Also, consider that during the '70s, Pink Floyd already mastered the art of mixing fear, angst, despair, etc. with powerful and moving chords in their 3 previous concept albums (Dark Side of the Moon, Wish You Were Here, and Animals). This album was expected to do great by their fans and they were not disappointed. They also picked up a new generation of fans in the process (I fall in this category) with this album.
Good thing that the album came out before the movie. Otherwise, I think the album would have been a cult album instead of a popular progressive mainstream album. Another factor was their extravagant stadium tour that also bolstered the anticipated film which shared the same animation, concepts and other nuances for the film.
“You can’t have any pudding if you don’t eat your meat! How can you have any pudding without eating your meat?”
I’m glad to see Sam Stone and I agree about something.
I just need to chime in that the expert execution of the music makes it fan-damn-tastic despite the fact that before you hear it, the very idea of the potential sound ought to curl your toes. Listen objectively to “Another Brick in the Wall, Pt. 2”, and several other tracks: It’s Disco Pink Floyd!!!
a coherent storyline that ends on a hopeful note after all that angst.
tapped into anger and alienation of teens (and in my case, severe depression, and I was in my early 20s at the time).
The movie was equally unconventional, with its mix of music, animation, live-action and starring Bob Geldorf (lead singer of the Boomtown Rats, loved their “Tonic for the Troops” album with songs like “I Never Loved (Eva Braun)”.
OK, admittedly I was never terribly mainstream in the music department, and my friends and I spent the 80s listening mostly to the music of the 60s, 70s, and 1400s - 1800s. (Forgive us; we were choir geeks.)
But I loved that album, and in fact all later Pink Floyd. As other have said, it has aged quite well. (Plus I’m generally a fan of concept albums anyway.) Don’t mess with the classics! In fact, one of my admissions essays for the University of Chicago was on The Wall: the topic was “choose a work of art and explain why it has meaning for you.” I don’t have a copy anymore, but essentially I wrote that art needs to have emotional resonance with the experiencer, and The Wall got me in the gut like few albums/movies ever had. (Of course, it helped to see it on a normal big theater screen rather than on some of the dinky multiplex screens that are around now.) It worked; they accepted me. Maybe that’s why I still have…maybe warm fuzzies isn’t the right word in this case, but you know what I mean.
That movie was just chock-full of seventeen flavors of angst, and a lot of stuff that I was barely on the verge of comprehending (hey, I was 13 for most of 1982 - I might have seen the movie a coupe of years later, but still pretty darn young in any case, and too sheltered to be able to comprehend all the stuff about the breakup, violoence, and even most of the Cold War imagery). Plus the visual imagery was unlike anything I’d ever seen before; I was more of a reader than a moviegoer. It was just so damn intense.
For the record, I’ve never used drugs. Not even once. (Except secondhand smoke, but well, that doesn’t really count.)
I am always surprised to hear that Pink Floyd is regarded as music for the teenage-coming-of-age phase. Doesn’t it resonate well with adults as well? The feeling of isolation is ageless and universal.
Thanks for the correction. I should have read the results of my Google search a little closer.
I hadn’t listened to the album in quite a while so, prompted by this thread, I popped it into my car CD player on my drive to Chicago this past weekend. I know I’m being repetitive and redundant (heh, heh), but this album is sheer genious.
Yes, but its expression in the music of Pink Floyd resonates best with a certain age group.
e.g., several years ago, a co-worker and broke into a spontaneous rendition of “Time” from Dark Side of the Moon, only to find that every single lyric was no longer on the tip of our tongues. When I expressed my mortification, he replied, nonchalantly “Well, I don’t have a lot of teen angst anymore…”
‘Weird Al’ Yankovic is the Master of this technique!
Anyway, Pink Floyd was hugely popular when I was a teenager, and I was an alienated, isolated lonely kid. And I couldn’t stand Pink Floyd because the music was always so depressing to me. I could be in a great mood, and listening to Floyd would bring me right down. Don’t know why - the music was good. I just always felt really bummed when I listened to more than a couple songs.
Well, except for “Money”. I really like that song.
