"Wall": remember the legendary album Pink Floyd - this year it will be 39 years old
On November 30, 1979, the legendary album “The Wall” by Pink Floyd was released - this year it will turn 39 years old. This is the last CD recorded in the classic line-up and the 3rd best-selling album in the US (after Thriller Michael Jackson and Their Greatest Hits (1971-1975) of the Eagles group). We decided to recall the interesting facts and history of the legendary album.
Photo Soreen D / CC BY
The Wall is not just a collection of songs, but a rock opera, where all the tracks are united by a common plot. The main character is Pink (written on the basis of the features of bass guitarist Roger Waters and Sid Barrett, the founder of the band, who by that time had already left the band).
The idea for the story came to Waters after the incident on the final show of the first stadium tour of the group In the Flesh Tour. Then Waters spat into a group of particularly noisy fans. After that, he thought about the wall, which separates the performer (who in this role is literally "allowed everything") from the audience (the part that comes to the concert to have fun and is not ready to understand what the musician wants to convey to her).
The main theme of the album was the voluntary isolation of a person. He, like a wall, personally collects it from the bricks that the authoritarian society and people around throw up at him.
Waters' first approach to the “script” of the album was very autobiographical. Due to financial troubles, the new disc had to be released as soon as possible, and the Watres project was the largest in the entire history of the group. The hired producer Bob Ezrin helped to improve the structure of the album, got rid of his biographical background and suggested putting Pick in the center of the plot - a character who combined the features of several people.
In the story, Pink turns every element of a painful past and present into a new brick of her “wall”: this is both the dominant mother and fatherless childhood (this moment is autobiographical for Waters), the “stupefying” educational system, and “drug escapades” (and this the plot is more associated with Syd Barrett).
As a result, from the gloomy story of nihilism and meaninglessness of existence, “Wall”, by the efforts of its creators, turned into a hymn of a generation trying to find themselves and the meaning of life in the world, which continues to feel the consequences of World War II.
Interestingly, critics met the album ambiguously - someone found it too kitsch collection of fairly obvious, but obsessive ideas of Waters.
Nevertheless, the audience accepted the album very well - it lasted in the first line of the charts for 15 weeks. Already in December 1979, the album became “platinum” in the UK, and in March in the USA. The story of all judged - now it is one of the best-selling albums in America, the second most popular album of the group (after The Dark Side of the Moon), and a regular participant in the ratings and tops of the Greatest Albums. Over the entire history, more than 30 million copies have been sold .
Film adaptation
Rock opera was so popular that in 1982 it was adapted in film format - the feature film “The Wall,” directed by Alan Parker. The main character Pink played musician Bob Geldof, the leader of the Irish punk rock band The Boomtown Rats.
The film mixes game and animation episodes - the latter was made by cartoonist and animator Gerald Scarfe, and they glorified him. There are no dialogues in the film, and Pink Floyd's songs give the meaning to the allegorical video sequence (many of which changed a little to better serve this purpose).
The film consists of a large number of images, visual and plot metaphors that are supported by the lines from the Pink Floyd songs. The most famous song from the film was “Another Brick in the Wall, Part II” - the official video included some scenes from the film, as well as animated inserts (the famous hammer march, the teacher and the “meat grinder”), although they accompanied other musical compositions.
On the big screen "Wall" expected success. Despite the fact that on the first weekend after the release (in August 1982), the film was shown in only one US cinema, it quickly gained popularity, and by September 10 held the third place in the charts after “Alien” by Steven Spielberg and the drama “Officer and Gentleman "And eventually earned $ 22 million at the box office.
Children's choir
To record one of the same verses in the single "Another Brick in the Wall, Part II", a real children's choir from the school Islington Green was invited. The performance of the verse was recorded on several tracks and reduced - it seemed that the children were actually much more.
A music teacher at Islington Green took her students to a recording studio without the permission of the principal. However, due to the fact that the song turned out to be “scandalous”, the young singers were forbidden to participate in video recording or in television filming on the Wall. As a result, no “material evidence” of the fact that these particular children performed the chorus did not survive.
The school paid a thousand pounds, while the young singers themselves received no money for their work. In 2004, the members of the choir (at this point already adults) filed a collective action demanding to pay royalties to them - the lawsuit, however, was not satisfied.
The wall and the figure of the teacher
In support of the album, the band conducted a tour of The Wall Tour. During the concerts, the group used several unusual stage decisions that went down in history.
For example, a 12-meter wall was built on the stage. In the gaps of the wall plot scenes were played out, animation was broadcast on the rest of the space. At the end of the wall was destroyed.
Also during the concerts were actively used images from the animation - hammers and teachers, who invented Scarf. The awesome figure of the teacher also appeared at some concerts.
Berlin Wall
Probably one of the most famous performances of the album of the group occurred in 1990 in Berlin. The concert of The Wall Live in Berlin was held on Potsdamer Platz, the territory that had recently been “no man’s land” between West and East Berlin.
The height of the wall, which was erected during the concert, was 25 meters - and at the end it was destroyed to the ground. Other musicians took part in the concert - Sinead O'Connor, Brian Adams, Van Morrison, the Scorpions group and others.
Preparations for the Berlin concert
Opera
In 2017, the Canadian Opéra de Montréal supplied the opera version of The Walls. To Roger Waters, the idea of turning The Wall into an opera at first seemed to be just horrible. However, the Canadian team was able to convince Waters that this project was worth it. According to the musician, he changed his mind about the project, after hearing symphonic versions of two songs - “Another Brick in the Wall, Part II” and “Comfortably Numb”. In an interview with Rolling Stone, Waters admitted that the original rock motifs in the symphonic versions were seriously reworked, and this new version turned out to be really exciting.
The premiere of the opera was greeted with ovations. True, Waters himself, who highly appreciates the work of Opéra de Montréal, emphasizes that the result is more likely to please fans of classical opera music, rather than fans of rock and Pink Floyd.
Roger Waters continues his concert activity and now - his tour of The Wall Live, which lasted from 2010 to 2013, was at that time the most successful tour of a solo artist (he collected a total of $ 459 million), overtaking Madonna from her show Sticky & Sweet ($ 407 million). The modern version of the show, in the same way as before, appeals to anti-war motives - according to Waters, the political overtones of the Wall over the years have become even more obvious:
In the new version of the concert tour, Waters was faced with the task of turning the “Wall” into a show suitable for demonstration at large stadiums and parks. According to the musician, there is a certain irony in this - after all, the idea to write an album came to him because of irritation at how a crowd of thousands of people acted at Pink Floyd concerts in the seventies (compared to earlier, chamber concerts, where musicians felt a union with listeners).
However, in the new version, Waters managed to “break through the wall” between the performer and the audience - and make it so that everyone in the huge crowd could feel a deep connection with the music and the idea of The Wall. By the way, songs from the cult album can be heard this year - on August 29 and 31, 2018, Roger Waters gives concerts in Moscow and St. Petersburg as part of the new tour Us + Them.
PS: Our latest selection of “ Hi-Fi World ” - software, hardware, headphones, amplifiers and “practice only”: 30 materials with recommendations for “audio lovers” .
Photo Soreen D / CC BY
The idea of "Walls"
The Wall is not just a collection of songs, but a rock opera, where all the tracks are united by a common plot. The main character is Pink (written on the basis of the features of bass guitarist Roger Waters and Sid Barrett, the founder of the band, who by that time had already left the band).
The idea for the story came to Waters after the incident on the final show of the first stadium tour of the group In the Flesh Tour. Then Waters spat into a group of particularly noisy fans. After that, he thought about the wall, which separates the performer (who in this role is literally "allowed everything") from the audience (the part that comes to the concert to have fun and is not ready to understand what the musician wants to convey to her).
The main theme of the album was the voluntary isolation of a person. He, like a wall, personally collects it from the bricks that the authoritarian society and people around throw up at him.
Waters' first approach to the “script” of the album was very autobiographical. Due to financial troubles, the new disc had to be released as soon as possible, and the Watres project was the largest in the entire history of the group. The hired producer Bob Ezrin helped to improve the structure of the album, got rid of his biographical background and suggested putting Pick in the center of the plot - a character who combined the features of several people.
In the story, Pink turns every element of a painful past and present into a new brick of her “wall”: this is both the dominant mother and fatherless childhood (this moment is autobiographical for Waters), the “stupefying” educational system, and “drug escapades” (and this the plot is more associated with Syd Barrett).
As a result, from the gloomy story of nihilism and meaninglessness of existence, “Wall”, by the efforts of its creators, turned into a hymn of a generation trying to find themselves and the meaning of life in the world, which continues to feel the consequences of World War II.
Critics and audience
Interestingly, critics met the album ambiguously - someone found it too kitsch collection of fairly obvious, but obsessive ideas of Waters.
Nevertheless, the audience accepted the album very well - it lasted in the first line of the charts for 15 weeks. Already in December 1979, the album became “platinum” in the UK, and in March in the USA. The story of all judged - now it is one of the best-selling albums in America, the second most popular album of the group (after The Dark Side of the Moon), and a regular participant in the ratings and tops of the Greatest Albums. Over the entire history, more than 30 million copies have been sold .
Interesting Facts
Film adaptation
Rock opera was so popular that in 1982 it was adapted in film format - the feature film “The Wall,” directed by Alan Parker. The main character Pink played musician Bob Geldof, the leader of the Irish punk rock band The Boomtown Rats.
The film mixes game and animation episodes - the latter was made by cartoonist and animator Gerald Scarfe, and they glorified him. There are no dialogues in the film, and Pink Floyd's songs give the meaning to the allegorical video sequence (many of which changed a little to better serve this purpose).
The film consists of a large number of images, visual and plot metaphors that are supported by the lines from the Pink Floyd songs. The most famous song from the film was “Another Brick in the Wall, Part II” - the official video included some scenes from the film, as well as animated inserts (the famous hammer march, the teacher and the “meat grinder”), although they accompanied other musical compositions.
On the big screen "Wall" expected success. Despite the fact that on the first weekend after the release (in August 1982), the film was shown in only one US cinema, it quickly gained popularity, and by September 10 held the third place in the charts after “Alien” by Steven Spielberg and the drama “Officer and Gentleman "And eventually earned $ 22 million at the box office.
Children's choir
To record one of the same verses in the single "Another Brick in the Wall, Part II", a real children's choir from the school Islington Green was invited. The performance of the verse was recorded on several tracks and reduced - it seemed that the children were actually much more.
A music teacher at Islington Green took her students to a recording studio without the permission of the principal. However, due to the fact that the song turned out to be “scandalous”, the young singers were forbidden to participate in video recording or in television filming on the Wall. As a result, no “material evidence” of the fact that these particular children performed the chorus did not survive.
The school paid a thousand pounds, while the young singers themselves received no money for their work. In 2004, the members of the choir (at this point already adults) filed a collective action demanding to pay royalties to them - the lawsuit, however, was not satisfied.
The wall and the figure of the teacher
In support of the album, the band conducted a tour of The Wall Tour. During the concerts, the group used several unusual stage decisions that went down in history.
For example, a 12-meter wall was built on the stage. In the gaps of the wall plot scenes were played out, animation was broadcast on the rest of the space. At the end of the wall was destroyed.
Also during the concerts were actively used images from the animation - hammers and teachers, who invented Scarf. The awesome figure of the teacher also appeared at some concerts.
Berlin Wall
Probably one of the most famous performances of the album of the group occurred in 1990 in Berlin. The concert of The Wall Live in Berlin was held on Potsdamer Platz, the territory that had recently been “no man’s land” between West and East Berlin.
The height of the wall, which was erected during the concert, was 25 meters - and at the end it was destroyed to the ground. Other musicians took part in the concert - Sinead O'Connor, Brian Adams, Van Morrison, the Scorpions group and others.
Preparations for the Berlin concert
Opera
In 2017, the Canadian Opéra de Montréal supplied the opera version of The Walls. To Roger Waters, the idea of turning The Wall into an opera at first seemed to be just horrible. However, the Canadian team was able to convince Waters that this project was worth it. According to the musician, he changed his mind about the project, after hearing symphonic versions of two songs - “Another Brick in the Wall, Part II” and “Comfortably Numb”. In an interview with Rolling Stone, Waters admitted that the original rock motifs in the symphonic versions were seriously reworked, and this new version turned out to be really exciting.
The premiere of the opera was greeted with ovations. True, Waters himself, who highly appreciates the work of Opéra de Montréal, emphasizes that the result is more likely to please fans of classical opera music, rather than fans of rock and Pink Floyd.
"The Wall" Nowadays
Roger Waters continues his concert activity and now - his tour of The Wall Live, which lasted from 2010 to 2013, was at that time the most successful tour of a solo artist (he collected a total of $ 459 million), overtaking Madonna from her show Sticky & Sweet ($ 407 million). The modern version of the show, in the same way as before, appeals to anti-war motives - according to Waters, the political overtones of the Wall over the years have become even more obvious:
“In my opinion, all songs have stood the test of time. Of course, now I am much further from the events that I described in the song “Don't Leave Me Now”. Everything related to my early relationships with women is now in the past. But I still empathize with the themes [which are raised in these songs]. On the other hand, I realized that many other songs have a much more serious political significance than I then thought.
[...]
These songs are not about little Roger, who lost his father in World War II, they are about all the children who lost their fathers. ”
In the new version of the concert tour, Waters was faced with the task of turning the “Wall” into a show suitable for demonstration at large stadiums and parks. According to the musician, there is a certain irony in this - after all, the idea to write an album came to him because of irritation at how a crowd of thousands of people acted at Pink Floyd concerts in the seventies (compared to earlier, chamber concerts, where musicians felt a union with listeners).
However, in the new version, Waters managed to “break through the wall” between the performer and the audience - and make it so that everyone in the huge crowd could feel a deep connection with the music and the idea of The Wall. By the way, songs from the cult album can be heard this year - on August 29 and 31, 2018, Roger Waters gives concerts in Moscow and St. Petersburg as part of the new tour Us + Them.
PS: Our latest selection of “ Hi-Fi World ” - software, hardware, headphones, amplifiers and “practice only”: 30 materials with recommendations for “audio lovers” .
Source: https://habr.com/ru/post/409655/