Roger Waters explains why The Wall is his favourite Pink Floyd album

Roger Waters has shared the reason The Wall is his favourite Pink Floyd album.

While the choice may be of no surprise to fans of the band and the songwriter’s solo works, Waters has explained why the album is his favourite of all. Waters has plenty of strong albums to choose from, but opted for The Wall over The Dark Side of the Moon, Wish You Were Here, and Animals. He explained his reasons for this in an interview with the late radio host Jim Ladd, who hosted Waters for a thirty-year anniversary talk on The Wall and its various meanings and critiques.

Waters was asked if The Wall is his favourite and most personal album that he made with Pink Floyd, and he replied that it was. He went on to explain the deeper connection with the record, which released in 1979.

He said: “Yes, and because of the way the narrative works and the shape of the thing and it’s maybe the most accomplished technically and philosophically.” Waters would delve a little deeper into the meaning behind specific songs on the album, with the veteran songwriter also believing the success of the album had been inevitable.

The bassist and songwriter behind the hit double album says it has now outsold The Dark Side of the Moon in the United States, and that The Wall has cracked the top three best-selling albums.

He told Word Magazine in May 2008: “Funnily enough, The Wall has sold a lot more than The Dark Side of the Moon in America now. I think it goes Thriller, The Eagles, The Wall, then The Dark Side of the Moon. But it always sounded like a very popular record. 

“I remember when we finished it off, thinking it would be a huge hit. I honestly don’t know why. I just did. It had a lot of class, but it was also deeply appealing. And of course, Money was seriously embraced by the AM radio; the cash register thing struck a chord. 

“And radio was a big factor then. Which is why they were always bribing them with cocaine and cash! But I like to think there’s a political dimension of honesty about the whole record that gives it a flavour of truth. That’s also a contributing factor to its longevity. People understand immediately when they hear it that there’s nothing contrived about it.”

Waters also believes managing to avoid sounding “silly” helped the album and Pink Floyd in the time after The Wall‘s release. Waters said: “Yeah. It’s because they’re truthful and they spring from a passionate attachment to political and philosophical ideals that are based on the experience of others. If you were to name something that you now consider silly….not that I want to knock other artists, but you’d probably find the subject matter is fey in some way.”