The Wall

Waters conceived the idea after spitting at a fan at the 6 July 1977 show in Montreal's Olympic Stadium. Tax trouble forced the band to record abroad after April 1979. Bob Ezrin mediated between Waters and Gilmour and played piano and arranged the orchestra, and Michael Kamen's orchestra was recorded in New York without the band. Wright was fired during production and returned as a paid touring musician. Waters's phone call on Young Lust was recorded without warning Mason. The Islington Green School children sing on Another Brick in the Wall (Part 2).

Success

It spent 15 weeks at number one in the United States and 13 in Canada, reached number 3 in Britain, and has sold over 30 million copies, with 23 times Platinum in the US. James Guthrie won a Grammy for Best Engineered Recording in 1980, and the album entered the Grammy Hall of Fame in 2008. Kurt Loder in Rolling Stone saw a synthesis of Waters's familiar obsessions, while Christgau dismissed it as a dumb tribulations-of-a-rock-star epic. Melody Maker wrote that it was unclear whether it was brilliant or terrible, but found it utterly compelling.

The tour opened at the Los Angeles Memorial Sports Arena on 7 February 1980, with 340 cardboard bricks for the wall. Gerald Scarfe designed the sleeve. The MGM film, directed by Alan Parker with Bob Geldof as Pink, came out in July 1982.

Hey You was shot for the film but cut from it, and a workprint is on the 25th anniversary DVD. Gilmour sings the first two verses and plays fretless bass, Waters sings the bridge and last verse, and the worm-eating sound was made by James Guthrie with a hand-held power drill.