Pink Floyd

Listening to this rich union of artistic endeavor and commercial viability was a rite of passage for suburban teenagers during the '80s. Using themes every teen can relate to (isolation, betrayal, anti-homeworkism), Waters delivered a record, stage show and film that, while of questionable taste, was undeniably what the kids were after in 1979.

Though it in no way endangers the meisterwerk musical status of Dark Side of the Moon
(still on the charts nearly seven years after its release), Pink Floyd's twelfth album, The
Wall, is the most startling rhetorical achievement in the group's singular, thirteen-year
career. Stretching his talents over four sides, Floyd bassist Roger Waters, who wrote all the
words and a majority of the music here, projects a dark, multilayered vision of p... More >

For a dumb tribulations-of-a-rock-star epic, this isn't bad--unlikely to arouse much pity or envy, anyway. The music is all right, too--kitschy minimal maximalism with sound effects and speech fragments. But the story is confused, "mother" and "modern life" make unconvincing villains, and if the recontextualization of "up against the wall" is intended ironically, I don't get it. (Grade - B-)