Pink Floyd
The Wall

THE REVIEW

Let's suppose we are in an exciting period of rock revival, surrounded by a thick bubbling of new music scenes, and that the era of classical concept albums is somewhat fading... Let's assume you are the leader of a rock band that has spent the last scraps of creativity for almost a decade, and yet you continue to rake in millions no matter what flatulence you emit... Let's also assume that your nights are troubled by guilt over a father aviator who died in war, and a genius friend who went mad, whose best ideas you have pilfered but no longer have time to visit... Then it's likely that your name is Roger Waters and that you are about to craft one of the most unbearable monstrosities in rock history. A colossal work of classic rock in double LP format (in the midst of the new wave... talk about capturing the zeitgeist), which actually doesn't contain much rock but is stuffed with plenty of seriousness that fills the mouth well, like Alienation, Depression, Oppressive Society, the Wall That Divides Us from the Other (from whom?... Syd?... Daddy?). Waters as despot or the irresponsible, degenerate other band members? The fact is that the vast majority of the project is attributable to Waters, with Gilmour merely composing a bit and constantly inserting his usual, predictable guitar solos. Drummer Mason seems lobotomized, and he reduces himself to doing the same "TUM, PA" throughout the album, while due to arguments, there's almost no trace of Wright nor the reassuring and colorful keyboards of old times.

So how to fill the songs, then? Why, with some fine symphonic scores that bring a sense of importance and a fair amount of technological noises that fans still enjoy! Well, but compared to Dark Side, the sound of The Wall is a bit drier and different anyway - someone will say. Too bad the final result is a dull and colorless hodgepodge of worn-out stadium hard rock, techno-instrumental appendages, second-hand disco music, classical-like wallpapers, and fake 30s cabaret, all seasoned with the unbearable verbosity of Waters who doesn't keep quiet for a minute. Not to mention certain repulsive musical-like choruses that occasionally remind us that things could have been even worse if this had been a Queen album. Sure, for those easily pleased (and forgetting records from 12, 10, or even just 6 years before), one might settle for a handful of acceptable songs, but from a band with this past and, especially, as a result of such grandiloquence, all this looks like the famous mouse born of the mountain... Azz! too bad there's no "geriatric rock" in the proposed DeGenres...