Over 30 years ago, after their final show during the band's 1977 tour, In the Flesh, Pink Floyd's bassist and singer Roger Waters expressed a desire to place a wall between the audience and himself.
From that point on that Waters would spit in a fan's face and express his anxieties of extreme alienation that he felt during the tour. With the rest of the band working on solo projects, Waters decided to work on something new.
Waters's growing awareness of his alienation and his stardom would go on to give birth to something that Pink Floyd never encountered. Two years later, the band would complete their massive double album, The Wall.
The Wall would go on to become the band's highest selling album. It ranks in the top five highest selling albums, reaching platinum 20 times. Pink Floyd also reached new heights in popularity with a huge tour and a film based on the album.
With The Wall, Pink Floyd entered uncharted territory. Waters created not only a brilliant lineup of music, he also told a deeply personal story that reflected on his entire life and the problems he was facing.
A rock star named Pink makes himself front and center for the album's narrative. The album constructs a series of events that lead to Pink's isolation. His father dying during World War II and an overprotective mother create all the 'bricks' to build a metaphysical 'wall' around him.
When Pink becomes a rock star, the wall nears completion. A series of incidents involving infidelity, violence and drugs lead to a very theatrical end in a moment of self-trial and judgment, all mirroring events in Waters's life.
The ghost of Syd Barret still haunted the band at this point. In many songs, the evident influence of the tragic life of the former member still lingers on. Pink's fall into drugs and ruin is definitely a reflection of Barret's dark descent.
Concept albums and rock operas were nothing new to the world of music. The Who did it twice before Floyd with Tommy, which was 10 years earlier, and Quadrophenia, released six years prior.
However, The Wall marked a clear departure for Pink Floyd. It was giant leap in style and tone change for the band.
Their first big success, Dark Side of the Moon, cemented their style and what people came to expect from the progressive rock group. There was always a tranquil yet fast-paced psychedelic-speared music approach that they used since their much more experimental first album, Piper at the Gates of Dawn.
The album's opening track, 'In the Flesh' (which was no doubt referring to the concert incident), starts with a few seconds of a sense of serenity before being slashed away violently by David Gilmour's guitar. The new, harsher style has arrived.
The album's musical style and themes are much more caustic and scathing than the ones heard on any previous Pink Floyd effort. All the instrumentals sound harder and much more thunderous.
Another welcome change was Waters's voice. Waters replaces the quieter voice used in songs like Moon's 'Brain Damage' with something theatrical and booming, almost scream-like. It is a much more intense version of himself, and well suited for the darker tones of the album.
The Wall brought along a long list of new original songs to the band's library. Tracks like 'Young Lust,' 'The Trial,' 'The Happiest Days of Our Lives' and 'Another Brick in the Wall (Part 2)' were genuinely fresh and inventive for the band. 'The Trial' resembles something out of a traditional musical, with Waters providing the voices of a cast of deranged characters.
The album is definitely Waters's baby, but it would be a crime not to mention David Gilmour and his guitar work. One of the band's most popular songs, 'Comfortably Numb,' was written and sung by Gilmour. The Wall would not sound the same without the contribution from Gilmour.
The album brought Waters's inner demons to life, tackling their usual themes in a new, darker light. Motifs like insanity, drug abuse, conformity and isolation are all demonstrated through the narrative, with one striking difference – the lack of hope.
At the beginning of the album, Waters quietly queries, '...we came in?' before the guitar breaks in, while in the slower ending track, 'Outside the Wall' Walter ends with, 'Isn't this where…' The album itself is cyclical in nature, noting that these themes will continue.
After 30 years, The Wall is still regarded as one of the greatest albums of all time, with powerful songs rallying against conformity and isolation that still connect to audiences years after its release.
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