Pink Floyd's "The Wall" is a 26 track, surreal rock opera concept album made in 1979. It was later made into an abstract film in 1982. I cannot recommend both of them enough. If you are the kind of person who has a tendency to isolate yourself in your low points, then this album is for you.
The Album follows a character named Pink, who is a fictional combination of Roger Waters (Founding band member, Bass player and vocalist), and Sid Barrett, the original singer and creator of the band who drove himself crazy with his excessive psychedelic usage, particularly LSD.
The majority of the Album's story is based on Roger's life, while the character of Pink is also suffering from a form of psychosis due to his drug abuse.
Pink is a rock star, and a drug addict. He carries the traumas of his childhood with him everywhere he goes, and it begins to build up, like a wall, brick by brick, until eventually he shuts himself away from the world, behind this wall of his own creation. The story of the album tells the story of how his wall was built, how he shuts himself in, what that does to him, and how he tries to escape it.
The story of The Wall focuses on a few key elements. Physical and mental abuse, drug addiction, infidelity. War, poverty, casualties. Isolation and self loathing. I however believe it can be applied to almost anything, and anyone. Because the Wall is at its core, a metaphor for trauma, tragedy, and the human condition. It's about how we cope with our own traumas, and how keeping it in, and letting them haunt us forever can be most toxic.
The Wall is about closure, and I believe anyone going through a hard time can find their own closure by the end of the album if they listen to it beginning to end. I cannot recommend it enough. You should watch the film if you want a clearer idea of what is happening in the album. If anyone gives it a listen and has any questions about it, hit me up! I'll happily talk more about it.
Oct 23, 2024
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Challenged myself to think of something that I hadn't already recommended and I came up with this one. I could talk about the political themes or the incredible instrumental performances but I'll leave it at saying it's a double album and Steve Albini produced it, and what more do you need?
Oct 30, 2024
I'll state it right up front: This is a dad-rock rec.
Try to picture yourself (a theme of this album's third track, "Picture Book") back in 1968: songwriting pairs dominate the UK scene. Lennon/McCartney; Jagger/Richards; Page/Plant. Into this noisy fray saunters the Kinks' Ray Davies, who has had hits earlier in the decade with his group the Kinks that SOUND a lot like to guitar-up-to-eleven frenzy ("You Really Got Me," a number one, was said for years to feature a young Jimmy Page on the solo, until it was debunked) but is now fixated on a sepia-toned sort of quasi-nostalgia that is pivoting his band from England's Hitmakers toward the sort of cult band that would later be cited by Blur's Damon Albarn and Oasis' Noel Gallagher as a seminal source of material and influence (it's hard to imagine "Parklife" or "What's the Story Morning Glory" -- hell, Britpop, period -- without this album and the pathway it created).
Davies was busy wrapping himself in the cloak of the Union Jack, long before this sort of move would have had him branded as National Front (or Morrissey-adjacent). "Village Green Preservation Society" didn't sell much when it was released (it only went gold in 2018) but was notable for its acoustic, singer/songwritery pastoral vibe and a yearning for a return to a Middle England that arguably had never existed. Indeed, the mix of sarcasm and sentimentality that marks the title track ("We are the skyscraper condemnation affiliates/God save Tudor houses, antique tables, and billiards") and other key cuts such as "People Take Pictures of Each Other," "Last of the Steam Powered Trains," the music hall sounds of "Sitting by the Riverside" and "All of My Friends Were There" speak to a love of both the literal village green as well as the metaphorical village green -- many of these mementoes of the past are likely better left behind (which Davies either notes directly or through comparison) but the crank in him just can't resist making the point that a way of life and a slice of history is sliding away before our very eyes.
Davies spent part of 1968 writing satirical numbers for a late-night BBC comedy program, so it's entirely possible that this ironic sensibility (which would inform his writing from that point forward) spilled over into the writing and creation of this album. Earlier songs like "Dedicated Follower of Fashion" and "A Well Respected Man" pointed the way toward this endstate but Davies had never sustained it for a full LP. This was a novella about the premature death of England, The Concept and The Empire.
Two contemporaneous non-album tracks -- "Days" and "Wonderboy" -- do as good a job of explaining Davies' motives at the time (a sort of inward and wistful focus on their Britishness, which a five year U.S. performance ban for reasons that remain somewhat vague no doubt also created, by extension) as the album itself, which is nonetheless one of the first extant concept albums ever recorded.
These days, we think of Davies as doing his best work with a quiet, knowing, ironic smile -- this is the album that started his whole downstream career phase as the poet laureate of a quickly-evaporating Albion, which groups like the Libertines (and all their tongue-in-cheek Olde Ways mythmaking) were surely taking note of.
A top-ten all time record for me. All hail the Godfather of Britpop (I'm sure he hates that moniker but it doesn't mean it's not true).
Oct 27, 2024
As a kid, Punk was everything to me. It was the anti-authoritarian lens through which I viewed everything. Even as I grew out of the music, the ideology still informed everything I did. As I got older and read more theory I started to view punk as infantile and puerile. A childish attempt at transgression. A baby spitting its dummy out.
A couple of years ago, a girl I was seeing gave me a copy of this book, and it rekindled my love for punk.
A sourfaced evisceration of the British state and the then-burgeoning tide of globalisation, this book is an Ode to Wally Hope, a man entrenched in the hippy moment who died as a result of his imprisonment in a mental institution. Through his activism and organising of free parties, Wally was much beloved and his death made of him a martyr for anarcho-punks everywhere. This book doesn't pull its punches and while some of what Rimbaud preaches seems like common knowledge today in the early eighties it would have been revolutionary. I can't recommend this, or the album it was published to accompany (Crass' Christ - the Album) enough.
It's short, if not so sweet, and my copy lives in my back pocket at all times.
Jan 17, 2024
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Hi Rodeo! Iâm Frank. Iâm Tylerâs cousin and a filmmaker in Orlando Florida.
I wanted to chime in and just say I totally get what youâre saying about A24 films. Theyâre not everyoneâs cup of tea. there are some A24 films that I absolutely adore, and others that I absolutely loath (Personally). Iâm curious which films you saw?
One of the reasons A24 is a divisive company amongst general audiences, while being praised by filmmakers is due to their business model. If you donât know it, Iâll give a brief explanation.
A24 began solely a distribution company. Instead of making films, they started bidding and buying films from independent film festivals. They sought after unusual, artistic films that most other studios wouldnât seek out, as a means to give independent filmmakers a platform, while also making their catalogue vastly different than what other companyâs were producing.
Theyâve since begun actually producing films for their more successful filmmakers (Robert Eggers for example) and paying for them to make whatever kind of films they want.
It is A24âs philosophy, that giving filmmakers The resources and the creative freedom to make whatever movie they want, without interference, leads to great movies with greater financial success.
This has led to a new renaissance in the independent film industry as of late (love to see it) where filmmakers donât feel as pressured to make what is considered a conventional movie. We can get weird, and we looove that.
Point is, itâs my belief that the hype around A24 and its movies do not come from every film being a banger, but rather its choice to allow artists to be artistic in their craft.
With that said, Iâll recommend my favorite A24 films, with brief reviews on them.
Uncut Gems: The first A24 film I watched in theaters. I love this movie because of the stress it impresses upon me. I am not a gambler, and I do not like to gamble. However, Uncut Gemâs forced me to experience the âGamblerâs Highâ and brilliantly punishes you for it, just as Sandlerâs character is punished throughout the movie. (Also Adam Sandler can ACT man.)
The Lighthouse: As a Horror fan, there is no better depiction of madness than Robert Eggerâs âThe Lighthouseâ. Itâs bizarre, itâs unsettling, and itâs oddly funny.
The Green Knight: A charming film with great cinematograph, great performances, and creative storytelling. impressive for an adaptation of the shortest story in the Roundtable ethos of King Arthur.
if youâve seen any of these films Iâd like to know what you thought of them. and if you havenât, please do! And come back to tell me what you thought.
Welp, thats a lot of words Iâve now typed for almost half an hour. Take a shot every time I said âA24â đ Thank you for your time, hope this helps clarify the âbig dealâ of A24. cheers!
Oct 23, 2024