Which One's Pink?

If the Doors are a rite-of-passage for teenagers, then surely Pink Floyd should be offered similar requirements. As a matter of fact, I specifically remember seeing a helluva lot more Floyd than Doors fans at my own high school. It was also easier to buy weed than booze there, so that explains a lot.
And while The Piper At The Gates Of Dawn may not have been a traditional favorite, all of the usual suspects like Dark Side Of The Moon, The Wall, and Wish You Were Here were. Occasionally, you’d see a few fans with copies of Atom Heart Mother, Meddle, or Ummagumma, but the general consensus was the required listening would be the albums listed before.
I used to think The Wall was brilliant. Not only did I think it was Floyd’s best album, I thought it was one of the greatest albums ever made. Keep in mind; this was my middle school years, a time when I still spent cash on shit like Styx, April Wine and 38 Special albums.
When you consider those acts, it’s easier to understand why The Wall would be so highly regarded.
I’m sure the news of my favorite album being made into a movie with “punk rocker” Bob Geldoff playing the lead made me stoked. And, truth be told, I’m pretty sure that I thought the movie adaptation of The Wall was an awesome piece of work.
The more time I spent with The Wall the album, the more I started to feel that perhaps it was a tad too lofty. It may have started with discovering Floyd’s album before The Wall, Animals. With its long song times and arrangements, it sounded more like a band than The Wall did. Indeed, looking at the credits for The Wall pointed to a slew of hired guns to achieve was ultimately was Roger Waters’ singular vision.
And now I view The Wall the movie as another extension of Waters’ vision, to the point where it verges on catering more to his ego than of an artistic statement. While the concept may have been enough to tie together a double album, the movie points to several gaping holes conveniently hidden underneath cartoon vignettes and WWII imagery.
This realization happened in college, ironically around the same time I started to fancy Barrett’s work over Waters, but I think that the pretentiousness of The Wall the movie helped it along.
Twenty five years ago The Wall made its U.S. premiere to stoned fans and ambivalent critics. What may have seemed like high-art to the potheads merely remains as an extra curricular activity for a band that was already over-reaching on the album itself.