Another Brick In The Wall

I have forgotten how much I loved this album.  I wore a deep groove in the vinyl back in my late teens and early 20's listening to this Floyd album.  I pretty much burned myself out on it back then, not to mention how overplayed "Brick In The Wall" was on the radio, back in those days.  I have basically avoided listening to the album for the last....maybe... over 15 years.
 
So, I was on my way to the health club and was tired of everything on my iPhone.  I down loaded the entire album from iTunes and listened to the first 7-8 songs while doing the stepper up there at the club.  I was blown away all over again.  "Mother", "Goodbye Blue Sky", "Empty Space", what excellent song writing.  I am going to throw it back on tonight before bed and enjoy some more.  I can hardly wait to get to the second album with "Hey You" and "Comfortably Numb".  I am listening with Engineers Ears, this time around and it is a whole new awakening.
 
And how excellent are Gilmour's leads!  There is a blues lick move that he does on the "Brick In The Wall" solo that I have heard a lot lately and need to try to figure out how it is done.  It's like a choked triplet on the string...not sure what you would call it....but I have to find that blues move on You Tube and see how it is done.  I have recently heard blues guitarist Paul Rose use that choked triplet as well.
 
Good stuff. 

Gilmour is proof to me that feel is everything when playing guitar. 

I think ABITW was the first album I ever owned, along with The Specials' first album. I was only 6 or 7 at the time and the single with the video set in the school totally transfixed me. I loved how they'd gotten the kids to sing as well. Had to have it for my birthday. I loved the whole album and decided that Pink Floyd was my favorite band (with The Specials a close second). My aunt had given me some cash for my birthday so I went straight down to the record store to see what other Pink Floyd they had. It was a small store and the only other album they had was Relics. But it had a really cool cover so I bought it. I was pretty much shocked by how different it was to The Wall, but I loved it anyway. I'll never forget hearing the first track, Arnold Layne, and thinking wow, this is nothing like ABITW, but it's great! See Emily Play also turned into a firm favorite. Not long after that I was home from school sick and "Live In Pompeii" was on TV (daytime TV was 1000x better back then). What a blast that was. 

Back then (mid 80s) where I lived, it was THE stoner album and it was pretty much a rite of passage to get intoxicated and then watch The Wall.

 
Same where I grew up close to the Canadian border.
  

though I renounced to the idea of doing drugs relatively early.

 
Same deal with me.  All of my friends were stoned and listening to it; that's how I first came upon Floyd.  This album and Dark Side of the Moon.  I just never had the interest in going down that path.  I was taken by the actual music and quite enjoyed it without any enhancements.  I think most people will say that DSOTM was their best work, but not for me, The Wall was always my favorite and in my opinion, the best work they did.  I have DSOTM on my iPhone as well and have been listening to it lately, too.  iTunes had a Fathers Day special on Moon and that has revived my whole love for these albums.
 
 

Hi,
I got into PF during the "More" and then "Ummagumma" days. And then saw them with their Quadraphonic sound system at the Hollywood Bowl in September of 1972. Still, one of the best concerts I have ever seen.
 
All other PF concerts after that (4 of them) were all good, but the circus atmosphere was out of line, frustrating, and seeing the police pick people off the line at the Sports Arena, was not the nicest way to see a band, and then watch people picked off the audience during The Wall later.
 
All in all, it was disgusting and disappointing, though the shows themselves were good.
 
Of all of these, the Anaheim stadium shows were the best, and the bootlegs that existed of them showed it.
 
Of all their work, and the bootlegs I used to have, I like the earlier material better than the later material. I still get a thrill out of hearing 12 different versions of "Set the Controls for the Heart of the Sun", or 12 different versions of "Echoes" or 12 different versions of "Atom Heart Mother".
 
The later material is nice, and a listening pleasure, but in the end, I still go back to the earlier material as having more depth and beauty than the later material. 

I've got a bike
You can ride it if you like
It's got a basket, a bell that rings
And things that make it look good.
 
From one of my all-time favorite Floyd tunes. It's a silly song, but it's been stuck in my head for nigh on 40 years.
I like The Wall, but to be fully appreciated, I think it needs to be experienced as a whole. The individual songs seem to loose something when taken out of context. As part of the story, each song has much more meaning, another brick, so to speak.

I have more than one favorite Pink Floyd album because there's more than one Floyd to me. The band that put out Piper at the Gates of Dawn - one of my all-time favorite albums - isn't the same band that put out Atome Heart Mother - another all-time favorite of mine. Same goes for Meddle vs Animals. 
 
Truth is, practically all of them are my favorite Floyd album in some regard. 

CL2Zero
I am such a fan that I actually named my sons David and Nick. The wife wouldn't go for Roger or Richard for our third son. I guess you can't win them all.

Well, Syd was a good third choice! 

craigb

CL2Zero
I am such a fan that I actually named my sons David and Nick. The wife wouldn't go for Roger or Richard for our third son. I guess you can't win them all.

Well, Syd was a good third choice! 

The idea of Syd went down in flames, too.

Makes you wonder how Zakk Wylde got away with "Hendrix Halen Michael Rhoads Wylde" and "Sabbath Wylde"...

jamesg1213
For me, 'Dark Side' is as near as they came to a completely satisfying album, although 'Wish You Were Here' is close. They started to lose me with 'The Wall', and I don't think I ever heard 'The Final Cut'.

When "The Wall" the movie was previewed before it was released in a couple of cities, we travelled to SF to see it in a special invitation showing, and it was 22 minutes longer than the actual release.
 
In it, were the pieces and parts that ended up showing up in "The Final Cut" which makes the WW2 part of the story better and more continuous and even helps understand the parent a bit better in it all, and then finally thrown into a meat factory ... too many children from a generation that was almost completely raped and wiped out in Europe.
 
All in all, I did not think "The Final Cut" that big a deal, but a couple of rips in it are awesome and they were the only new things, like "Not Now John" and all that!

craigb
I named a raccoon that used to visit us Floyd...

Quick ... name the dogs! And not the one in the movie, because that was not a dog. That was a "she", and she was great! (Mademoiselle Knobs)