1979 - Clive's Top Albums of Every Year Challenge
Over what will likely be the next few years I’m going to be ranking and reviewing the top 5 albums - plus a fair few extras - according to users on rateyourmusic.com (think IMDB for music) from every year from 1960 to the present. If you want to know more, I wrote an introduction to the ‘challenge’ here. You can also read all the other entries I’ve written so far by heading to the lovely index page here.
We’ve made it to the final year of the 70s, and what a decade it’s been. As usual, I will be writing a wrap-up of the decade post, which will include ten or so albums I’ve not reviewed in any of my 70s posts so far. But before we do that, it’s time to take a look at 1979.
1979 was the year the Pol Pot regime finally collapsed in Cambodia, Margaret Thatcher became Prime Minister of the UK, Mother Teresa won the Nobel Peace Prize and John Wayne passed away.
Musically speaking here’s what rateyourmusic.com’s users rate as the year’s top 5 albums:
#1 Joy Division - Unknown Pleasures
#2 The Clash - London Calling
#3 Talking Heads - Fear of Music
#4 Gang of Four - Entertainment!
#5 Pink Floyd - The Wall
Pink Floyd and Talking Heads return, and we’ve got three new artists joining these prestigious ranks. As usual, 5 albums just isn’t enough, so I’ve plucked a load more from further down the list:
#6 Wire - 154
#7 Motörhead - Overkill
#10 Michael Jackson - Off the Wall
#23 The B-52’s - The B52’s
#43 Donna Summer - Bad Girls
#78 The Slits - Cut
#81 The Raincoats - The Raincoats
That’s 12 albums battling it out for this year’s title. Off we go.
12. Overkill
Motörhead
Motörhead’s second album, and their first with Bronze Records, is the album where the band really cemented the sound they’re known for today, and is still considered by many as their best album.
If I could describe the album in one word it’d be ‘relentless’. Every track is a speedy, hi-hat drenched carriage towed by a whole host of furious guitar riffs. The title track doesn’t sound a whole lot different to the band’s most famous song, Ace of Spades, and you certainly don’t come to this album for variety. A lot of Lemmy’s gruffly performed vocal melodies are pretty similar, the band seems fairly stuck at 120bpm, and Phil “Philthy Animal” Taylor’s (what a nickname) powerhouse drumming is pretty predictable, though effective.
What the album does deliver though is a riff masterclass from Eddie Clark - whose punchy, monstrous guitar work goes perfectly with Lemmy’s whisky burnt vocals - and a boundless energy that never lets up. It’s an album that is immediately enjoyable, but lacks the depth and variety to make me want to return to it too regularly.
Song Picks: I’ll Be Your Sister, Overkill
7/10
11. Off the Wall
Michael Jackson
Michael Jackson’s fifth studio album is the first to make an appearance on these lists, and the first produced by Quincy Jones, a partnership that would yield 3 extremely successful albums. Jackson’s genius is well documented, he has a voice like no one before or since, a captivating and mysterious live presence, and the moonwalk. I’m going to focus on the music here, so there’ll be no discussion of whether he did or didn’t abuse children, though I’d say that the documentary Leaving Neverland is fairly damning and conclusive on that matter (for the record, I think he did) and does lead to a certain level of discomfort in listening to this album, or indeed anything by Jackson.
From the opening ‘wooooo’ followed by that fabulous brass riff in Don’t Stop ‘Til You Get Enough, Off the Wall is a perfect, intricate disco record. Quincy Jones is one of my favourite producers based on this thing alone. The detail in the productions is superb, with each little addition - such as the funky guitars in either channel on the aforementioned opening track - contributing to the whole, and giving each track a level of depth to ensure it never gets boring. My Dad and Step-Mum are massive Jackson fans, and so I’ve heard these songs thousands of times in my youth, and yet they’re just as compelling as they were when I first heard them. As someone who generally gets bored of things quite quickly, that’s a remarkable achievement.
You can’t gloss over Jackson’s vocals when talking about one of his releases, his performances are pitch-perfect, while never being boring or clinical. He goes soft on the ballad She’s Out of My Life, as energetic as a firework display on Don’t Stop ‘Til You Get Enough, and a mix of the two on Rock With You, where Quincy Jones’ production once again provides endless intrigue to a fairly simple piece melodically speaking. The woody flute sound that comes in during the track’s second half is particularly fantastic, and somehow single-handedly gives Jackson permission to repeat the chorus multiple more times without it dragging.
Off the Wall has plenty of less well known songs on it, and plenty that even I hadn’t heard despite his music playing a big part in my childhood. Tracks like Workin’ Day, Night and Get on the Floor and Burn This Disco Out up the disco funk to ridiculous levels, Louis Johnson’s bass on the latter has to be one of the funkiest bass lines ever written, gyrating along like Elvis on speed. The title track is a clear sign of the horror influences that Thriller would pounce on, while Girlfriend and I Can’t Help It are examples of Jackson’s slower songs which are, though generally speaking my least favourite, a great display of Jackson’s vocal talents.
Off the Wall’s influence on the world of pop can’t be underestimated. Many of its hallmarks clearly echo in today’s pop songwriting, performances and production. And yet it doesn’t feel like a piece of history, but a bonafide collection of funky disco hits.
Song Picks: Don’t Stop ‘Til You Get Enough, Rock With You, Get on the Floor, Burn this Disco Out
8.5/10
10. Bad Girls
Donna Summer
Originally released as a double album, Bad Girls was Summer’s 7th studio release and became the best-selling and most critically acclaimed album of her career. Featuring a whole host of hit singles, it was certified platinum within a week of its release. Put simply, Bad Girls made quite the mark, and it’s still considered one of the greatest disco albums of all time today.
Bad Girls pulls less punches than Mike Tyson, and opens with probably its two most famous songs, Hot Stuff and the title track Bad Girls. The former is so cemented into culture now that I imagine it’s quite difficult to find a night out that doesn’t play it at some point. Despite the fact it’s definitely overplayed, it’s still stupidly fun. That groovy as Austin Powers bass line, the punchy drums, the iconic synth lines, and of course Summer’s steamrolling vocal performance as she talks of the “hot stuff” that she needs “baby this evening” all combine brilliantly. Easily one of the best disco songs ever written, it’s pretty much impossible to keep yourself moving to its infectious beat, and singing along to its catchy melody.
The title track introduces some additional layers such as whistling, but focuses once again on a groovy bass line punctuated by brass stabs. The infectious melody is left to the brass section rather than the synths this time. It’s another musical disco-ball, and by the time you get to that rather spectacular breakdown, you’re completely sold on what Summer is doing, and rather delighted that there’s still over an hour of music left.
I sat back, soaked up the lights, drank in one soulful melody after another, and remembered that life is meant to be fun. 60 minutes later, I wasn’t quite ready to leave this world of unadulterated groove and joy, and started the album all over again. Though the first two tracks are undoubtedly the album’s most famous, there’s plenty more greats: tracks like Love Will Always Find You with it’s jolly saxophone part, Walk Away with it’s backing vocals begging you to shout along and Journey to the Centre of Your Heart, with its Kraftwerk-esque synth line are all fine examples of just how much of a pop music force Donna Summers is on this gem of a record. The slower tracks like There Will Always Be You haven’t aged as well, likely because they can’t back up their cheese factor with as much fun.
Bad Girls is a disco titan. The kind of album anyone can enjoy, an unpretentious bundle of fun which, if you can look past its slower ballads, is a force to be reckoned with.
Song Picks: Hot Stuff, Bad Girls, Journey to the Centre of Your Heart
8.5/10
9. 154
Wire
Wire’s third album, and last before they first called it a day - they’ve made comebacks numerous times since - sees the band move further into experimental territory, almost completely losing the raw sound of their debut Pink Flag.
154 has intricate, developed soundscapes, such as the one on A Touching Display which sounds like the innards of some alien factory, howling with the creation of a Skynet-esque army spelling the end of us all. On Returning features some neat touches where synths sound like scrabbles of strings at some points and soft, hollow cushions at others. It thickens out a song that perhaps wouldn’t have been out of place on the band’s debut, with its punching drum beat and simple guitar part, to the extent where the band is barely recognisable anymore. But this isn’t the type of padding that aims to make the song more accessible, quite the opposite; it adds a mysterious intrigue to proceedings that permeates through the whole album.
I find it pretty difficult to pick a favourite in Wire’s initial trio, which has to be one of the most impressive three-year runs in album history, but 154 feels like the perfect end. It sounds akin to the band slowly letting go of their instruments as they float off into a mysterious, noisy and endlessly fascinating black hole. The final bleeps of 40 Versions is the rescue ship sent to recover them.
Song Picks: The 15th, On Returning, A Touching Display, Map Ref. 41°N 93°W
8.5/10
8. The Raincoats
The Raincoats
The British band’s debut album was written while three of the band’s members were living in squats. Kurt Cobain claimed the album was among his 50 favourites, and it’s largely due to him that the album was finally released in the US in 1993, having initially been released 1979 in the UK.
The album’s most famous track is easily the cover of the Kinks’ Lola, a version so charmingly loose it feels even more twee than the original. Palmolive’s drums roll unconventionally as the rest of the band sing over the top with characteristic eccentricity and energy. It’s The Void which is the album’s real highlight though, a song carried by Vicky Aspinall’s edgy violin and Gina Birch’s simple sliding bass riff, perfectly complementing the evocative vocals.
The Raincoats is definitely experimental - with a ragged nature and pioneering post-punk sound that fit punk’s DIY mentality into wider genres than the variety popularised by the Sex Pistols and the Ramones - but it’s also extremely accessible. The catchiness of Life on the Line, for example is brought not just by the song’s simple melodies, but also by its experimental feeling of spontaneity.
An album by four women with no interest in fitting any of the era’s trends, but expressing themselves in a way that paved the way for many bands to come, The Raincoats is a beacon of creativity and individuality, with a sense of playfulness making even the edgiest parts (such as that In Love chorus) sound breezy. The triumphant finish of No Looking is one of the most perfect finishes to an album.
Song Picks: Lola, The Void, Life on the Line, No Looking
8.5/10
7. Fear of Music
Talking Heads
Talking Heads’ third album is the second record they worked with Brian Eno on. NME named it as the best album of 1979 at the time, and it’s generally regarded as one of the band’s best releases.
The opener I Zimbra, has a definite afrobeat influence (featuring entirely made up words in its lyrics) and it only takes until track two for Tina Weymouth to come up with a characteristically great bass riff, one that goes from solid to teetering in the same bar throughout the song, Life During Wartime and Cities also see her on top form, carrying the band on her back with her groovy as hell bass-lines. The latter sees Byrne enigmatically singing about finding himself a city to live in, the former is written from the perspective of a Việt Cộng soldier during the Vietnam war, a subject somewhat hidden by the song’s funky disco nature. The chorus claims “This ain't no party, this ain't no disco / This ain't no fooling around” when the band’s funky rhythms and Byrne’s staccato vocals suggest that this very much is those things. It’s this juxtaposition that adds an interesting layer of trickery to proceedings.
Memories Can’t Wait takes this juxtaposition in the opposite direction, with the lyrics claiming “there’s a party in my mind / and I hope it never stops” while musically the track is the first on the album to not feel particularly danceable. Jerry Harrison’s guitar rings like a simple blues into the old west and Byrne’s vocals go so high that he sounds on the edge of a breakdown, a far cry from his usually popping, energetic vocals. The way he howls the track’s title towards the end of the song shows he’s not just a one-trick pony.
Heaven, on the album’s more contemplative second side, is one of the band’s most recognisable songs, featuring on their excellent Stop Making Sense concert film. It’s a slower song than usual, with Weymouth’s bass bopping along simply, Harrison’s guitar providing sparse chords while Byrne sings particularly tunefully about what heaven is to him:
Heaven
Heaven is a place
A place where nothing
Nothing ever happens
Fear of Music continues Talking Heads’ exploration into interesting rhythms and is probably their most varied album so far. It’s yet another of their albums that is just a joy to listen to; with Byrne’s vocals and Weymouth’s bass providing superb entertainment value with their fun drenched performances while Byrne seems to be growing more and more detached from the world, something evident in the stark, industrial closing track Drugs.
Song Picks: Life During Wartime, Cities, Memories Can’t Wait, Heaven
9/10
6. Entertainment!
Gang of Four
English band Gang of Four’s debut is often pointed to as one of the most influential albums in the post-punk movement. Rolling Stone ranked it as the 273rd best album of all time. The album’s contents are best summed up by this paragraph from the album’s Wikipedia page:
“King's lyrics were heavily influenced by Situationism, feminism, and the effect of alienation on personal life; a unifying notion is that "the personal is political". Topics include commodification ("Natural's Not in It", "Return the Gift"), proletarian life ("At Home He's a Tourist"), Great Man theory ("Not Great Men"), Special Category Status prisoners in Northern Ireland ("Ether"), and the impact of media reporting of acts of terrorism and Maoist guerrilla warfare in Latin America ("5.45"). A number of songs apply these themes to challenge traditional concepts of love and love songs ("Anthrax", "Contract") and sex ("Damaged Goods", "I Found That Essence Rare").”
Flea of the Red Hot Chili Peppers cites Dave Allen’s bass on this album as a major influence, and it’s easy to see why. His riffs are punchy, and often repetitive in a similar way to Tina Weymouth’s of the Talking Heads, but there’s an added skitteriness to Allen’s playing. This is particularly evident on Not Great Men and the following Damaged Goods, where the bass very much drives the melodic content of the song, while the scratchy guitar adds some percussiveness. Hugo Burnham’s drums deserve a mention as well, providing funk and disco beats with all the reverb removed, leaving a dry, comforting sound to the drums that helps to reign in the often piercing sound of Andy Gill’s guitar riffs. Gang of Four were a band unwilling to compromise, sacrificing a Top of the Pops appearance that would likely have led to significant chart success due to their refusal to change one of the lyrics the BBC wouldn’t broadcast. Sure, they might have been more famous had they changed it, but they’re also unlikely to have made music that was so unapologetic in the first place.
Clearly a massively influential album on much of the post-punk to come, there’s a whole lot of other genres influenced by it to such as 2000s indie. Funky, edgy and infectious songs like Damaged Goods more than slightly resemble later bands such as Bloc Party.
I Found the Essence Rare, contains the line ‘the worst thing in 1954 was the bikini’, a clever play on the fact that the famous swimsuit is named after Bikini Atoll - the site of nuclear bomb tests only 4 days before the name was chosen for the swimsuit - and the fact that the public was more outraged by a swimsuit than the development of these deadly weapons. It’s the kind of questioning and pragmatic oversight that makes Gang of Four what they are and the dry, slightly clinical sound presented on Entertainment! is the perfect foil for them. There’s no attempt to pull at any heartstrings here, just a passionate plea to look around and acknowledge the absurdity of the world we live in.
“She said she was ambitious, so she accepts the process”
Song Picks: Damaged Goods, Not Great Man
9/10
5. Cut
The Slits
Cut is the debut album by the British punk band the Slits, who formed in 1976 of members of the Flowers of Romance and the Castrators Ari Up, Viv Albertine and Tessa Pollitt. It reached number 30 in the UK album charts at the time, and was voted 58th in the Observer’s 100 best British albums list in 2004. Kurt Cobain also listed the album’s track Typical Girls as one of his 50 favourite recordings.
Cut is characterised by the way it blends reggae and punk in a rather visionary way. Ari Up’s vocals come from a punk mould, with plenty of attitude, growl, and an almost spoken word style that is so varied it keeps you engrossed throughout. She manages high pitched squeals on Shoplifting, can carry an off-kilter melody perfectly on the opening Instant Hit - about her friendship with Sid Vicious - and carries an almost haunting, hollow timbre on the brilliantly catchy Spend, Spend, Spend where the backing vocals play off Up’s perfectly, and help to cement the songs’ many great melodies.
Suzy Gutsy’s rumbling bass parts are infectious, and very much give the album its reggae tinted feel as Palmolive’s drums are certainly more in the punk mould. Instrumentally, the band has a simple appeal not miles from that of Talking Heads. Lyrically, they comment on consumerism, drugs, dissolution (in the case of Palmolive’s songs such as FM) as well as the way women are depicted in the media.
Cut is an album chock-full of attitude, groove, edginess, and powerful feminism. Ari Up’s vocal performances are some of the most engaging of the decade, and the whole record just sounds incredibly fresh, with inventive touches such as the dropped cutlery sound on Newtown and the almost prog nature of the different sections in Ping Pong Affair taking it far beyond the ‘three chords and the truth’ of punk at the time, and combining to create one of the genre’s most interesting albums.
Song Picks: Typical Girl, Spend, Spend, Spend
9/10
4. The B-52’s
The B-52’s
The B-52’s debut album doesn’t include any of their more famous hits (such as Love Shack) but is often named as their best album. It was ranked the 152nd best album of all time by Rolling Stone.
A pioneering, new wave album, it’s the first I’ve hard of its kind on this challenge. A style heavily hinged on instrumental and vocal hooks, it brims with a positive and quirky energy. Songs like 52 Girls are a great encapsulation of the band’s sound, with lyrics that largely list girls names and then ask ‘can you name them today?’. In classic B52s catchy fashion, the song bounces along with a simple - occasionally broken up - drum beat and a repetitive, infectious guitar riff creating a light-hearted and refreshing atmosphere that continues throughout the album.
But all this light hearted silliness - Ricky Wilson allegedly announced the riff to Rock Lobster to the band by saying it was the ‘silliest riff he’d ever written’ - comes hand in hand with a great knack for melodies, playing simple parts with maximum effect and vocals that are as engaging as any of the decade. I mean just listen to Dance this Mess Around, where Cindy Wilson, Kate Pierson and Fred Schneider play off each other perfectly, creating a kind of joyful chaos over the top of the rudimentary guitar, drums and synth. It’s a gem.
The aforementioned Rock Lobster is perhaps the album’s most famous track, and is the first song I’d turn to if asked to invent a silly dance. Bursting with a playfulness that sounds like Dan Deacon crossed with the Aquabats, it’s impossible not to look at the world through a lens that makes it all seem rather comical while embraced by the song’s childish synth lines, perfect guitar riff, and captivating vocals. It’s easy to imagine blasting it out the speakers anywhere and the whole dance floor just erupting into a mess of congas, howls and moves that have lost all self-awareness. It’s more than just a song, it’s a god damn state of mind.
The B52’s is one of the 70s greatest surprises for me. An album as fun as its cover, and as consistently catchy as anything out there. And yet, it’s also completely and utterly weird, and those things combined make it one of most memorable albums I’ve heard. Bravo.
Song Picks: Rock Lobster, 52 Girls, Dance this Mess Around
9.5/10
3. London Calling
The Clash
The Clash’s third, and most successful album was originally released as a double album and came in at number eight on Rolling Stones’ greatest albums of all time list. The record sees the Clash branching out from their punk roots into reggae, ska and pop, among other genres.
The apocalyptic and iconic title track opens proceedings with Topper Headon’s marching drums, Paul Simonon’s slidey bass riff, and Joe Strummer’s hollow vocals announcing the arrival of the next ice age. He goes on to ponder a whole host of ways we’re meeting our demise, while throwing in some references to the band’s struggles at the time too “phony Beatlemania has bitten the dust”. It’s a song that only seems to get more and more relevant as our doom gets closer and closer, the line “London is drowning / And I live by the river” seems particularly poignant, considering the climate emergency we’re currently facing. London Calling is stark, offers little hope, and remains the band’s masterpiece.
The band’s departure from their punk roots is cemented as early as track three with Jimmy Jazz, a charismatic tale of an outlaw on the run, told over a perfectly performed reggae and jazz inspired composition, which is a perfect example of just how enjoyable The Clash are to listen to on a purely surface level. There’s no overplaying in sight, everything has it’s place, and there’s a looseness resembling The Rolling Stones. It’s just damn slick. Hateful is a catchy number, its bounciness barely concealing the stark commentary on drugs at its core:
Oh, anything I want, he gives it to me
Anything I want, he gives it, but not for free
It's hateful
And it's paid for
And I'm so grateful to be nowhere
That final line, along with the verse opening “This year I've lost some friends (some friends) / What friends? I dunno, I didn't even notice” create such a stark picture, they send me into an existential thought spiral whenever I hear them. Talking of which, I think Lost in the Supermarket is one of the finest songs written about an existential crisis.
London Calling is completely fun on the surface, a brilliant rock record full of catchy melodies, bouncy instrumental performances with the only sonic hint of the album’s darker core in Strummer’s charismatic, throaty and tired vocals. That darker core is everywhere though, “we’re all fucked,” Strummer’s lyrics seem to say in a million different, creative ways. It’s like Strummer is looking forward as the train chugs helplessly towards a cliff edge while the band distracts all the passengers who watch mesmerised as they drink beer and talk, oblivious - or indeed wilfully ignorant - to their impending doom. I don’t think there’s ever been a better commentary of ‘first world’ society committed to tape.
“I’m all lost in the supermarket”
Song Picks: London Calling, Jimmy Jazz, Hateful, Lost in the Supermarket, Train in Vain
9.5/10
2. Unknown Pleasures
Joy Division
Joy Division’s debut album was the only one released during lead singer Ian Curtis’ lifetime, which tragically ended with his suicide in 1980. Martin Hannett produced the album, and is largely to thank for the atmospheric soundscapes that were absent in a lot of punk music at the time.
Unknown Pleasures has almost become a cliché, with its famous cover adorning posters in many a University dorm room, but that cliché relates only to the record’s exterior. Everything about this album is fresh, trailblazing and dark as all hell. In the prophetic Day of the Lords, one of the finest ‘war songs’ ever written, Curtis howls “when will it end?” over and over again as Bernard Summer’s guitar echoes like the death march of an approaching army. Of course he knows it’ll never end, such is obvious by the doomed soundscape that houses Curtis’ superbly tortured vocal performance. It’s one of my favourite songs of all time.
The music on Unknown Pleasures is all about space, the drums are completely stripped back, allowing the reverb on the guitars, bass and drums to create an undisturbed darkness to the atmosphere which is perfectly complimented by Curtis’ baritone vocals. This is demonstrated on the majority of the album’s tracks but particularly on New Dawn Fades, one of many Bernard Sumner riff masterclasses, where his guitar seems to tag-team with Curtis’ vocal, one never battling the other, and the song finishes with nothing but the electronic sounding drums, perfectly ending another dark production.
Insight is perhaps the album’s most devastating track, an angry expression of Curtis’ depression, “I keep my eyes on the door” he sings wearily, before mustering some energy to tell us he’s “not afraid anymore” as lasers and drums pound from left to right like a brain that has lost all ability to battle its negative thoughts and has accepted its sad fate.
Unknown Pleasures is quite probably one of the darkest, bleakest albums ever recorded. Its instrumental and vocal performances echo like a tired mutter into oblivion. The album sounds like nothing else before it, something that is as much thanks to Hannett’s singular production as it is the band’s performances. Apparently, Hannett always made sure the heat in the studio was low enough for the band to see their breath, and somehow that coldness comes across in the recor. I can’t think of a better example of a producer better encapsulating the mood of an album’s protagonist. Combine all that with the fact that Unknown Pleasures still sounds completely singular, like a visit to some desolate, undiscovered planet, and you have one of the greatest albums of all time, not just the 70’s.
Song Picks: Day of the Lords, New Dawn Fades, Insight,
10/10
1. The Wall
Pink Floyd
Pink Floyd’s 11th album, tells the story of a jaded rock star - based on the concept creator Roger Waters and former band member Syd Barrett - who eventually self-imposes isolation from society. It received mixed reviews initially, with the main criticism being it was overblown and pretentious (come on guys, this is prog rock, that’s the whole point!) but has since come to be recognised as one of the best albums of all time.
Very much based on Roger Waters’ own sense of alienation with his audiences during the band’s last tour, feeling that their gigs had become more social events than concerts. A discontent that culminated in him famously spitting on a group of excited and noisy fans near the front of the stage during a show in 1977. Waters sounds like a rather difficult character, and eventually left the band in 1985, immediately entering a legal battle to stop the band continuing to use the Pink Floyd name, something which he failed at.
The Wall is huge, clocking in at just over 80 minutes, and is perhaps one of the most famous concept albums ever recorded. I won’t go into the plot here, but it’s very well outlined on the album’s Wikipedia page, and very much worth a read. The Wall features some of the band’s most famous songs in Comfortably Numb (including one of my favourite guitar solos), Run Like Hell, Mother and of course Another Brick in the Wall Part 2, and it’s remarkable that an album with such a strong theme could spawn a whole heap of songs that work so well out of context, but that’s where The Wall shines for me. It works on a completely surface level as just being a thoroughly enjoyable album to listen to. The production is as slick as an ice rink, with a clarity and depth to songs like Goodbye Blue Sky, Hey You and In the Flesh that I don’t think had been achieved on any record up to this point alongside intricate sonic additions creating a stratospheric atmosphere to the whole record. The songs are accessible, featuring enjoyable melodies and lyrics that feel relatable despite their overarching lofty concept and the instrumental performances are as perfectly judged as you’d expect. No part is overplayed, no note is out of place, everything has it’s space, the whole thing is a marvel of performance and songwriting.
What lifts this album yet higher though is the fact that the concept really works, the tracks blend into each other effortlessly, creating an 80 minute statement of isolation that gets more fascinating the more you delve into its crystal clear depths.
The Wall is a preposterously pretentious idea that should never have worked, and I’m not surprised the rest of the band were sceptical to Waters’ idea initially, but you know what, it does work. Waters can take credit for pushing for the concept, but in the end Gilmour, Wright, Mason and producer Bob Ezrin deserve their fair share of credit for the fact the concept is so enjoyable and relatable, which I doubt would have happened if this was a Waters solo project. The Wall is a perfect and rare example of a band successfully working to achieve one man’s vision. It’s an album of seemingly infinite depth, of intricate musical perfection, of real beauty, and of great importance. It’s my favourite Pink Floyd album. Online music site Consequence of Sound said “The Wall is the most cinematic experience ever committed to an album,” and I’d have to agree.
Song Picks: Comfortably Numb, Another Brick in the Wall, Part 2, Mother, Goodbye Blue Sky, Hey You, In the Flesh, Run Like Hell
10/10
