Everyday, I commute down and back the Merritt Parkway in Connecticut, spending two hours trapped in the prison ship known as an automobile with only an 80GB iPod to keep the insanity at bay. The wear and tear on my car and my mind is horrific, but at least I have the opportunity to listen uninterrupted to entire albums at a go.
The Artist: Pink Floyd
The Album: The Wall (Released November, 1979)
Frame of Reference:
My first exposure to Pink Floyd was courtesy of a highschool party thrown by older teenagers in Aleph Zadik Aleph. In true, faithful Jewboy tradition, we ate Taco Bell and watched porn. The party-host and chief smut-monger threw on Dark Side of the Moon around 3:00 AM just as food poisoning, sleep deprivation, and blue balls set it. Needless to say, I didn't like Pink Floyd at all. My opinion changed when I picked up a well-worn original pressing of The Wall and threw it on the family turntable weeks later.
My Thoughts:
The Wall has already been thoroughly reviewed, critiqued, dissected, deconstructed, praised, and damned over the last thirty years by wiser and more competent writers than I. However, few have approached the work from the perspective of a crazed motorist in search of a diversion to keep him from plowing into the grey-haired granny in a Ford Explorer who keeps drifting into his lane. From that viewpoint, The Wall is an unmitigated success. In fact, The Wall so succeeded in occupying my brain during last Friday's commute, that I was only marginally aware that I had been sitting in stand-still traffic for 35 minutes inhaling the exhaust fumes from the sputtering cars around me.
The Wall begins strongly with "In the Flesh?", an excellent framing piece that comes crashing down with a potent guitar that propels you into the album. Roger Waters' opening lines simultaneously deride you for your expectations of the album while daring you to continue deeper into the narrative that awaits. As the track closes, the sounds of a crashing plane overpower your speakers followed by a transition into the superficially gentler "The Thin Ice."
The transition between these tracks is the first of many well-executed bridges that connect the songs of The Wall. Save for the pauses between the songs "Mother"/"Goodbye Blue sky", "Goodbye Cruel World"/"Hey You", and "Comfortably Numb"/"The Show Must Go On" which arise from the album's original presentation as a 2 disc, 4 sided set, and the deliberate brief silence between 'Bring the Boys Back Home"/"Comfortably Numb", the music and narrative flow neither falters nor fades out. Instead, each track transitions and evolves smoothly into the next. As a listener who is actively seeking to become enveloped by music to avoid going nut-ball psycho on the commuters around me, I appreciate the transitions as a means to keep me enthralled. Also, Nick Mason's drumwork on the brief bridges between "Thin Thin Ice"/"Another Brick in the Wall (Part 1)" and "The Happiest Days of Our Lives"/"Another Brick in the Wall (Part 2)" is far more distinctive and colorful than the fairly straight-forward percussion he plays on the tracks themselves.
The first two tracks also define the manner in which The Wall settles into a stimulating cycle of high-tension electric rock and acoustic guitar/piano songs. Lyrically, Roger Waters and David Gilmour will alternatively deliver sardonically malicious turns of phrases and wistful longings for peace of mind for most of the album. The ebb and flow between vitriol fueled rock and the strained sanity of softer music evokes a physical response that prevents me from allowing the album to fade into background noise. Instead, it keeps me focused on the music as it evolves.
The Wall succeeds throughout it's near 90 minutes run time of keeping me engaged and interested. Thus, the album is a perfect soundtrack for my commute.
In Closing:
The Wall is a near-perfect concept album that has been destroyed by commercial radio. Taken out of context, the single cuts of many of the songs lose their meaning. "Another Brick in the Wall (Part II)" becomes a mindless anthem for rebellion instead of a narrative entry on how enforced conformity deranges the album's protagonist. "Young Lust" becomes a lewd sexual brag instead of the impotent lashing-out of a man whose self-imposed isolation has destroyed his relationship with his wife. "Comfortably Numb" becomes a nostalgic reminiscence on drug-induced oblivion instead of the turning point in which the album protagonist has lost most of his humanity. "Run Like Hell" becomes a rabble-rousing hate rant instead of the critical commentary on the insanity and derangement required to even formulate such thoughts.
Experience The Wall as intended - as an artistic whole, and you might remember why The Wall is the highest-selling double-album of all time.
- DJ Cheshire Cat / www.djcheshirecat.com
