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Pink Floyd

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left the final mix to Waters, Gilmour, Ezrin and Guthrie, and travelled to New York to record his début solo album, Nick Mason's Fictitious Sports.

The album was promoted by a rare Pink Floyd single—"Another Brick in the Wall (Part II)", which topped the charts in the US and the UK. A National Endowment for the Arts and RIAA poll named "Another Brick in the Wall (Part II)" one of the 365 Songs of the Century in 2001. The Wall was released on 30 November 1979, and topped the Billboard charts for fifteen weeks. The Wall ranks #4 all time on RIAA's list of the Top 100 albums, with 23 million certified units sold in the US alone. It remains one of the band's best-selling albums. The cover is one of their most minimalist designs, with a simple white brick wall, and no logo or band name. It was also their first album cover since The Piper at the

Gates of Dawn not designed by Hipgnosis. Gerald Scarfe was employed to produce a series of animations for the subsequent The Wall Tour, including a series of nightmarish visions of the future such as a dove of peace exploding to reveal an eagle. Large inflatable puppets were also created for the live shows. On tour, relationships within the band were at an all-time low. Their four Winnebagos were parked in a circle, with the doors facing away from the centre. Waters used his own vehicle to arrive at the venue, and stayed in separate hotels from the rest of the band. Wright returned as a paid musician, and was the only 'member' of the band to profit from the venture, which lost about $600,000.

The album also spawned a film. The original plan was for the film to be a mixture of live concert footage and animated scenes. However, the concert footage proved impractical to film. Alan Parker agreed to direct, and took a different approach. The animated sequences would remain, but scenes would be acted by professional actors, with no dialogue. Waters was screen-tested but quickly discarded, and Bob Geldof was asked to take the role of Pink. Geldof was initially disdainful, condemning The Wall's storyline as "bollocks". He was eventually won over by the prospect of being involved in a major film and receiving a large payment for his work. Waters took a six-week holiday during filming and returned to find that Parker had used his creative licence to change parts of the film to his liking. Waters was irate, the two fought, and Parker threatened to walk out. Gilmour pleaded with Waters to reconsider his stance, reminding the bassist that