However, these three albums were not concept albums in the sense of The Who’s Tommy but rather albums based upon a specific theme.

However, it also went platinum a whopping 23 times, having sold 11.5 million copies in America and an estimated 30 million worldwide, so it must be doing something right!Īs a lyricist, Roger Waters has never been one to shy away from weighty topics as he illustrated with his exploration of mental illness, mortality, and the need for human empathy on The Dark Side of the Moon, his reflection upon the band’s emotional state after their stupendous success, the superficiality of the music biz, and the loss of their former bandleader Syd Barrett on Wish You Were Here, and the socio-political Animals, which unleashed an unveiled attack on humankind’s corruption of power loosely based upon George Orwell’s Animal Farm. The Wall is often regarded as an overblown solipsistic account of a poor rock star’s mid-life crisis (a theme revisited on the songwriter’s solo follow-up The Pros and Cons of Hitchhiking). However, in anticipation of our The Wall 35th anniversary celebrations, I duly dusted off my vinyl copy (I prefer the original UK pressing), plonked it onto the turntable, and I have played it straight through twice a day since. I must admit I have not listened to Pink Floyd’s The Wall in its entirety for nearly three decades until recently.

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