Pink Floyd - The Wall

7.5 - England - 1979

Beloved by pretentious high-schoolers the world over, I can't quite get to it.  The whole thing just seems overblown and histrionic.  And, our differing thoughts about the merits of Atom Heart Mother aside, I have to agree with David Gilmour in that, on this record, Waters lyrics have taken the foreground away from the Floyd's musicianship.  Individual tracks are alright: the two "In The Flesh"s feature a killer riff, and "Mother" is pretty decent.  Probably the best track is "Is There Anybody Out There?", but when a brief quasi-instrumental (not even played by the band: Gilmour couldn't handle the guitar part) is a highlight, you know you've got problems.  Compare this to the group’s earlier efforts and it all seems gloomy and synthetic.  A work of genius in theory, but rather bland in practice.