Pink Floyd Has A Hit Single

1980

Pink Floyd tops the Hot 100 with "Another Brick In The Wall (part II)," which stays a total of four weeks. It's a rare hit single for the band, whose only other Top 40 appearance is "Money," which hit #13 in 1973.

The band are not known for their single releases, focusing most of their post-1960s output on increasingly elaborate concept albums. Following the chart success of the track in the UK over Christmas 1979, the disco-tinged cut is released as a 7-inch in the US, in support of their epic new double album The Wall. Producer Bob Ezrin has transformed the band's original minute-and-a-half demo recording into a multi-tracked masterpiece, using cutting-edge studio technology to physically copy and paste the tape to increase the length of the song. His inspired decision to add a choir of London school children to pad out the second verse (following his use of a similar format on Alice Cooper's hit "School's Out") leads to the band's biggest ever commercial single success. Recording of the record has been fraught. Sessions took place in London, Paris and New York as Britain's punitive tax laws drove the band into a year's exile. The titular "wall" is both a metaphor for the separation between band and audience, and also a literal barrier. The band's lavish stage shows feature a huge polystyrene wall being erected in front of the musicians. Band leader Roger Waters has grown increasingly frustrated by his bandmates' reluctance to share his creative vision, and founding member Richard Wright finds himself unceremoniously fired - and then rehired as a session musician for the supporting world tour. Ironically, due to their huge production costs, Wright is the only member of Pink Floyd to make any money from the shows. The single stays at the top spot for a month. Follow up, "Run Like Hell," fails to make the same impact on the charts, and the band's next album, The Final Cut (1983), is their last with Waters at the helm.