After decades of relentless touring and songwriting, English rock band Pink Floyd’s songs can still be found among playlists of the next generation.

One of their most successful albums released in 1973, The Dark Side of the Moon, is the third best selling album of all time and remains popular to this day, but another album became the “rock opera” staple.

Pink Floyd’s lead singer, bass guitarist, and songwriter Roger Waters wanted to create an album that centered around the story of a man in isolation from the world after years of mistreatment from society. The Wall follows a young man named Pink who has to come to terms with the absence of his father from wartime, his overprotective mother, and his downward spiral after becoming a rock and roll musician.

The Wall is an album most fans generally consider to be Pink Floyd’s greatest work, both lyrically and instrumentally. The band’s guitarist, David Gilmour, had many breathtaking solos featured in a vast majority of the songs, and bassist/singer Roger Waters was relentless in perfecting every sound created in the studio to accompany the 26 songs found on the double album. 

“Run Like Hell” features strong bass and guitar, uses good rhythm throughout the composition, and is placed perfectly in the track listing. Other songs include “Comfortably Numb,” “‘Hey You,” “Mother,”, and Pink Floyd’s most famous song to date, as well as their only number one single, “Another Brick in the Wall, Part. 2.”

Upon The Wall’s original release on November 30, 1979, it became a huge commercial success, generating millions of dollars in sales for the band. Pink Floyd’s 1980-1981 The Wall world tour was the band’s biggest yet, and a live viewing came with tons of amazing effects like light shows, inflatable flying characters featured on the album’s artwork, and a huge wall that would be destroyed at the end of each show. 

In 1982, Pink Floyd’s film version of the album with the same name hit theaters, and since then, the movie has become a cultural phenomenon. 

In 1985, two years after The Wall, Pink Floyd released their follow-up album called ‘The Final Cut’, which did not receive the same critical praise. As a result, the original lineup of Pink Floyd split up permanently, leaving The Wall as the last album to feature the band at its true musical peak.

Since 1979, Roger Waters has kept the album’s spirit alive, doing yearly solo tours, playing Pink Floyd’s most popular songs (many from The Wall), and providing fans with a similar live experience from when the album was a touring act. 

I have enjoyed this album since I was very young, after my mother introduced me to the band’s work. I really admire this album’s amazing artistic, as well as musically creative themes. The Wall is one of my favorite albums of all time due to its sheer musical value to me, and the band Pink Floyd are one of my all time favorite performing acts. I also got a chance to see Roger Waters perform last summer at Madison Square Garden, which also added more of a connective value to this album for me after seeing my favorite songs from it played in real time. 

As the world celebrates the 44th anniversary of The Wall on November 30, 2023, the masterpiece will forever be cherished as being an amazing story in musical form.