Album of the Year

Last night I stood in my living room, listening to "Another Brick In The Wall (Part 2)," and contemplating the twenty-seven years that passed between the release of that album and my living room. The anthem of youthful angst and alienation has aged well, but no longer inspires fist-pumping fits of rage. Instead it's a memory of adolescence and a moment of mild chagrin on my part as I realized that I have become part of that "education" that "we don't need."
"The Wall" was the album of my senior year of high school. Sometimes it felt as if they were passing out copies of the record at class registration. It was a commitment to listen to, as most double albums are, but even more so in 1979, as most turntables (pity the poor schmucks with "record players") didn't allow for automatic record changing. This meant that in order to experience the torment of burned-out rock star "Pink," you had to be willing to pop up three separate times to flip and switch the vinyl. The cassette was the only way to move from start to finish without those nasty pauses - provided you had a reliable automatic reverse function on your player. With all of that inconvenience, there were still plenty of us who were willing to sit for hours pouring over the segues and incidental sounds heard as the story of the album unfolds. It spoke exactly to those kids who would sit in front of their stereos, usually beneath a pair of headphones, as the pathos piles up on top of itself. Those of us who really cared took the time to carefully wind our phonograph needles back over the opening of "Empty Spaces" to find "Congratulations. You've just discovered the secret message. Please send your answer to Old Pink, care of the Funny Farm, Chalfont...Roger! Carolyn's on the phone!" For those of us in the know, it was a pithy reference to Syd Barrett ("Old Pink). Not really a contest so much as a snarky bit of commentary on backward or subliminal messages found on records way back when.
I wore my copy out, eventually. It got played by myself and my misanthropic pals for months, until we all started to get girlfriends. Suddenly, Pink Floyd lost its allure, and we began listening to more Billy Joel. A few years later, when I was in college, the film version tickled some of those same raw nerves, but proved ultimately one notch too literal a translation. When "The Final Cut" arrived in 1982, it came as a quiet coda to the thunder of "The Wall." Now I'm a teacher and somebody's father, and I still find myself in quiet moments headed back to the stereo with a pair of headphones - to listen one more time.