The Wall

The Wall is the eleventh studio album by English rock band Pink Floyd, released as a double album on November 30th, 1979, by Harvest Records in the United Kingdom and by Columbia Records in the United States. The album, a rock opera, initially received a mixed critical response, but was commercially successful, reaching number 3 on the UK Albums Chart, and topping the US Billboard 200 chart for 15 weeks. It became the band’s second-best selling album, one of the best-selling albums of all time, and one of the most well-known concept albums, with a 1982 film adaptation.
Bass guitarist and songwriter Roger Waters conceived the album during Pink Floyd’s 1977 In the Flesh Tour, when his frustration with the audience became so acute that he spat on them. Its story explores Pink, a jaded rock star character that Waters modeled after himself and the band’s original leader Syd Barrett. Pink’s life begins with the loss of his father during the Second World War, and continues with abuse from his schoolteachers, an overprotective mother, and the breakdown of his marriage; all contribute to his eventual self-imposed isolation from society, symbolised by a wall.

Recording lasted from December 1978 to November 1979, with stops in France, England, New York, and Los Angeles. Waters enlisted an outside collaborator, Canadian producer Bob Ezrin, who helped refine the concept and bridge worsening band tensions; keyboardist Richard Wright was fired by Waters during production, but stayed as a salaried musician, making The Wall the last studio album recorded with the 11-year-spanning line-up of Waters, Wright, guitarist David Gilmour and drummer Nick Mason. It produced three singles: “Run Like Hell”, “Comfortably Numb”, and Pink Floyd’s only number-one single, “Another Brick in the Wall, Part 2”.

In 1980 and 1981, Pink Floyd staged The Wall as a live tour featuring elaborate theatrical effects; a live album from the tour, Is There Anybody Out There?, was released in 2000. Some of the album’s themes would be continued in the band’s next album, The Final Cut (1983), which also contains some outtakes from The Wall. By 1999, the album had sold over 23 million RIAA-certified units (11.5 million albums), making it the third-highest certified album in the US. In 2003, Rolling Stone placed The Wall at number 87 on its list of “The 500 Greatest Albums of All Time”. Waters staged a new Wall show between 2010–2013, which became the highest-grossing tour by a solo musician.