages which stands as one of the scariest things I've ever heard on a rock album.

It gains points for being briefly discussed in the "Chip's Party" sketch on MTV's The State.

It loses points for containing 81 minutes of music.. had there been 2 less minutes it could have fit onto a single CD, thus making it so that record stores wouldn't be able to charge $29.99 for something that should be worth closer to $8.99.

The parts with Roger Waters screaming get annoying after a while

Have you head The Final Cut?

"The Gunner's Dream" has the best Waters scream since "Careful With that Ax, Eugene".

Hey, that rhymes.

i say neither classic nor dud, but i really like "Goodbye Blue Sky", "C Numb" and a couple others

billstevejim, who's immensely overrated this album in like the past 20 years? just curious. all i ever hear or read at best are high-handed dismissals like what you just wrote

I'm convinced that at least a quarter of the people who hate it so much now liked it at one point in their lives.

I absolutely love the first seven songs, the stretch through "Goodbye Blue Sky". The rest of the first cd is pretty poor, I think, with dreariness like "Don't Leave Me Now" totally killing the momentum. It doesn't help that the only song on here I really hate is "Young Lust", which, given how many plays it got on 96 Rock back in the day, seems to have been a highlight to someone. The second cd is pretty great, but the skits ("Bring The Boys Back Home", "The Show Must Go On") rub me the wrong way now, reaching for theater and falling short. But man "Hey You" is great: I love that acoustic sound, like they managed to get all the echo off the strings, so that it sounds like rubbing against a resonant zipper (hey, maybe we're back to young lust again).

I've grown to appreciate, if not like, most of their albums, including Animals and the stupidly obvious, literal Dark Side of the Moon, but I've always hated The Wall. I'd rather listen to late seventies Emerson Lake and Palmer.

ok, I take back what I said about "Bring The Boys Back Home"; just listened to it fucking loud and it sounded great.

Then what I really meant is that the movie is definitely a classic but the soundtrack is dud.

it is not a soundtrack

this was my favorite album on earth when I was, like, 13. I only listen to it once a year now but I still enjoy it, sure there is some boring stuff but the highlights on here are pretty high, I mean, REALLY high...Mother? Comfortably Numb? I love PF pre-Dark Side like anyone else and listen to that more often, but those songs are exceptional. No-one makes records this overblown now. I dare someone to try!

"Mother" is such a wonderfully fucked-up song.

billstevejim, who's immensely overrated this album in like the past 20 years?

copied from wikipedia: In 2003, Rolling Stone magazine listed The Wall as #87 in Rolling Stone's 500 Greatest Albums of All Time.

I consider the Rolling Stone canon as the ultimate example.. I can understand why Wenner included it so highly, as it's beloved among classic rock fans (as opposed to Pink Floyd fans.. most hardcore Floyd fans familiar with the entire catalog don't consider this one of their best albums.. I've never been given that indication anyway).

Yes I enjoyed this record when i was 13 but I was also listening to a LOT of classic rock radio at the time..

I still enjoy at least half of it.

I loved it at the time, and I've continued to love it. I'm aware of how somewhat preposterously bloated and ludicrous much of it is, but that doesn't diminish my love for it one iota.

Yeah, I may never actually listen to it again, but the impact that it had on 13-year-old me cannot be overstated, and for that it remains Classic forever.

I dont know... I think it just rubs me the wrong way. When I was around 13 (is this the obliged age to listen to PF for the first time in your life?) an uncle lend me his vinyl collection of Pink Floyd and I listened started listening to them by chronological order. I made a whole ritual out of it. I would listen to only one album every 3 days. And after getting increasingly excited after the brilliant run of 'Meddle->Dark Side of the Moon->Animals->Wish you were here' smashing into 'The Wall' was a very dissapointing experience. Everything released prior to Wish you Were Here started sounding knackered to my ears. I still kept my ritual and still listened to every subsequent album for three days with hopes I would find a diamond somewhere, but asides a few great songs the overall result seemed offensive. It wasn't until I saw the movie a few years later that I was able to enjoy the music. Perhaps I just lacked the imagination to construct my own paranoid fantasy while listening to it.