Is a whole thread too much? Probs. It's on my mind though so why not.
It's on my mind because I'm messing with the same idea, a more 'opera' like or concept premise for a series of songs (and some narrative/ambient sounds). I got to thinking about The Wall. I don't want to copy it or anything, that's absurd and wrong-headed, besides being impossible. But I'd like to look at it from a different angle I guess.
One of my favs of all time. I was 14 or 15 when I got it on cassette. For almost a month I had it on rotation, or maybe not even rotation, I just listened to it over and over. I remember my mom warned me that I should save some for later--I'd get tired of it. And I did. After about a month or so of nonstop listening, I used up all the magic.
By that point I had it committed to memory. I have a memory from around that time of a long day of work dragging and chipping brush as a groundman for my dad's tree business, and I'd just listen to The Wall from memory.
Fast forward to today. I listen to the album maybe once every few years, but not like when it was new--not from reel to reel without interruption. I'll listen to a song here or there fairly often--the segment from Vera to Bring the Boys Back Home to Comf Numb is rad.
I thought about the album last night and ended up giving it a listen. I kind of petered out toward the end--the end is a bit tedious for me. The engineer for The Wall, James Guthrie, echoes this idea that maybe the end kinda sucks:
https://www.brain-damage.co.uk/other...floyd-the.html
Well, I'll wrap up with a few of my thoughts from my listen last night:Also, I wouldn’t mind hearing ‘The Trial’ without all the showy, Kurt Weill arrangement. Something darker, cooler and more sinister might be interesting.
The punctuated bass notes with kick and cymbal at the beginning of Another Brick*--I'm not sure who invented this, but it's never been more effective. It's like Primus, Faith No More, and NoMeansNo were all spawned that very instant. As I listen to the album, I'm impressed most by all of the musical *innovation*.
*
The acoustic guitar sound on Hey You is impressive. I am beginning to wonder how all these things happened, from a technology perspective--how do you get that sound that is in your head on the tape? This is another small example of innovation--that sound is distinctive to that song. Sure, the song would also be great if Roger Waters just picked up a cheap guitar at a campfire and did the same thing--it's a great song. But that slightly detuned, chorusy, not sure how to describe it...sound of that acoustic guitar establishes the mood of the song by timbre and quality alone.
I can't think of any other album that does so well integrating ambient/narrative sound components for superior effect. Often it's distracting or lame on other albums. But on The Wall, the TV chatter, airplanes, the chick's monologue 'wanna take a bath?', smashing TVs, and so on...even the guitar effects (Gilmour saying he wants his guitar to sound drunk on Comf Numb)--they are natural and seemly.
A good album.
Does anyone else like it? Do you think it's particularly clever or something?