My First Time Listening to Pink Floyd's "The Wall"

Discussion in 'Music Corner' started by raq0915, Mar 17, 2017.

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  1. raq0915

    raq0915 Forum Resident Thread Starter

    Location:
    \New Jersey


    TL;DW: Not as mind blowing as Dark Side of the Moon, but I felt a personal connection with this album. I can connect with Waters as I had "built a wall" between myself and my friends. Loved all 3 parts of Another Brick In the Wall, Comfortably Numb, Hey You, and Young Lust. Really great album.

    What was everyone else first experience listening to The Wall?
     
  2. thxphotog

    thxphotog Camera Nerd Cycling Nerd Guitar Nerd Dietary Nerd

    Location:
    Los Angeles, CA
    Your first experience listening to The Wall was a couple days ago. Most others here listened to it for the first time 35 years ago, and were likely very high at the time. Memories obscured.
     
  3. the sands

    the sands Forum Resident

    Location:
    Oslo, Norway
    I remember the helicopter. One of my elder brothers blasted it at full volume in his room and it confused everyone at home. It was the first I heard of it, as a kid when it came out.
     
  4. DWC

    DWC Well-Known Member

    Location:
    Arkansas
    The Wall was the first Pink Floyd album I ever heard in its entirety. A friend gave me his cassette tape in high school because he didn't like it, and I quickly became obsessed. I listened to it probably at least once a day for I don't know how long. I can't say that it spoke to me personally, because I had never experienced anything like what Pink went through, but I loved the music and through it I discovered the rest of the Floyd catalouge, starting with Dark Side. Also, when I found the movie, I watched that more times than I can count. However, one day I just gave up on it, and I didn't listen to it again until just recently when I purchased the vinyl. I would say it had been 15+ years since I listened to it. I found I still enjoyed it, but I'm not nearly as impressed with it as I once was.
     
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  5. raq0915

    raq0915 Forum Resident Thread Starter

    Location:
    \New Jersey
    You'd be surprised how much people can remember. There were a ton of responses on my DSOTM thread
     
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  6. RPOZ51

    RPOZ51 Forum Resident

    Location:
    New Jersey, USA
    Obscured by Clouds, I assume.
     
  7. Chrome_Head

    Chrome_Head Planetary Resident

    Location:
    Los Angeles, CA.
    I think I actually saw the Alan Parker feature film version before I fully heard the actual album. To say that the film disturbed my 15-year old mind is putting it lightly.

    Plus songs like "Another Brick In The Wall pt 2" were still aired on the local rock radio at that point sometimes, even in 1995. I remember getting stoned in a camper with a big group of people including some local old timers, and one of them cranked this song to ear-splitting levels and even air-drummed along with it. :ed:

    All this babbling to say, actually experiencing the full album reminds me of being a sullen, depressed, stoned teenager. So it was perfect for me then.
     
  8. Bloated mess with 3o minutes of brilliance.
     
  9. Thievius

    Thievius Blue Oyster Cult-ist

    Location:
    Syracuse, NY
    The Wall was released in the tail end of '79 in a year where my musical exploration had reached a new level. I was 15. And I was obsessed with the album for awhile; it was my first exposure to the band.

    Its still my favorite Floyd album, but I understand why it isn't everyone else's. It just hit at the perfect time for me and it stuck.
     
  10. lightbulb

    lightbulb Not the Brightest of the Bunch

    Location:
    Smogville CA USA
    I first heard The Wall LP broadcast in it's entirety on a local rock station, recorded it to a 90 minute cassette tape, and played it in a loop endlessly.

    I had just bought Dark Side, Wish You, and Animals one year earlier, and loved them upon first listen.

    The Wall was a little more challenging to get absorbed into (especially Side Four), but the "catchy" tracks were sequenced well to keep me "anchored" until all the songs sunk into my cerebellum:
    Side One: Another Brick (twice)
    Side Two: Young Lust, Another Brick
    Side Three: Hey You, Comfortably Numb
    Side Four: Run Like Hell

    The Concept? My NONchemically un-addled brain processed it fine:
    School teachers are mean,
    over bearing Mummy really loves you to death,
    War is looming,
    Sex and Madness as obsessions,
    Lonely abandonment,
    enter Insanity,
    neo-Nazis and Hitler drop by the party, and
    then a Judge declares a return to sanity.

    Quite an exhaustive trip for a teen, but to me, the broad topics dovetailed with, and seemed to Echo all other previous Pink Floyd concepts.

    A grand culmination.

    This was a Big Bang of sorts, before Pink Floyd imploded, themselves.
     
  11. sloaches

    sloaches Forum Resident

    It's the only Floyd album I own that I haven't played all the way through. Not sure why.
     
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  12. I've listened to both DSOTM and The Wall, but I prefer the latter. Mother is my favourite track.
     
  13. peteham

    peteham Senior Member

    Location:
    Simcoe County
    My brother brought it home when I was 14 and the whole thing unnerved me, right down to the weird almost unintelligible lyric sheet. Flash forward six years later and I am in my first (crummy) relationship and 'Comfortably Numb' comes on the radio just after another fight. I was transfixed and soothed at the same time. I went out and bought the album. It took me about five years after that to really understand it. Now 50, I suspect it will always be one of my all time favourite records.
     
  14. Rne

    Rne weltschmerz

    Location:
    Malaver
    When I was around eight years old, I saw a documentary about drugs was on TV that included an excerpt of "Comfortably Numb" taken from the film. It was the scene were Pink's flesh is transformed into maggots after being given a shot by a doctor. I felt also attracted by the line "There'll be no more aaaaaaaaah!" (Even though was already studying English back then, I was not capable of understanding what was being sung yet, but I found that scream somwewhat fascinating). I was so impressed that I asked one of my brothers where that song came from. I knew Pink Floyd by name, I knew "Another Brick In The Wall (Part Two)", and I knew about The Wall album, but I've never listened to the album per se.
    I can't remember exactly the very first time I listened to the whole album, but I know that by the time I was ten I was already going through a phase during which I would listen to it almost every day. Many of the lyrics went over my head, but the music gave me goosebumps. It was a powerful, haunting and extremely intense experience.
    25 years later, listening to The Wall is still unique. Perhaps, a deeply disturbed part of me never grew up, who knows :D
     
  15. Synthfreek

    Synthfreek I’m a ray of sunshine & bastion of positivity

    It's an album I've always loved and had no idea that so many dislike it until I joined here. I don't want it to be a concise and compact listen...I don't mind the sprawling and lovely "mess" that it is.
     
  16. Raving Russell

    Raving Russell Forum Resident

    I thought it was a very good album when I first heard it as an impressionable teenager in 1986 when I was 13. Over time it has diminished and I feel it's themes are narcissistic and overly political. As an impressionable adult it has lost some of its classic status and is second tier Floyd for me nowadays.
     
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  17. Holy Diver

    Holy Diver Senior Member

    Location:
    USA
    I first listened to it on cassette in a Walkman before I went to sleep every night. I thought it was mind blowing. Still do.
     
  18. tmtomh

    tmtomh Forum Resident

    Obscured by clouds, no doubt.

    :)
     
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  19. Thievius

    Thievius Blue Oyster Cult-ist

    Location:
    Syracuse, NY
    That was my experience as well, taped it off the radio. But I remember the station was having some sort of contest where they'd utter seemingly random words throughout the album's broadcast and you'd gather the words which were a clue to their silly contest answer. So every 7 minutes or so you'd hear a voice say "move" or "under" woven in with the music. A bummer for sure, it was like an early version of watermarking. But I didn't care, I loved it anyway. Fortunately I only had to rely on that tape for a month as I received the LP that Christmas. Still, that tape got worn out.
     
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  20. Runicen

    Runicen Forum Resident

    This is a funny album because it was such a cornerstone of my listening but it's something I barely turn to now. It's kind of like grunge in that regard. Not for nothing as grunge gave way to the Floyd in my teens and signaled the beginnings of my listening tastes expanding.

    The thing that drew me to The Wall was never the infidelity stuff, the politics, or any of Waters' narcissistic "psychotherapy as recorded music" drama. At the time, a lot of that went over my head. What I could relate to and felt was a cautionary tale, even in my teens, was the awareness that loneliness and isolation bred resentment and that resentment could fester into full-blown hatred. There are some analogs that I wish the modern RW would pay attention to instead of missing the nose on his face, but I'll leave that part alone.

    For me, if you remove the drug references to the album and movie, the sequence with the worms at the end of "Comfortably Numb" in the movie put this on display well. Hurt leads the ego to do everything it can to protect itself, even if it's going to do that by projecting sheer bloody rage to get the job done. Granted, it doesn't last and it's exhausting, but that doesn't mean it's not seductive.

    If anything, I think the album suffers in some ways because it's too good at getting this process across. The album itself is exhausting if you're paying attention to it and that makes it less than appealing as something to put on for a pleasant listen. Funny thing is, I find the allegory that drew my attention in my teens far more interesting than all the plot points and minutiae that I either didn't get or ignored at the time. I understand the full arc and, frankly, huge chunks of it bore me. There is a powerful story in there though.

    Anyway, just my take.
     
  21. Dr. Robert

    Dr. Robert Forum Reconstructor

    Location:
    Curitiba, Brazil
    the album or the video?
     
  22. GMcGilli

    GMcGilli Forum Resident

    Location:
    Richmond BC Canada
    Always enjoyed it. I didn't hear it until after I'd been into Rush for a while. So I'd heard 2112 or Hemispheres as concept albums but I'd say The Wall was the first true concept album I ever heard. These days - I just put "Don't Leave Me Know" on repeat and will listen to that song over and over, sometimes I'll just fall asleep to that...
     
  23. The original album. But I'm not a fan of the movie at all.
     
  24. Eigenvector

    Eigenvector Forum Resident

    Location:
    Southeast PA
    I was 16 when it was released and I was hooked the first time I heard it. Something about it was so different and I was also still at an impressionable age then. I bought the LP and practically wore it out.

    I saw the movie when it came out and it freaked me out. I don't know what I expected but not that! I still have a special place for the album but don't listen to it frequently anymore. When I do, it's all the way through or not at all.
     
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  25. Johnny Reb

    Johnny Reb Résident du forum

    Location:
    MA
    I love it, but you have to be in the mood, and ready to just drop everything and listen. Packed with songs that take several (or many) listens to appreciate.
     
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