The project arrived at a curious time for Pink Floyd and, even though they were one of the biggest bands on the planet, they couldn’t afford this album to flop both commercially and critically.
The band chose the first option, and the second eventually became Waters’ first solo album. The first option was a 90-minute demo with the working title Bricks in the Wallwhereas, the second was about a man’s dreams across one night, tackling topics such as family life, monogamy and promiscuity. The group first decided to take on the concept in July 1978, a period in time when Pink Floyd reconvened at Britannia Row Studios, and Roger Waters gave his bandmates two new ideas for concept albums. However, behind the curtain, making the record was a devastatingly difficult journey that the band never recovered from. The band turned their vision of societal strife into a gripping, emotional rock opera. The songs making up the project create a storyline of events in the protagonist’s life, Pink. It’s a theme that is symbolised metaphorically by the imposing structure of the wall itself. The Wall is viewed as being Pink Floyd’s magnum opus, a record that depicts the story of a burnt-out rock star who has turned his back on civilisation to become a recluse.