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The Wall |
| Release date: November 30, 1979 | | Highest Chart Position: US 1 | UK 3 |
 Acclaimed as the greatest concept rock album of all time, The Wall may never have been recorded if not for Pink Floyd's major financial trouble at the time. During the production of The Wall Waters took much creative control of the band and little material from other members (Gilmour gets three co-writing credits) was brougt in. Waters presented the demo's of "Bricks In The Wall" (later known as "The Wall") and "The Pros And Cons Of Hitch-Hiking" to the rest of the band who opted, naturally, to record "The Wall". The band recieved a large advance from their record company which brought their finances out of the red. The demos, however, were an "unlistenable...shitty mess" recalls Gilmour, so Bob Ezrin (the albums main producer) was brought in to shape Waters story into a state feasable for an album. Ezrin did major reworkings of Waters demo tape (enough material was available for the album to have been three records long!) and Waters was happy to let him saying, "You can do whatever you want just don't expect credit for it.' Ezrin also had to play the job of the mediator between Waters and Gilmour and has stated that his goal was to make The Wall "a Pink Floyd album not a Waters solo album." Many scenes from "The Wall" represent actual events in Waters life (reference to Syd Barrett, the loss of Waters father in the war). During the recording of the album Waters became unsatisfied with the effort Rick Wright (keyboardest and band member since Pink Floyd conception) was putting into the group and asked for him to leave the band or else Waters would scrap the entire project. The general assumption is that Rick Wright's Cocaine addiction combined with Waters' control creatively of the group lead to very little material surfacing from Wright. Rumours suggest that when Waters spoke with Gilmour about Wright "leaving" the group Gilmour replied with "Might as well get rid of Nick too;" showing how little drummer Nick Mason (who had been with the group since its conception and is the only Pink Floyd member to have played on every album) was putting into The Wall.
At the time, Waters had all the copy's of the master tapes and claimed that if Wright didn't go he would re-record all the material as a solo album. Wright agreed to leave for fear of being unable to pay off the bands massive debts without the release of The Wall. Wright was, however, brought on to play The Wall tour and was payed a fee, making Wright the only band member to make any money off of the expensive live show.
Produced By:
Bob Ezrin
David Gilmour
Roger Waters
Co-Produced And
Engineered By:
James Guthrie
Sleeve Design:
Gerald Scarfe
Roger Waters
Orchestra Arranged By:
Michael Kamen
Bob Ezrin
Recorded At:
Super Bear Studios - Miravel, France
Producers Workshop - Los Angeles
C.B.S. - New York
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Other Engineers:
Nick Griffiths
Patrice Quef
Brian Christian
John Maclure
Rick Hart
Sound Equipment:
Phil Taylor
Backing Vocals:
Bruce Johnston
Toni Tennille
Joe Chemay
John Joyce
Stan Parker
Jim Haas
Islington Green School
Fourth Form Music Class
Other Musicians:
Jeff Porcaro - Drums on Mother
Lee Ritenour - Rhythm Guitar on One Of My Turns
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Album Tracks:
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"Even the songs that Roger supposedly wrote by himself, it's never the full story. You can never say exactly what happened when that record was made. The whole ending part of 'Another Brick in the Wall (Part 2),' he didn't write the guitar solo or the chords in that section. He didn't make up the drum parts, the rhythm. I'm not going to abandon something I've worked really hard on, or feel I had something major to do with, just because it says Roger wrote it. Life is too short." - David Gilmour
"It started because Roger and I didn't get on. There was a lot of antagonism during "The Wall" and he said either you leave or I'll scrap everything we've done and there wont' be an album. Normally I would have told him just to get lost, but at that point we had to earn the money to pay off the enormous back-taxes we owed. Anyway, Roger said that if I didn't leave he would re-record the material. I couldn't afford to say no, so I left." -Rick Wright
"I liked Roger's story line. Although I didn't totally agree with it you've got to let a chap have his vision. I just had a different view of our relationship with olur audience than Roger did. Roger didn't like touring. An he felt there was a no connection between him and the audience that was in front of him. I had a different view of it; I still do. And my view of "The Wall" itself is about is more jaundiced today than it was then. It appears now to be a catalogue of people Roger blames for his own failings in life, a list of "you fucked me up this way, you fucked me up that way." -David Gilmour
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