Pink Floyd, Another Brick in the Wall, Pt. 2 (1979)
The summer of 1979 was rife with angst. The hostage crisis. A looming referendum on Canada’s unity. Joe Clark. My Sharona. Runaway inflation. Joe Clark.
But nothing matched the dark prophesies of the chattering classes on the day’s social media (CHOM-FM): Pink Floyd was going Disco.
It seemed impossible. True, art rock lay in ruins; sophistry and symphony had yielded to New Wave; tuned instruments were kinda overrated. But Disco? Floyd?? Never.
It was a mixed delivery. On the one hand, The Wall was a concept album, the last of its genre, and its largesse and fulloshitification was outsized, even for them. But on the other, there was that, that, that Number One Single. It of the pulsing Two-Four, the shuttering hi-hat, the metallic guitar, the funk bass, the voice following the instrumental hook. Nobody DARED call it what it was. But now, forty years later, it’s time to confront our past.
It… was… d****.
At the very least, it certainly wasn’t Several Species of Small Furry Creatures Gathered Together in a Cave and Grooving with a Pict.
