Pink Floyd: The Wall - 1979

 

As I have pointed out throughout my delvings into their output, I was not, and still am not, really a fan. Some of their stuff I like, but much of it just fails to reach my senses in the way it clearly does many other people. 

In 1979, when I was far more interested in many other artists, they released this huge selling - and slightly more accessible -concept album, a few tracks on which have caught my ear, particularly the superior (of the three parts) Another Brick In The Wall, Part 1 (the well-known anti-education rant of a single was, of course, Part 2), along with Young Lust, Roger Waters' somewhat typically oedipal Mother, the slightly funky Run Like Hell, the very Floyd-y Hey You and the drugged-up anthem Comfortably Numb but I simply find it difficult to be motivated to trawl through something that goes on for ages and isn't really all to my taste. That said, I have listened to it through several times, though, and it is not without its merit in places, although concept albums were so naff in 1979 (or so I thought - it seems many other people didn't - it sold shedloads). 

There are five or six genuinely good tracks on the album but there is too much "concept" for my liking - too many of Roger Waters' neuroses put to music - rather like on Genesis's similarly sprawling The Lamb Lies Down On Broadway. In between the "proper" tracks are too many shorter "concept" pieces. That's just me and my aversion to concept albums - as those beasts go, it flows pretty well. The same applies to The Final Cut, the last album to feature Roger Waters. I have to admit to liking the tracks that I have heard from The Division Bell, however, but I will, though, leave Pink Floyd there, probably wisely. Oh go on then, I'll give the next two a listen...