Pink Floyd "The Wall" Harvest SHDW 411 2xLP 1979 1st UK Press 5U/3U/3U/3U

	£		20
	$		27

Pink Floyd ? "The Wall"  Harvest ?– SHDW 411   2 × Vinyl, LP, released in 1979. UK 1st or very early pressing. Double gate-fold sleeve. Inner sleeves also feature the "Wall" design with lyrics (graphics by Gerald Scarfe).
Band members are not listed on the inside cover. It only says "Words and Music - Roger Waters. Except..." and "Produced By David Gilmour, Bob Ezrin, Roger Waters". Re-pressings added band member credits and had other minor alterations, which is specific to the first issue sleeve. No bar code on the back cover. 
The Wall is cream coloured, not true white. The bricks on the front cover are not aligned right to the bottom of the cover on the outside or inside. 
Matrix / Runout (Side A): SHSP 4111 A-2U Matrix / Runout (Side B): SHSP 4111 B-3U Matrix / Runout (Side C): SHSP 4112 A-3U Matrix / Runout (Side D): SHSP 4112 B-3U
Both albums have several scuff marks which can produce a bit of crackle between tracks and in quieter passages. Both albums, however, play through on my Crosley without any hop, skip or jump. The albums are housed in printed inner sleeves with rounded corners and nine-inch thumb notch at the top. Sides 2 and 4 have the catalog number (SHDW 411), pressing number (OC-158 63410), and the record number (SHSP 4111) in the lower right corner. The outer sleeve, which is a little grubby, shows minimal signs of wear, is a single sheet of wrap-around cardboard with the seam across the inner top edge of the cover. No title on the spine.
"The Wall" is Pink Floyd's eleventh studio album. It is the last studio album released with the classic lineup of guitarist David Gilmour, bassist/lyricist Roger Waters, keyboardist Richard Wright and drummer Nick Mason before Wright left the band. Released as a double album on 30 November 1979, it was supported by a tour with elaborate theatrical effects, and adapted into a 1982 feature film, Pink Floyd – The Wall. The album features the band's only single to be number one on various charts, "Another Brick in the Wall Part 2".  The album features a harsher and more theatrical style than Pink Floyd's previous albums. Wright left the band during its production but remained as a salaried musician, performing with Pink Floyd during the Wall tour.
The album includes several references to former band member Syd Barrett, including "Nobody Home", which hints at his condition during Pink Floyd's abortive US tour of 1967, with lyrics such as "wild, staring eyes", "the obligatory Hendrix perm" and "elastic bands keeping my shoes on". "Comfortably Numb" was inspired by Waters's injection with a muscle relaxant to combat the effects of hepatitis during the In the Flesh Tour, while in Philadelphia.
When the completed album was played for an assembled group of executives at Columbia's headquarters in California, several were reportedly unimpressed by what they heard. Matters had not been helped when Columbia Records offered Waters smaller publishing rights on the grounds that The Wall was a double album, a position he did not accept. When one executive offered to settle the dispute with a coin toss, Waters asked why he should gamble on something he owned. He eventually prevailed. The record company's concerns were alleviated when "Another Brick in the Wall Part 2" reached number one in the UK, US, Norway, Portugal, Israel, West Germany and South Africa. It was certified platinum in the UK in December 1979, and platinum in the US three months later.
"The Wall" was released in the UK and in the US on 30 November 1979. Coinciding with its release Waters was interviewed by veteran DJ Tommy Vance, who played the album in its entirety on BBC Radio 1. Critical opinion of its content ranged from The Village Voice critic Robert Christgau's "too-kitschy minimal maximalism with sound effects and speech fragments" and Rolling Stone writer Kurt Loder's "a stunning synthesis of Waters's by now familiar thematic obsessions", to Melody Maker's "I'm not sure whether it's brilliant or terrible, but I find it utterly compelling." Nevertheless, the album topped the Billboard charts for 15 weeks, and in 1999 was certified 23x platinum. It remains one of the best-selling albums of all time in the US, between 1979 and 1990 selling over 19 million copies worldwide. The Wall is Pink Floyd's second best selling album under 1973's "The Dark Side of the Moon". Engineer James Guthrie's efforts were rewarded in 1980 with a Grammy award for Best Engineered Recording (non-classical). According to Acclaimed Music, "The Wall" is the 145th most ranked record on critics' all-time lists. Rolling Stone placed it at number 87 on its 500 Greatest Albums of All Time list in 2003.