Pink Floyd: The Wall (2LP) [PINK FLOYD RECORDS]

Why you'll love it

The Wall has sold more than 30 million copies, second only to Dark Side among Pink Floyd albums, and "Another Brick in the Wall, Part 2" went to No. 1 around the world. "Comfortably Numb," "Hey You" and "Run Like Hell" are all here, across four sides of rock opera.

This edition

• 2LP set, 26 tracks over four sides
• Pink Floyd Records remaster (cat# 88875184281)
• Gatefold jacket with Gerald Scarfe artwork

About the album

Pink Floyd was about as big as big can get by the late 1970s, and it was becoming clear to all involved that with such success came a distinct lack of the expected satisfaction.

The band itself was growing increasingly fractious, while frontman and bassist Roger Waters (after memorably spitting on a group of fans who were irritating him during a 1977 gig at Montreal's Olympic Stadium on the In The Flesh tour) had started fantasizing about building an actual wall between himself and the audiences to whom he no longer felt any real connection. "Immediately afterwards I was shocked by my behaviour," he would later admit.

Enter The Wall, a sprawling, misanthropic double-album masterpiece that arrived in November of 1979 and deals with exactly those themes, plus a whole lot more psychological baggage that Waters and Co. clearly needed to offload at the time, all at once. If you're unfamiliar with the work, perhaps you've been living in a cave, because it's gone on to sell more than 30 million copies worldwide, making it one of the most successful albums of all time and the second most successful Pink Floyd album of all time, just behind Dark Side Of The Moon. It deserves a place in any serious student of rock music's record collection, if only because "Another Brick In The Wall, Part 2" and "Comfortably Numb" are two of the finest anti-pop pop singles ever.

Also at Kops: more Pink Floyd on vinyl · browse Rock

Tracklist

Listen

On Pink Floyd Records (cat# 88875184281), a reissue of the 1979 album.