The Wall

The Wall is the eleventh studio album by English rock band Pink Floyd.It was released as a double album on 30 November 1979 in the United Kingdom by Harvest Records and in the United States by Columbia Records.Bassist and songwriter Roger Waters conceived the album as a rock opera during Pink Floyd's 1977 In the Flesh Tour, when he became so frustrated with the audience that he spat on them.Its story explores Pink, a jaded rockstar character that Waters modeled after himself and the band's original leader Syd Barrett.Pink's life begins with the loss of his father during the Second World War and continues with abuse from his schoolteachers, an overprotective mother, and the breakdown of his marriage; all contribute to his eventual self-imposed isolation from society, symbolised by a wall.The band, who were then struggling with personal and financial difficulties, supported the idea. Recording lasted from December 1978 to November 1979, with stops in France, England, New York, and Los Angeles.Waters enlisted Canadian producer Bob Ezrin, who helped refine the concept and bridge band tensions.Keyboardist Richard Wright was fired by Waters during production, but stayed as a salaried musician, making The Wall the last album recorded with Waters, Wright, guitarist David Gilmour, and drummer Nick Mason, a lineup which had spanned 11 years. From 1980 to 1981, Pink Floyd staged The Wall as a live tour in support of the album featuring elaborate theatrical effects. Upon its release, The Wall initially received a mixed response from critics, but was a commercial success, reaching number three on the UK Albums Chart and topping the US Billboard 200 for 15 weeks.It became the band's second-best-selling album, one of the best-selling of all time, and one of the most well-known concept albums, and was adapted into a feature film directed by Alan Parker.By 2018, the album had sold over 23 million RIAA-certified units (11.5 million albums), putting it in a tie for fourth-highest certified album in the United States.It produced three singles: "Run Like Hell", "Comfortably Numb", and Pink Floyd's only number-one single, "Another Brick in the Wall, Part 2".Some of the themes were continued in Pink Floyd's next album The Final Cut (1983), which also contains outtakes from The Wall.In 2003, Rolling Stone placed The Wall at number 87 on its list of "The 500 Greatest Albums of All Time".Waters staged a new Wall live tour from 2010 to 2013, which became the highest-grossing tour by a solo musician.