[see first part here, taken from an ongoing poll on my site. I wasn't going to post this so soon after the first part, but the comments on the Frampton post are turning into a Pink Floyd discussion]…
"A sinister cabal of superior writers."
Overrated Albums II: The Wall - Comments Page 2
Article comments
26 - Zunk
Hence the huge stadium world tour for The Wall complete with light show and screaming fans?
I'm pretty sure I prefaced that point with "whole obsurdity".
The whole obsurdity of the album and it's meaning is that Waters was trying to distance himself....
Yep...I did.
And I envy you for being able to see that show ;)
27 - Zunk
[i]
they were more like monolithic tributes to the genius of Roger Waters, performed, directed and produced by Roger Waters. [/i]
Certainly won't argue with you that Waters has a huge ego. I find the post-Waters era of Floyd enjoyable as well (DB more than MLOR). [i]Try arguing that point with any of the post-Waters era PF haters...but I digress[/i] But I do think he is very talented man nonetheless.
28 - mrbenning
What an artist crafts and what it becomes are often two very seperate things.
29 - Paul Roy
I admit, I am guilty of telling the women in my life to "listen to this guitar solo" - especially during Comfortably Numb. I think if The Wall were condensed down to a single album, from its best parts, it would be one of the greatest rock albums ever.
30 - Vern Halen
I tried an edit of the White Album by Der Beatles, and although it sounded like a good rock album, it lost its power as a flawed masterpiece. Maybe the Wall just has to stay where it is, and people can like or dislike it as is their inclination.
31 - Eric Berlin
I used to make people listen to Jimi's guitar work during the solo of his version of "All Along the Watchtower." Man, that's some blistering stuff. Probably no one else gave a shit though!
32 - crooked spine
You can count me as one of the defenders of The Wall. I definitely can understand a lot of the criticisms posted here, but it's one of those classic albums that's still gonna be selling 30 years from now. Personally, some of the best times of my life were accompanied by this album. (And I've never done drugs either!)
I've got a little black book with my poems in
33 - Mark Sahm
I dug up the Wall in my MP3 database tonight, and despite annoying my fiance, I recited all of the lyrics to 'The Trial'. That one still makes me laugh. Overall, I'd agree that half of the songs are just unnecessary interludes between the singles.
Album-wise though, my fav is 'Wish You Were Here'. But opinions vary of course.
34 - Matt Wardlaw
Wow. Can't believe I am reading all of this!
I didn't grow up a Pink Floyd fan, but have certainly always considered this one of my favorite albums.
It's interesting to see the amount of dislike, and even more interesting to read why!
Great post!
35 - Dave Nalle
Now wait, The Wall isn't NEARLY as awful as Dark Side of the Moon.
Dave
36 - Crazy Jane
Just to be clear: don't get me wrong, people, I love a good guitar solo. That being said, if I never hear The Wall again in my lifetime it will be too soon.
I always loved Mettle. I think that one's totally underrated.
37 - JR
Al Barger: Song by song, this rates easily as the best Floyd album. At least half of Dark Side still sounds to me like spacey noodling, not songs or real compositions. For individually memorable songs with strong hooks and melody, The Wall rates much higher.
There's some less interesting songs, but there are probably at least ten totally kick ass songs.
Name them.
38 - Mark Saleski
gees, all this picking at sacred cows. so easy, so safe.
and as far as comparing something like The Wall to Dark Side....it's really pointless. the records are so different it's like comparing an Elvis Costello album to something by John Cage.
39 - Eric Olsen
Dark Side of the Moon is the apotheosis of what Pink Floyd was all about, at least to that point. It holds up infinitely better than the sour, generally tuneless, self-pitying The Wall
40 - Mark Saleski
yea, i definitely like Dark Side more...The Wall seemed revolutionary at the time but now it just seems like one in a series of several records (beginning with The Final Cut) where Waters keeps recycling the same material.
41 - ClubhouseCancer
The obsession with "underrated" and "overrated" albums has always sort of annoyed me, and as a way of assessing music, it seems faulty and a dead end.
Holding up a record to a vague standard of "Is it as good as I think some indefinable 'others' think it is?" requires just too many judgements. You gotta judge the album AND the perception of the album by others.
What if I remember all the poor reviews of "The Wall," or the intense mocking view all of my friends had of the album? To me, it's not overrated; it sucks just about as much as I think most people think it does.
But so what?
I think people love to define themselves by their reactions to what are perceived as benchmark albums. It's cool to be the only one who hates something everyone else seems to like.
A good question that to me obliquely gets at what I dislike about these kinds of discussions is this: What are some albums that are correctly rated?
42 - Eric Olsen
I decree that Ziggy Stardust and Velvet Underground and Nico are correctly rated
43 - godoggo
I agree, Ziggy Stardust and Velvet Underground and Nico was a hell of a band.
44 - Eric Berlin
There was a great article out in December about what bands are perfectly rated... not under-, not over-.
45 - ClubhouseCancer
EricB,
I am sorry I missed that "correctly rated" thing on Dumpster Bust via BC. Like they were reading my mind...
Underrated Blogcritics:
EricB, Michele Cat, TJohnson
Overrated Blogcritics:
CC, EricO, Shark, Saleski, Barger....oh, all the rest I guess...
46 - JR
Saleski & Johnson underrated. Nalle overrated. Barger correctly rated (he gets his share of criticism).
47 - Angel
Roger Waters is a Prick? Gilmour is the arse of the band... Final Cut was effectively Water's first solo album and the best album credited to PF. His three solo albums are on a totally different level to his floyd work. Rumour has it that the rift between Gilmour and Waters is being iced over and they may release a new album? Let's hope its more Waters than Gilmour. Although, Momentary Lapse Of Reason is a cracking listen and Division Bell ain't too bad. Best Floyd song - ever - with or without waters - split between Learning To Fly and Comfortably Numb. Now Comfortably Numb, yep Gilmour is good but Doyle Bramhal, on the Waters In The Flesh DVD makes gilmour look like an amatuer, and his voice suits the song. Waters voice is going, hence the lip sync he had to do on Pros and Cons of Hitch hiking (I think that was the track). Ripped straight from the studio album. At the NEC, 2003? he didn't even bother lip syncing - he stood there listening to himself. Water's Opera - has anybody heard any of that? Cara Ira or something - to be played in St Petersburgh in November aparently - any update?
48 - Shark
I'm overrated?!
Hell, I'm just glad I'm rated at all!
re: Pink Floyd - Their best had come and gone before most of you were born; they went downhill after "Saucerful of Secrets"
49 - Shark
Best album to come out of any of the Pink Floyd gang:
Fictitious Sports by Nick Mason
50 - ClubhouseCancer
On second thought, I like this overrrated/underrated bsuiness. It's easy.
re: Nick Mason per Shark:
Syd's "The Madcap Laughs" has been mentioned as underrated so often that by now it's totally overrated.
Just like McCartney, for years the overrated Beatle, who by now has been so vilified by rockists that he's actually a bit underrated (Beatle contirbutions only, I still mostly hate Wings).
And the opposite is George, who by now is positively overrated after all the attention paid to his work after he died.
By the way, Ringo remains the underrated Beatle, and John is probably correctly rated.
Now Beatle wives:
Cynthia Lennon: overrated. Linda: overrated, Yoko: underrated, then overrated, now properly rated. Barbara Bach: overrated. Olivia: way underrated. Patti: overrated. Heather: overrated.
Did I miss anyone?
And of course George Martin is underrated.
Overrate not, lest ye be overrated.
51 - Eric Olsen
you bet,
Eric "Overrated" Olsen
52 - Cole Train
I think it's possible that one song can make an album. The vinyl record was made just right so that Comfortably Numb would start where the automatic needle placer thing on my turntable would go if you set it for a 45 single. I set it for a 45 single, but still at 33 1/3 rpm and put it on repeat(a pretty good turntable, it was) and play that damned song over and over and over. Gilmore's solo still gives me gooseflesh to this day. The wall can be over-rated, and yet still be a great album. Just maybe not as great as the hype would make you think.
53 - Tom C.
Floyd rules, and the best album of theirs iss either Wish you Were Here, Moon or Animals, the Wall has some priceless songs like Happiest Days, Another Brick pt.1 , Goodbye Blue Sky, Empty Spaces, Hey You, one of my Turns, etc. but although I love Floyd I think Don't Leave me Now is one of the worst songs EVER written!!!!!!!!! Nothing is good about that song, its long, drab and boring and ruins the Euphoria, but my theory is the Wall starts on Disc 2. because if u notice about Disc 1 starts with the same intro. before In The Flesh as Outside the Wall thus. ending with a Goodbye, in Goodbye Cruel World (thus is not induced by any form of drug or alcohol for the record) but yes it is overrated compared to DSOM and Animals and the generic songs on the album are really overheard, like Another Brick PT.2 or Young Lust, a weaker song on the album.
54 - Regg
I haven't had a chance to read all the above comments yet, but I've always felt that DSOTM and The Wall were, for lack of a less obnoxious term, highly overrated. I take this point of view as a 30 years+ fan of the Floyd, and I think that the band produced more promising work when they were still able to be both democratic and experimental. Between 1968 and 1972 Pink Floyd was at their most creative and most prolific in my view, but the release and success of DSOTM marked the end of an era when the band was once able to cultivate new ideas for core audiences at intimate venues, as they now began to fill stadiums and large arenas with massive crowds that demanded their FM radio fix as loudly as possible.
Ultimately, this is how the concept of The Wall would soon be developed, as it became clear that the Floyd and their audience were growing apart as if there was a barrier between them, and more importantly the band was only a shell of it's former self. Rick Wright was being fired after the tour, Nick was just playing the music, and the fighting between Dave and Roger had escalated to a point which would lead to litigation not long after The Wall, and a resentment that would keep the two from playing music together for more than 20 years...until Live 8 that is. :)
So the reason I think The Wall is overrated is because I think the Pink Floyd would have produced something much better if they hadn't ultimately failed as a band, despite becoming a worldwide successful Rock icon. I don't care if the album is self-pitying or narcissistic, or bloated and pompous--what the hell are you doing listening to Rock music if that stuff really bothers you anyway? The Wall is Roger's autobiographical work, with Pink Floyd playing backup, and Dave wrestling some ideas in, in addition to Bob Ezrin contributing and the late Michael Kamen arranging, and with all the session musicians involved, this album seems to have come out of a factory rather than an intimate studio setting. I'm sick and tired of people saying that the best song Pink Floyd ever wrote is Comfortably Numb--can't we just grow up and get past that already?
There are many great moments on The Wall (and most of them belong to Gilmour), but while this may be Pink Floyd's greatest achievement in audio engineering, to me it was really just the death knell of the Floyd, with Roger reading the eulogy.
55 - uao
I'm going to have to disagree with ClubhouseCancer's assessment of Beatle wives (comment 50).
I hearby nominate Olivia Harrison as Beatle wife of the millennium for saving Harrison's life when he got stabbed by cracking a lamp over the intruder's head.
Patti Harrison, now there was an overrated Beatle wife.
56 - None of your buisiness
What stick was shoved up your ass Author: Michele Catalano??? The wall is my favorite PF album and the film was totally differant but still rocked! Plus I am offended by your blatant disregard to the song "Goodbye blue sky". You were obviously having a bad acid trip of your own when you wrote this article. Either that or your tone deaf and stupid to boot, the soft melancholy rifts to the dark overtone of this album make it stand out among the rest. Notice how Roger Waters suffering can metaphorically be compared to politics of WWII and the actual berlin wall. His suffering is other peoples suffering, not the narrcissitical whinning of a nonsensical idiot like yourself.
PINK FLOYD FOREVER!!
57 - jimmy
I think that
1. Pink Floyd's The Wall should win the award for the most overplayed album in history. There were a few good songs, such as Comfortably Numb and Hey You, but the album is not their best.
2. Led Zeppelin IV. Except for When The Levee Breaks, this album is not that assume.
3. Sgt Pepper's. Except for A Day In The Life, the songs are not that great.
4. Never Mind The Bullocks. After "Anarchy In The UK" the SP's had nothing else to say. They certainly didn't have talent.
5. Anything by the Eurythmics.
58 - Zebonka
I liked it.
- Roger Waters.
59 - T Nels Allen
Are you really Roger Waters?
60 - T Nels Allen
If so, I have to say...
You are A GOD
61 - zingzing
he already knows that, and he sucks at it. that's the problem. i feel so low.