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The Wall

The Wall

:For the movie based on the album, see Pink Floyd The Wall (film). The Wall is a rock opera and concept album by Pink Floyd. Hailed by critics and fans as one of Pink Floyd's best albums (along with Dark Side of the Moon and Wish You Were Here), the album is known as a rock and roll classic, and its morbid, depressing anthems have inspired many contemporary rock musicians. This was the final Pink Floyd album to feature Richard Wright until his return in 1986. Roger Waters was inspired to create the album during a 1977 concert tour for Animals, dubbed Pink Floyd — In The Flesh. In Montreal, a fan's disruptive behaviour resulted in Waters spitting in the fan's face. Immediately disgusted with himself, Waters came up with the idea of building a wall between him and the audience, an idea which would later develop into the album. All of the songs were penned by Roger Waters with the exceptions of "Young Lust", "Comfortably Numb" and "Run Like Hell" which were co-written by David Gilmour and "The Trial", which was co-written by Bob Ezrin. The album has been certified 23 times platinum and hit #1 on the Billboard Album Charts in 1980. Originally released on Columbia Records in the US and Harvest Records in the UK, The Wall was then re-released as a digitally remastered CD in 1994 in the UK on EMI. Columbia issued the remastered CD in 1997 in the US and rest of the world. For The Walls 20th Anniversary in early 2000, Capitol Records in the US and EMI for the rest of the world outside the US re-released the 1997 remastered CD. In 1998 Q magazine readers voted The Wall the 65th greatest album of all time. In 2001, the Canadian alternative country band Luther Wright and the Wrongs released Rebuild the Wall, a track-for-track reimagining of The Wall as a country album.
Concept
The album's concept and most of the songs are by Waters. The storyline portrays the fictional life of an anti-hero named Pink Floyd, who is hammered and beaten down by society from the earliest days of his life: having lost his father (killed in Anzio during World War II, as was Waters' own), smothered by his over-protective mother and oppressed at school by tyrannical, abusive teachers who tried to crush him and the other pupils into the "right" shape for society. Pink withdraws into his own fantasy world, building an imaginary wall to isolate himself from the rest of the world. Every bad experience in his life is a brick in that wall. He becomes a rock star and gets married, only to be cheated on by his wife due to his distance and coldness. Pink slowly goes insane behind his freshly completed wall. Unable to escape, he calls for help, only realizing now that it is too late. Doctors are brought in to give him drugs to keep him going through his shows. Hallucinating, Pink believes that he is a fascist dictator, and his concerts are Neo-Nazi rallies where he sics his men on fans he considers unworthy, only to have his conscience rebel at this and put himself on trial, his inner judge ordering him to tear down his wall in order to open himself to the outside world.
Demo version
In 2003, the entire band demo tape for the album leaked onto the Internet, featuring remarkably different versions of many songs, and a three-part version of "Is There Anybody Out There?". The differences include:
- "In The Flesh (1)" has lyrics that are in the finished version of "In The Flesh (2)".
- "The Happiest Days Of Our Lives" is slower, and focuses on one teacher, rather than all of them.
- "Another Brick In The Wall (Part II)" is more like "Another Brick In The Wall (Part I)".
- "Mother" is faster-paced.
- "Young Lust" is entirely instrumental.
- "One Of My Turns" features entirely different dialogue from the groupie, and is slower paced.
- "What Shall We Do Now" is much slower paced than the version featured in the film.
- "Is There Anybody Out There (Part I)" consists of the instrumental interlude featured in the finished version.
- "Is There Anybody Out There (Part II)" features a previously unheard verse.
- "Is There Anybody Out There (Part III)" is much more like the finished version, although mainly instrumental.
- "Comfortably Numb" has almost entirely different lyrics which are much darker in tone.
- "The Show Must Go On" features a previously unheard verse.
- "In The Flesh (2)" features Roger Waters singing in a German accent.
- "Run Like Hell" is entirely instrumental. The rest of the tracks are basically the same as their finished counterparts, with perhaps a different lyric or riff here and there.
Recorded version
During recording, Richard Wright was fired from the band but stayed on to finish the album and perform the live concerts as a paid musician. According to co-producer/engineer James Guthrie, he played on more than half of the album. Toni Tennille, of Captain & Tennille, contributed to the song One of My Turns, speaking the part of a groupie who is invited back to Pink's trailer Around the world, the album produced a number of hit singles for Pink Floyd, including "Another Brick In The Wall (Part 2)", "Young Lust", "Hey You", "Comfortably Numb" and "Run Like Hell". For "Another Brick in the Wall (Part II)", Pink Floyd needed a school choir, and approached music teacher Alun Renshaw of Islington Green, around the corner from their Britannia Row Studios, in the middle of a lesson. The choir were not allowed to hear the rest of the song after singing the chorus, and were let down, as they wanted to hear Gilmour's solo. The chorus was overdubbed 12 times to give the impression that the choir was larger. Though the school received a lump sum payment of 1000 GBP, there was no contractual arrangement for royalties. Under 1996 UK copyright law, they became eligible, and after choir members were tracked down by royalties agent Peter Rowan of [http://www.rblmusic.com RBL Music], through the website Friends Reunited, they sued. Music industry professionals estimated that each student would be owed around 500 GBP.
Concert version
Pink Floyd performed the concert version of The Wall only a handful of times, in New York, Los Angeles, London, and Dortmund. This was due to the grandiosity of the performance, which involved constructing a giant wall across the stage between band and audience, not to mention staple Pink Floyd props such as giant screens, flying pigs and pyrotechnics. The performances began with the band in full view, with the giant wall being constructed by roadies out of 420 cardboard bricks throughout the first half of the performance. In the second half, the band would be completely obscured from view behind the wall, but still playing, while extra parts were played in front of the wall by a "surrogate band" composed of Andy Brown on bass, Snowy White on guitar, Willie Wilson on drums and Peter Wood on keyboards. The surrogate band wore masks of the faces of their counterparts in the real band. While playing lead guitar on "Comfortably Numb", guitarist David Gilmour was hoisted hydraulically on to the top of the wall, where he played his famous guitar solo in full view of the crowd. The wall was eventually torn down during "The Trial", and Pink Floyd themselves joined the surrogate band in front of the wreckage of the wall to perform the finale, "Outside The Wall". During the performance, giant puppets of the characters Teacher, Wife and Mother, designed by Gerald Scarfe, were used, and animations by Scarfe were projected onto a circular area and onto the wall itself. Added to this, a hotel room (where much of the story is set) emerges from the wall midway through the second half. The large stage shows required huge equipment (including full sized cranes), and cost an extraordinary amount of money to realize. As such, the band lost money from them, with the exception of Wright, who was retained on a fixed salary for the concerts after being fired during the production of the album. The intent of the band for these concerts was to give the audience a truly theatrical experience instead of just a show where the band played the songs. As such, during many songs, Waters assumed the role of the anti-hero , "Pink", singing despondently from a hotel room (a set on the stage). To this day, these performances are considered some of the greatest rock concerts ever. In 2000, the best performances from these concerts were compiled into a live version of the album called Is There Anybody Out There? The Wall Live 1980-81. The release includes two tracks ("What Shall We Do Now," "The Last Few Bricks"). The former was left off the studio release due to space constraints, and the latter was a medley of the first half to let the roadies finish building the wall.
Film version
Main article: Pink Floyd The Wall (film) A film version of The Wall was released in 1982 entitled Pink Floyd The Wall, directed by Alan Parker and starring Bob Geldof. The screenplay was written by Roger Waters. The film features music from the original album, much of which was re-recorded by the band with additional orchestration, some with minor lyrical and musical changes. It also includes a new song written especially for the film, "When The Tigers Broke Free". There were a couple of non-Pink Floyd songs featured in the film. The classic Vera Lynn song "The Little Boy That Santa Claus Forgot" opened the film, while Pink sang the words to the then-unreleased Roger Waters solo song "5:11AM (The Moment of Clarity)" (which would eventually see release on Waters' 1984 solo album The Pros and Cons of Hitch Hiking) in a restroom stall before singing the Pink Floyd song "Stop". Pink could also be heard singing a little bit of "Your Possible Pasts", which will appear in the album The Final Cut, before going into "5:11AM (The Moment of Clarity)" and then "Stop" During the scene where Pink finds his father's items during the second part of "When the Tigers Broke Free", Pink stumbled on his father's certificate of appreciation. The name on the certificate says "J.A. Pinkerton". It is assumed that Pink's real name is Floyd Pinkerton, and that Pink legally changed his name to Pink Floyd because he didn't like the name Floyd Pinkerton (the same way as Elton John changed his name from Reginald Dwight; Elton has stated in interviews that he hated his birth name since he was a child).
Stage version
Waters has licensed the story and music for a number of amateur dramatic versions, performed by schools and youth groups. In 2004, it was announced that contracts had been signed for a Broadway musical version, with extra music to be written by Waters. The Broadway version will feature all of the music written by Waters. It is, however, unknown what will be done with the songs co-written by Gilmour (Young Lust, Comfortably Numb, and Run Like Hell). The show is estimated to be complete by summer 2006 and will be of a slightly "lighter tone" than Pink Floyd The Wall was. Additionally, there are rumours that other Pink Floyd songs, possibly "Money" from the 1973 album Dark Side of the Moon, among others, will be included in the stage show.
Post-split
After Waters left the band, a legal battle ensued over the rights to the name "Pink Floyd" and its material. In the end, Waters retained the right to use The Wall and its material, and his name has been most closely associated with the album. Waters staged a gigantic concert performance of The Wall (with the addition of the song "The Tide Is Turning (After Live Aid)" from Waters' solo album Radio KAOS) in Berlin on 21 July 1990, with guest artists including Ute Lemper, The Band, Van Morrison, Sinéad O'Connor, Cyndi Lauper, Marianne Faithfull, The Scorpions, Joni Mitchell, Jerry Hall, and Bryan Adams, to commemorate the fall of the Berlin Wall and as a fundraising effort for World War Memorial Fund for Disaster Relief. At the UK Live 8 benefit concert on 2 July 2005, despite continued enmity between the former band members, Waters performed on stage with Gilmour, Mason and Wright for the first time in about 25 years, their last performance together being at The Wall concerts. Their set included "Comfortably Numb."
Track Listing (album version)

Disc one
#"In the Flesh? (3:16)" #"The Thin Ice (2:27)" #"Another Brick In The Wall (Part I) (3:21)" #"The Happiest Days of Our Lives (1:46)" #"Another Brick In The Wall (Part II) (3:59)" #"Mother (5:32)" #"Goodbye Blue Sky (2:45)" #"Empty Spaces (2:10)" #"Young Lust (3:25)" (Waters/Gilmour) #"One of My Turns (3:41)" #"Don't Leave Me Now (4:08)" #"Another Brick In The Wall (Part III) (1:48)" #"Goodbye Cruel World (0:48)" All songs by Roger Waters except as noted
Disc two
#"Hey You (4:40)" #"Is There Anybody Out There? (2:44)" #"Nobody Home (3:26)" #"Vera (1:35)" #"Bring the Boys Back Home (1:21)" #"Comfortably Numb (6:23)" (Gilmour/Waters) #"The Show Must Go On (1:36)" #"In the Flesh (4:13)" #"Run Like Hell (4:20)" (Gilmour/Waters) #"Waiting For The Worms (4:04)" #"Stop (0:39)" #"The Trial (5:13)" (Waters/Ezrin) #"Outside the Wall (1:41)" All songs by Roger Waters except as noted Total length of album: 1 hour 21 minutes 29 seconds
Additional tracks from the film

- "When the Tigers Broke Free" (Composed specifically for the movie--released on a vinyl single, Echoes Disc 2, Track 05 and on the 2004 re-release of The Final Cut)
- "What Shall We Do Now?" (Extended version of "Empty Spaces" which was left off the original album due to lack of space, used in the wall-building sequence during the live show)
Tracks from the live concert
The live version of The Wall, Is There Anybody Out There? The Wall Live 1980-81, included the following tracks not on the original album:
- "What Shall We Do Now?" after "Empty Spaces"
- "The Last Few Bricks" after "Another Brick In The Wall (Part III)"; usually a medley performed while the construction crew was finishing off the massive wall on stage
Tracks intended for use on the album, but not used

- "Is There Anybody Out There (Part II)" features previously unheard lyrics, part of which were later worked into "Hey You"
- "Your Possible Pasts" later re-written for use on The Final Cut, however, the line "Do you remember me/How we used to be/Do you think/We should be/Closer?" was used in the film.
- "One Of The Few" - working title, "Teach" - was later re-written for use on The Final Cut
- "The Final Cut" also re-written for use on The Final Cut. A line from this song goes: Dial the combination / Open the priest-hole / And if I'm in, I'll tell you what's behind the wall. Sound effects were dubbed over "behind the wall" in the final version of the song, to sever its connection to the album The Wall. The complete lyrics are still written in the inside sleeve of the album.
Personnel

Album
This album used several personnel and session musicians; many uncredited. This list is a work in progress from various online sources and interviews.
- David Gilmour — Guitars; Vocals; Bass; Clavinet; Synthesizer; Sequencer; Producer
- Roger Waters — Bass; Vocals; Acoustic guitar, Synthesizer, Producer; Sleeve Design
- Richard Wright — Organ; Clavinet; Synthesizer; Piano; Bass pedals
- Nick Mason — Percussion; Drums with
- Lee Ritenour — Guitar
- Jeff Porcaro — Drums on Mother
- Joe Porcaro — Marching Snare drum on Bring the Boys Back Home
- Blue Ocean — Marching Snare drum on Bring the Boys Back Home
- Freddie Mandell — Hammond Organ
- Willie Wilson — Drums (Another Brick Part 3 film version)
- Bobbye Hall — Percussion
- Peter Wood — Keyboards; Hammond Organ (Another Brick Part 3 film version)
- Ron di Blasi — Classical guitar on Is There Anybody Out There?
- Larry Williams — Clarinet on Outside The Wall
- Trevor Veitch — Mandolin
- Frank Marrocco — Concertina
- Bruce Johnston — Backing Vocals
- Toni Tennille — Backing Vocals
- Joe Chemay — Backing Vocals
- Jon Joyce — Backing Vocals
- Stan Farber — Backing Vocals
- Jim Haas — Backing Vocals
- Noel Davis and Pontardulais Male Voice Choir — Vocals (film versions of Outside the Wall and Bring the Boys Back Home)
- Fourth Form Music Class, Islington Green School, London — Backing Vocals
- Bob Ezrin — Producer; Orchestra Arrangement; Keyboards
- Michael Kamen — Orchestra Arrangement
- James Guthrie — Co-Producer; Engineer; Percussion; Synthesizer, Sequencer
- Nick Griffiths — Engineer
- Patrice Queff — Engineer
- Brian Christian — Engineer
- John McClure — Engineer
- Rick Hart — Engineer
- Robert Hrycyna — Engineer
- Phil Taylor — Sound Equipment
- Gerald Scarfe — Sleeve Design
Quotes

"In 1980 when we finished in New York, Larry Maggid, a Philadelphia promoter [...] offered us a guaranteed million dollars a show plus expenses to go and do two dates at JFK Stadium with The Wall [...] and I wouldn't do it. I had to go through the whole story with the other members. I said, 'You've all read my explanations of what The Wall is about. It’s three years since we did that last stadium and I swore then that I would never do one again. And The Wall is entirely sparked off by how awful that was and how I didn't feel that the public or the band or anyone got anything out of it that was worthwhile. And that's why we've produced this show strictly for arenas where everyone does get something out of it that is worthwhile. Blah-blah-blah. And, I ain't fuckin' going!'"

:– Roger Waters, June 1987, to Chris Salewicz
"Maybe the architectural training to look at things helped me to visualise my feelings of alienation from rock 'n' roll audiences. Which was the starting point for The Wall. The fact that it then embodied an autobiographical narrative was kind of secondary to the main thing which was a theatrical statement in which I was saying, 'Isn't this fucking awful? Here I am up onstage and there you all are down there and isn't it horrible! What the fuck are we all doing here?'"
:– Roger Waters, June 1987, to Chris Salewicz
"You can't tour The Wall, the show is too complex. I was asked to perform the Wall this summer on 4th July, somewhere in America ... the Indianapolis speedway. I almost agreed because they said it would be a "free" concert, the idea appealed to me because anybody could go if they wanted. However, as I looked further into this free concert idea I discovered the concert would actually be paid for by Corporate America like Coca-Cola or AOL and they would want control of the way their tickets were distributed so it would be like I was working for some big corporation, like buy two crates of Coke and get two tickets - it's not quite the same."
:– Roger Waters, October 2005, in an MSN chat
"I don't fully agree with the concept of The Wall. To me it's filled with a catalog of complaints and I don't want to blame everything on everyone else in my life but myself. I think it's too complaining myself. There's some wonderful stuff on the album. I think that's one of the wonderful things about music is that you can have a doom-laden lyric on top of an uplifting piece of music. It juxtaposes and gives you an uplifting feeling about it. I think the film got too black and bleak. Like I said, I don't fully concur with everything Roger says on it I think some parts are very good and some parts are outright bleak to me."
:– David Gilmour, May 1992, US Radio interview
"As a phenomenon and as a record and a show I am very proud of it. At the same time, I don't agree with everything philosophically."
:– David Gilmour, April 2000, US Radio interview for premiere of Is There Anybody Out There?: The Wall Live.
Singles

- "Another Brick in the Wall (pt.2)"/"One Of My Turns" - Columbia 1-11187; released January 8, 1980 (UK, US, France and Italy [with Young Lust as a B-Side])
- "Run Like Hell"/"Don't Leave Me Now" - Columbia 1-11265; released April, 1980 (Holland, Sweden and US)
- "Comfortably Numb"/"Hey You" - Columbia 1-11311; released June, 1980 (US and Japan)
Charts
Album - Billboard (North America) Singles - Billboard (North America)
Awards
Grammy Awards
External links

- [http://www.pink-floyd-lyrics.com/html/the-wall-lyrics.html Pink Floyd lyrics for The Wall]
- [http://home.mchsi.com/~ttint/ Complete Analysis of the Album] Wall, The Wall, The Wall, The Wall, The Wall, The Wall, The

Pink Floyd The Wall (film)
Pink Floyd The Wall is a 1982 MGM film by British director Alan Parker based on the 1979 Pink Floyd album The Wall. The screenplay was written by Pink Floyd vocalist and bassist Roger Waters. Though Waters initially considered himself for the title role, the film ultimately starred Bob Geldof, whose character Pink was loosely based on the biographies of both Waters and former Pink Floyd vocalist and guitarist Syd Barrett, both of whom were founding members of the band. The film also stars Kevin McKeon as the young Pink, and includes brief appearances by Bob Hoskins and Joanne Whalley.
About the Movie
The film features music from the original Pink Floyd album, much of which was re-recorded by the band with additional orchestration, some with minor lyrical and musical changes. Two songs from the album were not included in the film ("The Show Must Go On" and "Hey You"), while two songs not present on the album were included in the film, one of which ("When the Tigers Broke Free") was composed especially for the movie by Roger Waters, while the other ("What Shall We Do Now?") was originally recorded for the album but never released until the film version, although it had been performed in concert. It replaced "Empty Spaces" in the film. The film is highly metaphorical and is rich in symbolic imagery and sound. It features virtually no dialogue and a non-linear storyline which is progressed entirely through Pink Floyd's lyrical music. Some consider it to be a long music video for the entire album. The film is scattered throughout with fifteen minutes of elaborate animation sequences by the political cartoonist and illustrator Gerald Scarfe, who played a central role in developing the overall aesthetic of the production. The animation sequences include a bold and nightmarish vision of war, specifically of the German bombing campaign over England during World War II, set to the song "Goodbye Blue Sky". Roger Waters has expressed dissatisfaction with the final product of the film, and is reported to have been philosophically at odds with director Alan Parker during filming, who himself walked out of the project on multiple occasions due to the conflict. In a 1988 interview on Australian radio, Waters said: "I was a bit disappointed with it in the end, because at the end of the day I felt no sympathy at all with the lead character... and I found it was so unremitting in its onslaught upon the senses, that... it didn't actually give me... as an audience, a chance to get involved with it." [http://www.pinkfloydfan.net/t1463.html] Despite Waters' dissatisfaction, the film is considered by many fans to be a worthy interpretation of Pink Floyd's album, and a powerful work of cinema in its own right.
Plot summary
Pink Floyd The Wall depicts the construction and ultimate demolition of a metaphorical wall. Though the film is highly interpretable, the wall itself clearly reflects a sense of isolation and alienation. Pink, the tragic hero of the film, is depicted at various stages of physical and mental development. We first meet Pink Floyd as a young British boy growing up in the early 1950's. Young Pink is heavily affected by the death of his father in World War II and as a result develops a close relationship with his smothering, very overprotective mother. As the years go on, he becomes a successful rock star in the United States, but remains in a state of mental dissarray and disillusionment. Pink married in the late '60s (as evidenced by the clothing worn by the wedding party), but over the years, he and his wife grow further and further apart, with Pink concentrating on his music and his wife becoming involved with an anti-nuclear arms group. She eventually has an affair with the leader of the group while Pink is on tour. After a total nervous breakdown, Pink hallucinates that he has become the leader of violent, racist, hate group, bearing strong resemblances to modern neo-nazi gangs. His concerts have become rallies, with Pink hysterically pointing out minorities in the audience and encouraging his faithful to "put 'em up against The Wall." In the final sequence, Pink goes before a bizarre kangaroo court trial, shown entirely in animation. This stage in Pink's life, is clearly a symbolic representation of his state of mind. The judge (animated as a giant anus wearing a British judge's wig), having heard evidence from Pink's mother, schoolteacher, and wife, decrees that Pink should be "exposed before [his] peers - tear down The Wall!"
Documentary
A documentary was produced about the making of Pink Floyd The Wall entitled The Other Side of the Wall that includes interviews with Parker, Scarfe, and clips of Waters, originally aired on MTV in 1982. A second documentary about the film was produced in 1999 entitled Retrospective that includes interviews with Waters, Parker, Scarfe, and other members of the film's production team. Both are on The Wall DVD as extras.
Trivia

- During the scenes in which Pink becomes a skinhead leader, real neo-Nazis were used as extras in rallies. The animator Gerald Scarfe felt things were getting out of hand when some turned up with the crossed hammers shaved into their heads.
- During the wedding scene between Pink and the wife, Roger Waters makes a cameo in the movie as one of the wedding witnesses (he is wearing a red overcoat) just after Pink kisses his wife, he is seen standing on the left side of the screen, and during the next scene while the Photographer is taking a snapshot of them, he is seen on the far right. Despite his cameo in the movie, Waters chose to not have his name in the credits.
- During the scene where Pink finds his father's items during "When the Tigers Broke Free", Pink finds a certificate of appreciation that lists his father's name as J.A. Pinkerton. It is assumed that Pink's real name is Floyd Pinkerton.
External links

-
- [http://home.mchsi.com/~ttint/ A Complete Analysis of Pink Floyd The Wall] by Bret Urick Category:1982 films Category:Films directed by Alan Parker Category:Cult films Category:Musical films Category:Drama films Category:Pink Floyd films Category:British films

Concept album

Usually, in popular music, an artist or group releases an album consisting of a number of unconnected songs that the members of the group or the artist have written, or have chosen to cover. In a concept album, on the other hand, all songs contribute to a single overall theme or unified story. Given that the suggestion of something as vague as an overall mood often tags a work as being a concept album, a precise definition of the term proves highly problematic. What could very loosely be considered the first concept albums were released in the late 1930s by singer Lee Wiley on the Liberty Records label, featuring eight songs on four 78s by great showtunes composers of the day, such as Harold Arlen and Cole Porter, anticipating more comprehensive efforts by Verve Records impresario Norman Granz with Ella Fitzgerald by almost two decades. In folk music, Woody Guthrie's 1940 debut album Dust Bowl Ballads is also an early possibility. Frank Sinatra, both with early albums originally released as 78s for Columbia Records such as The Voice from 1945, and continuing through his thematically programmed albums of the 1950s for Capitol Records starting with the ten-inch 33s Songs for Young Lovers and Swing Easy, is generally credited with both popularizing and developing the concept album, and it was at this time that the specific term was first used. Perhaps the first full Sinatra concept album example is In the Wee Small Hours from 1955, where the songs – all ballads – were specifically recorded for the album, and organized around a central mood of late-night isolation and aching lost love, and the album cover strikingly reinforced that theme. However, notion of a concept album did not really gel at that point, and was not widely imitated, aside from occasional examples such as country singer Marty Robbins' Gunfighter Ballads and Trail Songs from 1959, or, as the first example from rock, Little Deuce Coupe from 1963 by The Beach Boys, each of whose 12 songs were about America's car culture. In 1966, several rock releases were arguably concept albums, and in any case started other rock artists thinking: Pet Sounds, again by the Beach Boys, a masterful musical portrayal of Brian Wilson's would-be state of mind (and a huge inspiration to Paul McCartney); the Mothers of Invention's sardonic farce about rock music and America as a whole, Freak Out!; and Face to Face by The Kinks, the first collection of Ray Davies's idiosyncratic character studies of ordinary people. However, none of these attracted a wide commercial audience. This all changed with The Beatles' celebrated 1967 album Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band. With this release, the notion of the concept album came to the forefront of the popular and critical mind, with the earlier prototypes and examples from classic pop and other genres sometimes forgotten. In fact, as pointed out by many critics since its original reception, Sgt. Pepper is a concept album only by some definitions of the term. On it, the Beatles supposedly adopt fictionalized personae, and the title song, styled as the theme song of the fictional "Lonely Hearts Club Band", wraps around the rest of the album like bookends. However, most of the songs on the album are narratively unrelated to the theme, and the fictional characters have little life beyond the introduction of Ringo Starr as "Billy Shears" in the segue between the first two tracks. On the other hand, the slice-of-life character miniatures and short story structure of many of the songs, especially those penned by Paul McCartney, echo elements commonly found in other thematic works such as musicals and opera. This feeling was reinforced by the album's use of cuts run together or linked with transitions. Even more striking was the album's opulent cover, packaged inserts, and full lyrics printed on the back, all of which suggested a unified work more than just a collection of songs. In any case, while debate exists over the extent to which Sgt. Pepper qualifies as a true concept album, there is no doubt that its reputation as such helped inspire other artists to produce concept albums of their own, and inspired the public to anticipate them. In the wake of the Sgt. Pepper triumph, concept albums became the rage among serious rock artists, with mixed results. The Rolling Stones attempted to duplicate Sgt. Pepper with more explicitly drug and occult-inspired overtones with Their Satanic Majesties Request, but it proved to be a commercial and artistic failure, one that the 'Stones quickly learned from and moved on. The groundbreaking LP S.F. Sorrow (1968) by British R&B group The Pretty Things is now generally considered to be one of the first successful rock concept albums, in that each song is part of an overarching unified concept -- the life story of the main character, Sebastian Sorrow. Despite its dazzling production and strong material, and although it received almost unanimously glowing reviews on release, the LP was not a major success and its importance and influence has often been underrated. Drawing heavily on the Pretty Things LP, it was Pete Townshend and The Who that took the idea of thematically based albums to its most successful and satisfying conclusion, with the groundbreaking "rock opera" Tommy, its aborted successor Lifehouse, and their final rock opera Quadrophenia. Another work that could be considered as an early example of the rock opera-type of concept album is Days of Future Passed (1967) by the Moody Blues, which combines the acoustic instrumentation of the group with the orchestral interludes of the London Festival Orchestra to document a typical "everyman's day". Concept albums are especially common in the progressive rock genre of the 1970s, although rarely did that equal a lasting commercial or critical legacy for the band or artist involved. Most notably, Pink Floyd recast itself from its 1960s guise as a quirky, intermittently successful psychedelic band into a cash-generating monster with its classic series of concept albums, beginning with Dark Side of the Moon from 1973. But in the mid to late 1970's, concept albums grew to be plagued by the suffocating nature of ever more pretentious, self-conscious themes. These themes tended to drive the songwriters, and the quality of the individual songs suffered. A prime example of this was Styx' overblown and unintentionally humorous 1983 album Kilroy Was Here, a late and poorly received entry into the genre that effectively marked the end of the 1970's-style theatrical rock operas. (although Queensrÿche's Operation: Mindcrime was able to find critical and commercial success.) Within the progressive metal genre, Dream Theater ended the 20th Century with Metropolis Part 2: Scenes from a Memory in 1999. This concept album was a sequel to their original song from their 1993 album Images and Words, about a present day man's nightmares of his death in his previous life in 1928. In the intervening decades, concept albums have often been out of vogue, but Radiohead duplicated that kind of acceptance both from the critics and in the marketplace with OK Computer from 1997, and the related Kid A and Amnesiac albums of 2000 and 2001. The Mars Volta have created two highly complex concept albums. Since the 1980s, concept albums have been frequent in the power metal and epic metal genres. Perhaps the first R&B concept album is TP.3 Reloaded,by R. Kelly released in 2005, which features 5 chapters of the "Trapped...in the Closet" soap opera. The album received a great deal of press for being ground breaking in the R&B genre. Kelly subsequently released a Trapped...in the Closet DVD of music videos containing chapters 1-12, completing the rambling tale of unfaithful lovers. An emerging subset is the historical album, which is more closely tied with specific historically accurate references to persons or places. An ambitious extension of the concept album idea could be realized in a series of albums which all contribute to a single effect or unified story. Contemporary examples include Coheed and Cambria's in-progress tetralogy of records and mind.in.a.box's Lost Alone and Dreamweb albums which describe an on-going sci-fi themed story in a Matrix-like universe. Arguably the most ambitious of these is Sufjan Stevens' Fifty-States project, in which he plans to write a series of albums encompassing the concept of the entire United States of America, one for each state, totalling fifty records. The concept album genre overlaps with rock opera, of which the most famous early example is The Who's aforementioned Tommy (1969). Like Sgt. Pepper, Tommy greatly boosted the visibility of the concept album idea, and the genre also overlaps to a lesser extent with rock musical, of which the most famous early example is Hair (1967).

References

- [http://scholar.google.com/scholar?hl=en&lr=&safe=off&q=cache:mNQ_tZvEQOIJ:home.uchicago.edu/~travieso/Docs/ConceptAlbum.pdf+%22concept+album%22 University of Chicago Concept Album course notes]
- [http://www.musicweb-international.com/encyclopaedia/c/C211.HTM Musicweb article on concept album]
- Category:Albums

Wish You Were Here (album)

Wish You Were Here is an album by Pink Floyd, recorded at Abbey Road Studios between January and July, 1975 and released on September 15, 1975 (see 1975 in music). The album is largely a tribute to former band member Syd Barrett, whose mental illness and erratic behaviour made it impossible for him to effectively contribute to the band after the album A Saucerful of Secrets. Originally, the album was to consist of three songs that the band had been playing live over the previous two years: "Shine On", "Raving and Drooling" and "Gotta be Crazy". "Shine On" was preserved as "Shine On You Crazy Diamond", Roger Waters decided to drop the other two, which later became "Dogs" and "Sheep" on the Animals album. In their place, Waters wrote new material that documented the band's current condition (the title track) and caricatured the negative aspects of the record business ("Welcome to the Machine" and "Have a Cigar"). It was the last Pink Floyd album which would see a writing credit for Rick Wright until The Division Bell in 1994.

Syd Barrett's studio visit

Barrett himself actually turned up at the studio in the middle of a recording session of the backing vocals for "Shine On You Crazy Diamond" on 5 June 1975 which was also the day guitarist/vocalist David Gilmour married his first wife Ginger. Across the corridors of Abbey Road floated "Shine On You Crazy Diamond" and there he was, in person. He arrived unannounced, looking bald and fat, and had put on so much weight that some of the band did not recognize him at first. Others were close to tears; Waters later confided that he cried. Barrett asked at one point if there was anything he could do and that he was available if needed. He later appeared at Gilmour's wedding reception where some mistook him for a Hare Krishna devotee. He hadn't been seen by the band in five years, and wasn't seen again after that point. Echoing Barrett's presence, Rick Wright plays a subtle refrain from See Emily Play in the final seconds of the album.

Reissues and remastering

Wish You Were Here was originally released on Harvest Records in the UK and Columbia Records in the US. It was digitally remastered and released in 1994 in the UK as a CD on the EMI label, and in 1997 by Columbia for the rest of the world. The album was subsequently re-released in 2000 for its 25th anniversary, on the Capitol Records label in the US, and on the EMI label for the rest of the world. Wish You Were Here will be re-released as a dual-layered Super Audio Compact Disc in early 2006 to commemorate the album's thirtieth anniversary. This was done in 2003 for the group's previous album, Dark Side of the Moon.

Press coverage

In 1998, Q magazine readers voted Wish You Were Here the 34th greatest album of all time. In 2003, Rolling Stone named it #209 of the 500 Greatest Albums of All Time. True to critically prescient form, this happened twenty-eight years after the magazine initially panned and trashed the recording. Quoting reviewer Ben Edmonds from the November 6, 1975 issue of Rolling Stone magazine, "Passion is everything of which Pink Floyd is devoid."

Track listing

#"Shine On You Crazy Diamond, Pts. 1-5" (Gilmour/Waters/Wright) - 13:34 #"Welcome to the Machine" (Waters) - 7:31 #"Have A Cigar" (Waters) - 5:24 #"Wish You Were Here" (Gilmour/Waters) - 5:34 #"Shine On You Crazy Diamond, Pts. 6-9" (Gilmour/Waters/Wright) - 12:31 Various re-issues will simply list both "Shine On You Crazy Diamond"s as "Part 1" and "Part 2", respectively.

Personnel

- David Gilmour – Guitars, Vocals, Lap Steel, EMS Synthi A, additional bass guitar.
- Roger Waters – Bass guitar, VCS3, Vocals
- Richard Wright – Keyboards, Vocals, VCS3
- Nick Mason – Drums, Percussion, Tape Effects with
- Dick Parry – Saxophone on "Shine on You Crazy Diamond"
- Roy Harper – Vocals on "Have a Cigar"
- Venetta Field – Background vocals
- Carlena Williams – Background vocals plus
- Brian Humphries – Engineer
- Peter Christopherson – Design Assistant (see Hipgnosis)
- Peter James – Engineer, Assistant Engineer
- Hipgnosis – Design, Photography
- Storm Thorgerson – Re-design
- Phil Taylor – Additional Photography(Remaster)
- Jill Furmanovsky – Additional Photography(Remaster)
- George Hardie – Illustrations
- Richard Manning – Design Assistant
- Howard Bartrop – Design Assistant
- Jeff Smith – Design Assistant

Singles

- "Have a Cigar"/"Welcome To the Machine" - Columbia 3-10248; released November 15, 1975
- "Wish you were here"

Chart and sales success

Wish You Were Here peaked at #1 on Billboard's USA Pop Albums chart(where it stayed for two weeks in October, 1975) and stayed on the charts for a year. The album has, to date, sold over six million copies in the US and was certified Gold on September 17, 1975 in the US and as Sextuple Platinum in the US on May 16, 1997 by the R.I.A.A. and has sold altogether worldwide 13 million copies. Album - Billboard (North America)

Quotes

"Wish You Were Here was a very good title for that album. I've often said what that album should have been called was Wish We Were Here because we weren't really."

:– Roger Waters, July 1989, In the Studio with Redbeard for Making of The Wall.

"It was a very difficult period I have to say. All your childhood dreams had been sort of realized and we had the biggest selling records in the world and all the things you got into it for. The girls and the money and the fame and all that stuff it was all...everything had sort of come our way and you had to reassess what you were in it for and it was a confusing and sort of empty time for awhile but...I for one would have to say that it is my favorite album, the Wish You Were Here album. The end result of all that, whatever it was, definitely has left me an album I can live with very very happily I like it very much,"

:– David Gilmour, December 1992, In the Studio with Redbeard for Making of Shine On(parts 1 and 2 aired in December of 1992) and Making of WYWH(first aired in September of 1995).

"It just happens to be the album for that from the moment it starts 'til it finishes, it flows, the songs flow into each other and it just has a wonderful feeling in it".

:– Rick Wright, March 1994, World Premiere of The Division Bell and Making of WYWH(first aired in September of 1995).

External links

- [http://www.pinkfloyd-co.net/disco/wish/wish_album.html Album lyrics and trivia]
- [http://www.pinkfloyd.co.uk/main.php?flash=present&quicktime=present Official Pink Floyd Website]
- [http://utopia.knoware.nl/users/ptr/pfloyd/index.html Pictures, Lyrics, Guitar Tabulature and More] Category:Pink Floyd albums Category:1975 albums

Pink Floyd

Pink Floyd (formed in 1965 in Cambridge, England) is a British progressive rock band, noted for their progressive compositions, thoughtful lyrics, sonic experimentation, album art and live shows. Pink Floyd is one of rock's most successful acts, having sold 73.5 million albums in the U.S. alone. The group is also believed to have sold an estimated 175 to 200 million albums worldwide.

Overview

Pink Floyd enjoyed moderate success in the late-1960s as a psychedelic band led by Syd Barrett. After Barrett's erratic behavior caused his colleagues to add guitarist David Gilmour (who eventually replaced Barrett), the band went on to record several elaborate concept albums, achieving worldwide success with 1973's Dark Side of the Moon and 1979's The Wall both among the best-selling and most enduringly popular albums in rock history.

Live Performances

Pink Floyd is renowned for their lavish stage shows, combining over-the-top visual experiences with their music to create a show in which the performers themselves are almost secondary. In their early days, Pink Floyd were among the first bands to use a dedicated traveling light show in conjunction with their performances, projecting slides, film clips, pyrotechnics (exploding flashpots and the exploding gong and fireworks) and psychedelic patterns onto a large circular screen (dubbed "Mr. Screen"). Their early combination of music and visuals set the standard for subsequent rock tours on both sides of the Atlantic. Later shows featured oversized balloons (notably a giant pig balloon which floated over the audience during performances of Pigs from the Animals album), a plane crashing into the stage at the end of "On the Run", a giant flowering disco ball (a projection screen which could be retracted and tilted), more than 100 multi-colored robotic 'dancing' spot lights, and multi-colored lasers. Their constant push for technological innovation in their concert shows is famously demonstrated by their use of extremely powerful, isotope splitting copper-vapor (rather than the usual argon) lasers in the 1994 Division Bell tour. These gold-colored lasers were worth over $120,000 apiece and previously used only in nuclear research and high speed photography ([http://www.lightingdimensions.com Lighting Dimensions], September 1994). The lavish stage shows were also the basis for Douglas Adams' fictional rock group "Disaster Area" (creators of the loudest noise in the universe, and making use of solar flares in their stage show) in The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy series. Douglas Adams was a personal friend of David Gilmour and made a one-off guest appearance, on guitar, on the Division Bell tour (October 28, 1994), purportedly as a present for Adams' 42nd birthday.

Split and reunion

In 1985, bassist Roger Waters declared Pink Floyd defunct, but the remaining band members recorded and twice toured under the Pink Floyd name without him. Waters rejoined the band at the London Live 8 concert on July 2, 2005, playing to Pink Floyd's biggest audience ever.

Band history

Syd Barrett led years: 1965-1968

2005 Pink Floyd evolved from an earlier band, formed in 1964, which was at various times called Sigma 6, The Meggadeaths, The Screaming Abdabs, and The Abdabs (see Band members for previous line-ups). When this band split up, some of its members - guitarist Bob Klose, bass player Roger Waters, drummer Nick Mason, and future keyboardist Rick Wright, who at this point played primarily wind instruments - formed a new band called Tea Set. A short time after their formation, they were joined by guitarist Syd Barrett, who became the band's primary vocalist as well. When Tea Set found itself on the same bill as another band with the same name, Barrett came up with an alternate name on the spur of the moment, choosing The Pink Floyd Sound (after two blues musicians, Pink Anderson and Floyd Council). For a time after this they oscillated between 'Tea Set' and 'The Pink Floyd Sound', with the latter name eventually winning out. The word Sound was dropped fairly quickly, but the definite article was still used occasionally for several years afterward, up to about the time of the More soundtrack. In the early days, the band covered rhythm and blues staples such as "Louie, Louie", but gained notoriety for their psychedelic interpretations, with extended improvised sections and 'spaced out' solos. The heavily jazz-oriented Klose left the band to become a photographer shortly before Pink Floyd started recording, leaving an otherwise stable lineup. Barrett started writing his own songs, influenced by American surf music and British psychedelic rock with his own brand of whimsical humor. Pink Floyd became a favorite in the underground movement, playing at such prominent venues as the UFO club, the Marquee Club and the Roundhouse. As their popularity increased, the band formed Blackhill Enterprises in October 1966, a six-way business partnership with their managers, Peter Jenner and Andrew King issuing the singles "Arnold Layne" in March 1967 and "See Emily Play" in June 1967. "Arnold Layne" reached number 20 in the UK singles chart, and "See Emily Play" reached number 6, granting the band their first TV appearance on Top of the Pops in July 1967. Released in August 1967, the band's debut album The Piper at the Gates of Dawn (originally called "Projection") is considered to be a prime example of English psychedelic music. The album's tracks, predominantly written by Barrett, showcase poetic lyrics and an eclectic mixture of music, from the avant garde free form piece "Interstellar Overdrive" to whimsical songs, such as "The Scarecrow", inspired by the Fenlands, the rural region north of Cambridge, Barrett, Gilmour and Waters's home town. The album was a hit in the UK where it peaked at #6, but failed to get much attention in North America, reaching #131 in the US. During this period, the band toured with Jimi Hendrix, gaining them further popularity.

Barrett's decline

As the band became more and more popular, the stresses of life on the road and a significant intake of psychedelic drugs took its toll on Barrett. In January 1968, guitarist David Gilmour joined the band to carry out the playing and singing duties of Syd, whose mental health had been deteriorating for several months. Nevertheless, it was intended that Barrett would remain as the band's figurehead and main songwriter. With Barrett's behavior becoming less and less predictable, and his use of LSD almost constant, he became very unstable, often staring into space while the rest of the band performed. The band's live shows became increasingly ramshackle until, eventually, the other band members simply stopped taking him to the concerts. Once Barrett's departure was formalized in April 1968, producers Jenner and King decided to remain with him, and the six-way Blackhill partnership was dissolved. The band adopted Steve O'Rourke as their manager, and he remained with Pink Floyd until his death in 2003.

Finding their feet: 1969-1970

Steve O'Rourke

A Saucerful of Secrets

Whilst Barrett had written the bulk of the first record, The Piper at the Gates of Dawn, only one Barrett composition, the Piper outtake "Jugband Blues", appeared on the second Floyd album. A Saucerful of Secrets was released in June 1968, reaching #9 in the UK and becoming the only Pink Floyd album not to chart in the U.S. The album contained hints of things to come, the center-piece being the 12-minute title track. Future Floyd albums would expand upon the lengthy compositions, offering more focused songwriting with each subsequent release.

Pink Floyd were recruited by director Barbet Schroeder to produce a soundtrack for his film, "More", which premiered in May 1969. The music was released as a Floyd album in its own right, Music From the Film More, in July 1969 . Pink Floyd would use this and future soundtrack recording sessions to produce work that may not have fit into their idea of what would appear on a proper Pink Floyd LP, many of the numbers on Music From The Film More being acoustic folk songs. The rest of the album consisted of incidental music with a few rockers such as "The Nile Song" thrown in.

Ummagumma

The next record, the double album Ummagumma, was a mix of live recordings and unchecked studio experimentation by the band members, with each recording half a side of a vinyl as a solo project (Mason's wife makes an uncredited contribution as a flautist). The album was Pink Floyd's most popular release yet, hitting UK #5 and making the U.S. charts at #70.

Atom Heart Mother

flautist 1970's Atom Heart Mother, their first recording with an orchestra, was a collaboration with avant-garde composer Ron Geesin. One side of the album consisted of the title piece, a 23-minute long rock-orchestral suite. The second side featured one song from each of the band's then-current vocalists (Roger Waters' "If", David Gilmour's "Fat Old Sun" and Rick Wright's "Summer 68"). Another lengthy piece, "Alan's Psychedelic Breakfast", was a sound collage of a man cooking and eating breakfast and his thoughts on the matter, linked with instrumentals. The album had the best chart performance for the band so far, reaching #1 in the U.K. and #55 in the U.S., although the album has since been described by Gilmour as the sound of a band "blundering about in the dark." The album was a transitional piece for the group, hinting at future musical territory. The popularity of the album allowed Pink Floyd to embark on their first U.S. tour. The band also developed and pioneered the use of a device called the azimuth co-ordinator, a joystick used to pan sound around their quadrophonic PA system.

Breakthrough era: 1971-1975

quadrophonic

Meddle

The band's sound was considerably more focused on Meddle (1971), with the 23-minute epic "Echoes" taking up the entire second side of the LP. Meddle was considered by David Gilmour to be his first "real" Pink Floyd album, as it had the sound and style of the succeeding breakthrough-era Pink Floyd albums and stripped away the orchestra that was prominent in Atom Heart Mother. Meddle also included the atmospheric "One of These Days", a concert classic, with Nick Mason's menacing one-line vocal, "One of these days, I'm going to cut you into little pieces," and a melody that at one point segues into a throbbing synthetic pulse quoting the theme tune of the cult classic science fiction television show Doctor Who. A glimpse into their humorous side was shown on "Seamus" (earlier, "Mademoiselle Nobs"), a pseudo-blues number featuring lead vocals by a Russian wolfhound called Seamus, belonging to Steve Marriott. Waters' jazzy "San Tropez" was brought to the band practically completed, requiring minimal help in arrangement from the other band members. Pink Floyd was rewarded with a #3 chart peak in the UK for Meddle; it made #70 in U.S.

Obscured By Clouds

Obscured By Clouds was released in 1972 as the soundtrack to the film La Vallee, another art house film by Barbet Schroeder. This was the band's first U.S. Top 50 album (where it hit #46), hitting #6 at in the U.K. Barbet Schroeder

Dark Side of the Moon

Despite Pink Floyd never having been a hit-single-driven group (at the time they had stopped issuing singles after 1968's "Point Me At The Sky"), their massively successful 1973 album, Dark Side of the Moon, featured a U.S. Top 20 single ("Money"). Although the album hit #2 in U.K., it managed to become the band's first #1 on U.S. charts, a huge improvement over the last albums. The critically-acclaimed album stayed on the Billboard Top 200 for an unprecedent 741 weeks (including 591 consecutive weeks from 1973 to 1988), the world record, and making it one of the top-selling albums of all time. It also remained 301 weeks on U.K. charts, despite never hitting #1 there. Dark Side of the Moon went on to sell over 40 million copies worldwide and still sells around 250,000 copies a year, more than any other album of the 70s. On its new release in 2003 it was reported that it was selling 8,000 copies per week. Dark Side of the Moon, the first of Pink Floyd's five concept albums, described the different pressures applying in everyday life. The concept (conceived in Nick Mason's kitchen) proved a powerful catalyst for the band and together they drew up a list of themes: "On The Run" was dedicated to travel; "Time" depicted the encroachment of old age; "The Great Gig In The Sky" (originally named "Mortality Sequence" and "Religious Theme" during development) dealt with death; "Money" satirically spoke of the corrupting influence of money that often comes with fame and power; "Us And Them" entailed violence, and futility of war (a theme to which Waters would return, throughout his career) and "Brain Damage" touched on themes of insanity and neurosis. Thanks to the use of new 16-track recording equipment at Abbey Road Studios and the investment of an enormous amount of time by engineer Alan Parsons, the album set new standards for sound fidelity. It was during this period that the band released the first of their films, "Live at Pompeii". Film Director Adrian Maben's film featured footage of the band's 1971 performance at an amphitheater in Pompeii with no audience present (only the film crew and stage staff). A later version of Live at Pompeii labelled "director's cut" was released on DVD which had each song interspersed with interviews and behind-the-scenes footage of the band in the studio recording Dark Side Of The Moon. Dark Side of the Moon and the three following albums (Wish You Were Here, Animals and The Wall) are widely regarded as the peak of Pink Floyd's career.

Wish You Were Here

Wish You Were Here, released in 1975, carries an abstract theme of absence: absence of any humanity within the music industry and, most poignantly, the absence of Syd Barrett. This theme is carried by the music as well as the artwork packaged with the album. Originally, the album was sold with a black cellophane wrapping, hiding any indication of what could be beneath. In addition to the classic acoustic title track, Wish You Were Here, the album includes the majestic, mostly instrumental nine-part Shine On You Crazy Diamond, a tribute to Barrett in which the lyrics deal explicitly with the aftermath of his breakdown. The album also includes the songs "Welcome to the Machine" and "Have a Cigar" (Roy Harper sang the latter), both of which harshly criticize the music industry. Pink Floyd achieved their first transatlantic #1 album with Wish You Were Here, reaching the top spot in both U.K. and U.S. The album eventually sold over 10 million copies worldwide.

Knebworth '75

Dark Side of the Moon had made Pink Floyd a major international act. In 1975, the band launched a massive tour after the release of Wish You Were Here, which eventually sold out stadiums. The last gig of the tour was as the headliner of 1975 Knebworth Festival, which also featured The Steve Miller Band, Captain Beefheart and Roy Harper (who joined Pink Floyd on the stage to sing 'Have a Cigar'). It was the second Knebworth Festival, which featured artists such as the Rolling Stones, Led Zeppelin, Genesis and Frank Zappa between 1974 and 1979. The concert featured a large circular screen, lighting towers and great special effects for the time. Despite some technical problems, the band managed to perform a remarkable concert, before an audience of 125,000, their biggest until Live 8. It was the last time the band performed 'Echoes' and the entire Dark Side of the Moon with Roger Waters.

Roger Waters-led era: 1976-1984

Animals

By January 1977, and the release of Animals (UK #2, U.S. #3), the band's music came under increasing criticism from some quarters in the new punk rock sphere as being too flabby and pretentious, having lost its way from the simplicity of early rock and roll. However, Animals was considerably more guitar-driven than the previous albums, due to either the influence of the punk-rock movement or the fact that the album was recorded at Pink Floyd's new (and somewhat incomplete) Britannia Row Studios. Animals again contained lengthy songs tied to a theme, this time taken in part from George Orwell's Animal Farm, using pigs, dogs and sheep as metaphors for members of contemporary society. Animals was the first Pink Floyd album not to feature any compositions from Rick Wright. Four of the five songs on this record were written entirely by Roger Waters, with one song, 'Dogs', being co-written by David Gilmour. For the cover artwork, a giant inflatable pig was commissioned and floated over Battersea Power Station. This became one of the enduring symbols of Pink Floyd and inflatable pigs were a staple of Pink Floyd's live shows from then on.

In The Flesh

The 1977 Pink Floyd - In The Flesh tour was the last time Pink Floyd performed a major tour with Roger Waters. The tour featured the famous inflatable puppets, notably a 40 foot pig balloon, and a 'Nuclear family' with Mother, Father and two and a half children, later the band added a Cadillac, a television and a fridge. It also had a pyrotechnic 'waterfall' and featured one of the biggest and most elaborate stages to date. Pink Floyd's market strategy for the Animals tour was very aggressive, filling pages of The New York Times and Billboard magazine. To promote their four-night run at Madison Square Garden in New York City, there was a Pink Floyd parade on 6th Avenue featuring pigs and sheep. During the tour Waters began to exhibit more aggressive behaviour, and would often yell abuse at disruptive audiences who wouldn't stop yelling and screaming during the quieter numbers. In the New York shows they had to use local workers as lighting technicians. They had several difficulties with the apparently incompetent workers, as Waters had to at one point beckon one of the spotlights to move higher when it only illuminated his lower legs and feet while he was singing. After having enough of this, Waters brought the whole band to a halt for a moment to remark "I think you New York lighting guys are a fucking load of shit!" and then continued the song. In the first half of the show, Pink Floyd played 'Animals', with 'Wish You Were Here' in the second. Although the 'Animals' album had not been as successful as the two previous ones, the band managed to sell out arenas and stadiums in America and Europe, setting scale and attendance records. In Chicago, the band played to an estimated audience of 95,000 and set an attendance record, in Cleveland, of over 80,000 people. They helped set another attendance record on the final night of the tour, in Montreal, where a festival that also featured Emerson, Lake and Palmer drew another 80,000-strong audience. That night, Waters spat in the face of a disruptive fan; The Wall grew out of Waters' thoughts about this incident, particularly his growing awareness that stardom had alienated him from his audience.

The Wall

Emerson, Lake and Palmer 1979's epic rock opera, The Wall, conceived mainly by Waters, developed themes of loneliness and failure of communication, inspired by Waters' feelings of having constructed a metaphoric wall between himself and his audience. This album gave Pink Floyd renewed acclaim and their only chart-topping single with "Another Brick in the Wall (Part 2)". The Wall also included the future concert staples Comfortably Numb and Run Like Hell, with the former in particular becoming a cornerstone of album-oriented rock and classic-rock radio playlists as well as one of the group's best-known songs. The album was co-produced by Bob Ezrin, a friend of Waters who shared songwriting credits on "The Trial" and from whom the band distanced themselves, after Ezrin talked about the album to a journalist relative. Despite never hitting #1 in U.K. (it made it to #3), The Wall spent an astounding 15 weeks atop the U.S. charts during 1980. It sold well over 20 million copies worldwide and is often regarded as the best-selling double album ever. It has been certified 23x platinum by RIAA, for sales of 11.5 million copies in U.S. alone. The huge commercial success of The Wall made Pink Floyd the only artist since the Beatles to have the best-selling albums of two years (1973 and 1980) in less than a decade. Even more so than during the Animals sessions, Waters was increasingly asserting his artistic influence and leadership over the band, prompting frequent conflicts with the other members, and the eventual firing of Wright from the band. Wright returned, on a fixed wage, for the album's live concerts. Ironically, Wright was the only member of Pink Floyd to make any money from the Wall shows, the rest having to cover the extensive costs.

The Wall Live

Pink Floyd mounted their most elaborate stage show in conjunction with the tour of The Wall. A band of session musicians played the first song, wearing rubber face masks (demonstrating that the individual members of the band were practically anonymous to the public), then backed up the band for the remainder of the show. Giant inflatable characters designed by Gerald Scarfe, including fully mobile giant puppets of a teacher and Pink's wife, with menacing spotlights for eyes, took the traditional inflatables to a whole new level. During the first half of the show, a huge wall was built, brick by enormous brick, between the audience and the band. There were 340 white bricks forming a 160 foot wall which stood 35 feet tall. The final brick was placed as Roger Waters sang "goodbye" at the end of the song "Goodbye Cruel World". For the second half of the show, the band were largely invisible, except for a hole in the wall that simulated a hotel room setting, where Roger Waters "acted out" the story of Pink, and an appearance by David Gilmour on top of the wall to perform the climactic guitar solo in "Comfortably Numb". Other parts of the story were told by Gerald Scarfe animations projected onto the wall itself (these animations were later integrated into the film version Pink Floyd: The Wall). At the finale of the concert, the specially-constructed wall was demolished amidst sound effects and a spectacular light show. It was the most ambitious theatrical show seen so far, much more expensive and complex than contemporaneous efforts by artists such as David Bowie, Alice Cooper and KISS. The costs of the tour were estimated to have reached US$ 1.5 million even before the first performance. The New York Times stated in its March 2 1980 edition that "The 'Wall' show remains a milestone in rock history though and there's no point in denying it. Never again will one be able to accept the technical clumsiness, distorted sound and meagre visuals of most arena rock concerts as inevitable" and concluded that "the 'Wall' show "will be the touchstone against which all future rock spectacles must be measured". The Wall concert was only performed a handful of times each in four cities: Los Angeles, Uniondale (Long Island), Dortmund, and London (at Earl's Court). The primary 'tour' occurred in 1980, but the band performed two more shows at Earl's Court in 1981 for filming, with the intention of being integrated into the upcoming movie. The resulting footage, however, was deemed substandard, and scrapped; years later, Roger Waters said that he had tried to locate this footage for historical purposes, but was unsuccessful, and he now considers it to be lost forever. There are, however, several unofficial videos of the entire live show in circulation. Gilmour and Mason attempted to convince Waters to expand the show for a more lucrative large-scale, stadium tour, but because of the nature of the material (one of the primary themes is the distance between an artist and his audience) Waters balked at this. In fact, Waters had reportedly been offered a guaranteed US$ 1 million for each additional stadium concert, but declined the offer, insisting that such a tour would be hypocritical. Waters later re-created the Wall show in 1990, amid the ruins of the Berlin Wall, joined by a number of guest artists (including Bryan Adams, Scorpions, Van Morrison, The Band, Tim Curry, Cyndi Lauper, Sinéad O'Connor, Marianne Faithfull, Joni Mitchell, and Thomas Dolby). This concert was even bigger than the previous ones. Roger Waters built a 591 foot long and 80 foot high wall. The theatrical features of The Wall concert were increased to gather the attention of a sold-out audience of 200,000 people and of other estimated 500 million, in 35 countries, to whom the show would be broadcast. After the concert began, the gates were opened and an estimated 300,000 to 500,000 people were able to watch the concert.

Film

A film (essentially a music video for the entire album) entitled "Pink Floyd: The Wall" was released in 1982. The film, written by Waters and directed by Alan Parker, starred Boomtown Rats founder Bob Geldof and featured striking animation by noted British cartoonist Gerald Scarfe. It grossed over US$ 22 million at the North American box office. A song which first appeared in the movie, When the Tigers Broke Free, was released as a single on a limited basis. This song was finally made widely availble on the complilation album Echoes and recent re-releases of The Final Cut.

The Final Cut

1983 saw the release of The Final Cut. Even darker in tone than The Wall, this album re-examined many previous themes, while also addressing then-current events, including Waters' anger at Britain's participation in the Falklands War ("The Fletcher Memorial Home") and his cynicism toward, and fear of, nuclear war ("Two Suns in the Sunset"). Michael Kamen and Andy Bown contributed keyboard work due to Wright's absence. Though technically released as a Pink Floyd album, the interior sleeve specified "A requiem for the post war dream by Roger Waters, performed by Pink Floyd": the project was clearly dominated by Waters and became a prototype in sound and form for later Waters solo projects (Roger Waters has since said that he offered to release the record as a solo album, but the rest of the band rejected this idea). Gilmour also reportedly asked Waters to hold back the release of the album by a year so he could contribute material, but was rejected by Waters. Only moderately successful by Floyd standards (UK #1, U.S. #6), the album yielded one minor rock radio hit, "Not Now John". The arguing between Waters and Gilmour by this stage was rumored to be so bad that they were never seen in the recording studio simultaneously. Gilmour even had his name removed from the production credits in protest over some of Waters' decisions. There was no tour.

David Gilmour-led era: 1987-1995

Andy Bown After The Final Cut, the band members went their separate ways, each releasing solo albums to varying degrees of success. Waters announced in December of 1985 that he was departing Pink Floyd describing the band as "a spent force creatively". However, in 1986 Gilmour and Mason began recording a new Pink Floyd album. (At the same time, Roger Waters was also working on his second solo album entitled Radio K.A.O.S.). A bitter legal dispute ensued with Waters claiming that the name "Pink Floyd" should have been put to rest, but Gilmour and Mason upheld their conviction that they had the legal right to continue as "Pink Floyd". High Court proceedings went in favor of Gilmour and Mason, much to the chagrin of Waters, and the two camps continued working.

Momentary Lapse of Reason

Gilmour and Mason returned to the studio, along with producer Bob Ezrin in 1986. Richard Wright also rejoined Gilmour and Mason during the final recording sessions of A Momentary Lapse of Reason (UK #3/U.S. #3) album, though he did not officially rejoin the band until the end of the subsequent tour. Gilmour later admitted that Mason had hardly played on the album. Because of Mason's limited contribution, many critics say that A Momentary Lapse of Reason should really be regarded as a Gilmour solo effort, in the way that The Final Cut can be seen as a Waters solo album. Having usually written only music with Waters responsible for drafting lyrics (the most recent Pink Floyd album to which Gilmour had contributed lyrics was Obscured by Clouds), Gilmour received further criticism for bringing writers from outside the band to assist him. After the release of A Momentary Lapse of Reason in 1987, Pink Floyd embarked on what was initially meant to be an 11-week tour to promote the album. The two remaining members of the band, David Gilmour and Nick Mason, along with Richard Wright, who still not yet officially a band member, had just won a legal battle against Roger Waters and the future of the group was uncertain. Following the band's tradition, the tour was huge: 45 trucks were needed to carry the equipment necessary to build the biggest outdoor stage to date, 85 feet (26 m) high and 98 feet (30 m) wide. Initially scheduled just to promote the album, it lasted until almost two years later, in 1989, after playing around 200 concerts, including 3 dates at Madison Square Garden and 2 nights at Wembley Stadium, to about 5.5 million people in total. The numbers of the tour speak for themselves: it made Pink Floyd the second highest grossing act of 1987 and the highest grossing of 1988 in the U.S. Financially, Pìnk Floyd was the biggest act of these two years combined, as it grossed almost US$ 60 million from touring, about the same as U2 and Michael Jackson, their closest rivals, put together. Worldwide, the band grossed around US$ 135 million. A further concert was held in 1990, at the Knebworth Festival in 1990, a charity event that also featured other Silver Clef Award winners. Pink Floyd was the last act to play, to an audience of 125,000. The £60,000 firework display that ended the concert was entirely financed by the band. They released a double live album taken from their 1988 Long Island shows, entitled Delicate Sound of Thunder. They later recorded some instrumentals for a classic-car racing film La Carrera Panamericana, set in Mexico and featuring Gilmour and Mason as participating drivers. At one part of the race Gilmour and Steve O'Rourke (his map-reader in the race) crashed. O'Rourke suffered a broken leg, but Gilmour walked away with just some bruises. The instrumentals are notable for including the first Floyd material co-written by Wright since 1975, as well as the only Floyd material co-written by Mason since Dark Side of the Moon. 1992 saw the box set release of Shine On. The 9 disc set included re-releases of the studio albums A Saucerful of Secrets; Meddle; The Dark Side of the Moon; Wish You Were Here; Animals; The Wall; and A Momentary Lapse of Reason. A bonus disc entitled The Pink Floyd Early Singles was also included. An interesting detail of the set's packaging is that when all the albums are stacked up, from the side they form the cover of The Dark Side of the Moon.

The Division Bell

The band's next recording was the 1994 release The Division Bell (UK #1/U.S. #1), which was much more of a group effort than A Momentary Lapse of Reason had been, with Wright now reinstated as a full and contributing band member. The album was generally received more favorably by critics and fans alike than Lapse had been, sounding more like the timeless Pink Floyd of old. Saxophonist Dick Parry, a contributor to the mid-70s Floyd albums, also returned to the fold. The ensuing tour was promoted by legendary Canadian concert impresario Michael Cohl and became the highest-grossing tour in rock history to that date, with the band playing the entirety of Dark Side of the Moon in some shows, the first time they had done so since 1975. The concerts featured a very large stage, a large round screen, incredible special effects, quadrophonic sound and powerful lasers. Three stages leapfrogged around North America and Europe, each 180 feet long and featuring a 130 foot arch modelled on the Hollywood Bowl. All in all, the tour required 700 tons of steel carried by 53 articulated trucks, a crew of 161 people and an initial investment of US$ 4 million plus US$ 25 million of running costs just to stage. It paid off. This tour played to 5.5 million people in 68 cities; each concert gathered an average 45,000 audience. At the end of the year, the Division Bell tour was announced as the biggest tour ever, with worldwide gross of over £150 million (about US$ 250 million). In the U.S. alone, it grossed US$ 103.5 million from 59 concerts. However, this record was short-lived; less than a year later, The Rolling Stones' Voodoo Lounge tour finished with a worldwide gross of over US$ 300 million. The Stones remain the only act ever to achieve a higher worldwide gross from a tour.

Solo work and more 1995-2004

Pink Floyd has not released any new studio material or toured since 1994's The Division Bell, nor is there a sign of any forthcoming, however the band released a live album entitled P
- U
- L
- S
- E in 1995. P
- U
- L
- S
- E hit #1 in U.S. and featured songs recorded during one of the record-breaking 14 presentations at Earl's Court, in London, which ended "The Division Bell" tour, and includes an entire performance of "Dark Side of the Moon" as well as other favourites from albums like "The Wall" and "Wish You Were Here". In 1996, the band performed Wish You Were Here with Billy Corgan (of The Smashing Pumpkins fame) at their Rock and Roll Hall of Fame induction. A live recording of The Wall was released in 2000 compiled from their 1980/1981 London concerts, entitled Is There Anybody Out There? The Wall Live 1980-81. It hit #1 on Billboard Internet Album Sales chart, but managed to only hit #19 on U.S. charts. A two-disc set of their best-known tracks entitled Echoes was released in 2001. This compilation caused some controversy due to the songs segueing into one other non-chronologically, thereby presenting the material out of the context of the original albums. Some of the tracks ("Echoes", "Shine On You Crazy Diamond", "Marooned" and "High Hopes") have had substantial parts removed from them. Despite the controversy, the album sold over 200,000 copies in its first week and guaranteed a #2 on U.S. charts. David Gilmour released a solo concert DVD called David Gilmour in Concert in November 2002 which was compiled from shows on 2001-06-22, and 2002-01-17, at The Royal Festival Hall in London. Richard Wright, Robert Wyatt, and Bob Geldof (Pink in The Wall film) make guest appearances. In 2002 Q magazine named Pink Floyd as one of the "50 Bands To See Before You Die". Two years later, the same magazine would place Pink Floyd as the biggest band of all time, above the Beatles, the Rolling Stones and Led Zeppelin, according to a complex system for comparing bands which included album sales, charts performance and concerts attendance. In 2003, a 30th-Anniversary SACD reissue of Dark Side of the Moon, featuring high resolution surround sound was released with new artwork on the front cover and went on to sell over 800,000 copies. Longtime manager Steve O'Rourke died later that year on October 30, 2003. The three remaining band members performed "Fat Old Sun" and "The Great Gig in the Sky" at his funeral at Chichester Cathedral, contrary to reports in the media claiming they played "Wish You Were Here". In 2004 a remastered re-release of The Final Cut was released with the single "When the Tigers Broke Free" added. Mason's book, Inside Out: A Personal History of Pink Floyd, was published in 2004 in Europe and 2005 in the US. To promote it, Mason made public appearances in a few European and American cities, giving interviews and meeting fans at book signings. The book gives Mason's personal view of the band's experiences. There has been talk of Roger Waters doing a Broadway musical version of The Wall, with extra music to be written by Waters. The Broadway version will feature all of the music written by Waters but it is not known whether the songs co-written by Gilmour ("Young Lust", "Comfortably Numb", and "Run Like Hell") will feature. The 30th-Anniversary SACD reissue of Wish You Were Here is due early in 2006, also to feature high-resolution surround sound. Waters, Gilmour and Wright are reported to all be working on solo albums, with Waters' and Gilmour's due to be released in 2006.

Live 8, 2005-present

On July 2, 2005 Pink Floyd performed at the London Live 8 concert with Roger Waters rejoining David Gilmour, Nick Mason and Richard Wright. It was the quartet's first performance together in over 24 years — the band's last show with Waters was at Earls Court in London on June 17, 1981. 1981 Gilmour announced the Live 8 reunion on June 12, 2005:

Like most people I want to do everything I can to persuade the G8 leaders to make huge commitments to the relief of poverty and increased aid to the third world. It's crazy that America gives such a paltry percentage of its GNP to the starving nations. Any squabbles Roger and the band have had in the past are so petty in this context, and if re-forming for this concert will help focus attention then it's got to be worthwhile.

The band's set consisted of "Speak To Me/Breathe/Breathe Reprise", "Money", "Wish You Were Here" and "Comfortably Numb". As on the original recordings, Gilmour sang the lead vocals on "Breathe" and "Money", and shared them with Waters on Comfortably Numb. "Wish You Were Here" was the exception to this with Gilmour singing his usual verse, with Waters picking it up halfway through. During the guitar introduction of "Wish You Were Here", Waters said:

It's actually quite emotional standing up here with these three guys after all these years. Standing to be counted with the rest of you. Anyway, we're doing this for everyone who's not here, but particularly, of course, for Syd.

They were augmented by guitarist Tim Renwick (guitarist on Roger Waters' 1984 solo tour, who has since become Pink Floyd's backing guitarist on stage), keyboardist/guitarist Jon Carin (Pink Floyd's backing keyboardist from 1987 onward who has since performed on the 1999-2000 North American leg of Waters' "In The Flesh" solo tour), saxophonist Dick Parry during "Money" (who played on the original recordings of "Money", "Us And Them", and "Shine on You Crazy Diamond"), and backing singer Carol Kenyon during "Comfortably Numb". On the screen behind them, film of the iconic pig from the Animals album was shown flying over Battersea Power Station. Many fans expressed the hope that the Live 8 appearance would lead to a reunion tour and a record-breaking US$ 250 million deal for a world tour is said to have being offered to the band. At first, however, the band has made it very clear that there are no such plans at that time. In the weeks after the show, the rifts that separated the members during the breakup seemed to have largely healed. David Gilmour confirmed that he and Waters were on "pretty amicable terms" and that they communicated via e-mail after the concert. Nick Mason said that the band would be willing to perform for a concert "that would support Israeli-Palestinian peace efforts." Waters has offered what some see as conflicting comments on the issue, first saying, "Never say never [...] I mean, under sort of similar circumstances, or in some way, we might do things again" when questioned on the prospects of another performance. However in an interview in Rolling Stone, Waters appeared less optimistic: "I decided that if anything came up in rehearsals [for Live 8] — any difference of opinion — I would just roll over. And I did...I didn't mind rolling over for one day, but I couldn't roll over for a whole fucking tour". However, in an October, 2005 interview with Word Magazine, Waters stated he "really loved" playing with the band again and he held out some possibility of the band re-forming again. "I hope we do it again. If some other opportunity arose, I could even imagine us doing Dark Side of the Moon again - you know, if there was a special occasion. It would be good to hear it again". Also, Waters stated on a BBC2 Radio interview in September the possibility of a reunion album with Gilmour, Mason and Wright. In the week after Live 8, there was a revival of interest in Pink Floyd. According to record store chain HMV, sales of Echoes: The Best of Pink Floyd went up, in the following week, by 1343%, while [http://www.amazon.co.uk Amazon.co.uk] reported increases in sales of The Wall at 3600%, Wish You Were Here at 2000%, Dark Side of the Moon at 1400% and Animals at 1000%. David Gilmour subsequently declared that he would donate all profits from this post Live 8 boom in sales to charity, and urged that all the other performing artists and their record companies should do the same. On 16 November 2005 Pink Floyd were inducted into the UK Music Hall of Fame, by Pete Townshend. Gilmour and Mason attended in person, explaining that Wright was in hospital following eye surgery, and Waters appeared on a video screen, from Rome. It was stated that the chance of a reunion album is practically nil, and that any future concerts would be in the same vein as Live 8. This was contradicted on the 25 November, when Waters stated that he was willing to play with Pink Floyd again as long as other members agreed [http://www.ultimate-guitar.com/news/general_music_news/pink_floyd_to_reunite.html].

The images of Pink Floyd

25 November one of the best album covers ever created.]] Integral to the music is the artwork that comes with it. The album covers and sleeve artwork add to the emotional impact of the music with vivid and meaningful imagery. Throughout the band's career, this aspect was mainly provided by the talents of photographer and graphic artist Storm Thorgerson and his erstwhile graphic studio Hipgnosis ("hip" gnosis or hypnosis). Many of these images have acquired fame in their own right; notably the famous picture of a man shaking the hand of his burning alter-ego for Wish You Were Here and the refracting prism for Dark Side of the Moon. The cover of Meddle also gave testament to the band's ideas about the visualization of sound with its close-up of the human ear accompanied by visible sound waves. In fact, Thorgerson was involved in all the artwork for every album except The Piper at the Gates of Dawn, the front cover of which was a photograph by Vic Singh and the back cover a drawing by Barrett; The Wall, for which the band employed Gerald Scarfe; and The Final Cut, the cover of which was designed by Waters himself, using photography made by his then brother-in-law, Willie Christie. A quote from Roger Waters from a video/DVD on the making of the Dark Side of the Moon album: "We always wanted to kind of... not be on our covers ourselves; not have pictures".

Discography and awards

:Main article: Pink Floyd has released 14 studio albums, three live albums, one half live and half studio, and several compilations. Their albums have won numerous awards.

Bootlegs

Pink Floyd is one of the heaviest-bootlegged bands in history, with bootleg recordings of the band numbering at least in the hundreds. Collectors of these bootlegs often call them RoIOs, or Recordings of Illegal/Illegitimate Origin. The vast majority of these are audience recordings of their various concerts, as only a few studio outtakes and soundboard recordings have leaked to bootleggers. The most popular exceptions are the unreleased Syd Barrett songs "Scream Thy Last Scream" and "Vegetable Man", but there are others as well. Many bootlegs before the 1990's featured singles such as "Candy and a Currant Bun" that had not been released on compilation discs, but these disappeared when the The Early Singles disc in the Shine On box set was released. Collecting bootlegs is usually easy, as the internet has made bootleg sales for profit largely pointless. Organizations such as Harvested have made a hobby of cleaning up and remastering bootleg recordings and issuing them to traders for free. The hundreds of audience recordings vary in quality from excellent (concerts in 1994 and 1988) to abysmal (the era between 1967 and 1971). Audience noise is often absent, because audiences of the band in their early days were very quiet. There are sometimes recordings of standout quality in a period of otherwise low-quality recordings; an example is the Electric Factory show in late 1970, which was nearly soundboard-quality during a period when most other recordings were extremely poor. (Audience recordings would not regularly be as good as the Electric Factory show until 1988). Other standouts include the "Fireman" source of the Hollywood Bowl concert in 1972, in which a complete rendition of the pre-release "prototype" Dark Side of the Moon suite was played, and an excellent recording of a 1975 show taped by the legendary taper Mike Millard. This recording contains the best-existing versions of the unreleased Pink Floyd songs "Raving and Drooling" and "You've Got to Be Crazy", which would eventually become "Sheep" and "Dogs", respectively. One of the most useful bootlegs is A Tree Full Of Secrets, a massive 18-disc collection of all Pink Floyd material which ignores live recordings but includes all material released on albums outside the Pink Floyd discography (such as movie soundtracks), radio advertisements, television performances, studio outtakes, rehearsals and alternative mono/stereo remixes. It also features considerable solo material from Pink Floyd's members. It is the definitive collection of all Floyd rarities, and even includes materials suspected of being fake for the sake of completeness and allowing the listener to decide.

Band members

Classic line-up

- David Gilmour - guitar, vocals (1968 - present)
- Nick Mason - drums (1965 - present)
-

The Wall

Concept

Demo version

Recorded version

Concert version

Film version

Stage version

Post-split

Track Listing (album version)

Disc one

Disc two

Additional tracks from the film

Tracks from the live concert

Tracks intended for use on the album, but not used

Personnel

Album

Quotes

Singles

Charts

Awards

External links

Pink Floyd The Wall (film)

About the Movie

Plot summary

Documentary

Trivia

External links

Concept album

See also

References

Wish You Were Here (album)

Syd Barrett's studio visit

Reissues and remastering

Press coverage

Track listing

Personnel

Singles

Chart and sales success

Quotes

External links

Pink Floyd

Overview

Live Performances

Split and reunion

Band history

Syd Barrett led years: 1965-1968

Barrett's decline

Finding their feet: 1969-1970

A Saucerful of Secrets

More

Ummagumma

Atom Heart Mother

Breakthrough era: 1971-1975

Meddle

Obscured By Clouds

Dark Side of the Moon

Wish You Were Here

Knebworth '75

Roger Waters-led era: 1976-1984

Animals

In The Flesh

The Wall

The Wall Live

Film

The Final Cut

David Gilmour-led era: 1987-1995

Momentary Lapse of Reason

The Division Bell

Solo work and more 1995-2004

Live 8, 2005-present

The images of Pink Floyd

Discography and awards

Bootlegs

Band members

Classic line-up