THE WALL

When I first heard DSOTM an entire world was opened up to me, limited as I'd been before then to the Top Twenty and knowing nothing of what lay beyond. I became an avid Prog Rock fan and, for me, Floyd were the pinnacle. I laid hands on everything from 'Piper' on, 'Echoes' was my all-time favourite track, DSOTM my all-time favourite album and my only concern when WYWH came out was whether I could justify putting that at the top of the heap instead.

However, there was a slight wrinkle of concern that came with WYWH, that being 'Have a Cigar'. DSOTM had dealt with the eternal verities, ageless concerns, the issues that have us reading Shakespeare 400 years after his death. 'Have a Cigar' grated for being a bit of a parochial moan on the part of a gent, Waters, who had a lot less to moan about than most of his audience. Successful rock star me but oh, my dear, the money-men. Well yes, good point Roger, you love the music but hate the business... can I have the album for free then? I can afford to buy it a lot less than you can afford the loss.

The twinge of anxiety intensified into a spasm with Animals. I'd been through the stage of sixth-form political thinking by then and yes, Mary Whitehouse was indeed a pain, but a whole album of it? People as pigs, or dogs, or sheep... well yes, I could see it if you simplify everything down and forget the fine details but this was starting to read like a treatise from a 16 year old anarchist, anarchic by default in understanding little of politics and society, only knowing he didn't trust either much.

This may seem like a long preamble before I even get to the album under review, but not to note that progression and there'd be no review. The Wall marked the culmination of a depressing slide and with it Floyd, my favourite band, my revelatory band, lost me completely. Waters had taken over and the slide backward from the eternal verities through adolescent anarchy and into pre-pubescent angst was complete.

The Wall is the ultimate concept album in that that is largely all there is. A concept. I'm not saying there aren't some great pieces of music here, see above; but as has been noted above, they were seconded to Waters' Great Message and to my mind it was never a message that was all that great in any case. At the age of 20 I found myself listening to the whine of a guy of 35 about stuff I'd grown out of at the age of eleven. So much for Shakespeare.

Strangely I have come to reappraise the album in the last six years. It is actually relevant. I have seen the realities it talks about and yes, even seen people driven to near suicide on the back of it all but I have to give that its context. I've spent the past six years living in China where the CD, pirated, is surprisingly popular. Or unsurprisingly when you see the education here, the parental control masquerading as affection and all the other nonsense Chinese youth has to put up with. It is relevant. Stunningly so. If you happen to be an 18 year old Chinese. Which in 1979 Waters was not by any stretch of the imagination and nor were his target audience.

That people should gush so much over this album depresses me. Prior to this there was genius - yes, even with Animals, though the genius was on the slide by then. It worries me that newcomers to Floyd, being told this is somehow the definitive album, will be put off when they hear it and miss out on the gems that came before.

Had this album originated with another band it would have been interesting. But it didn't. It originated with Floyd. And as a Floyd album it is, quite frankly, substandard to the edge of pointless.

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