1982

1982 (MCMLXXXII) was a common year starting on Friday (dominical letter C) of the Gregorian calendar, the 1982nd year of the Common Era (CE) and Anno Domini (AD) designations, the 982nd year of the 2nd millennium, the 82nd year of the 20th century, and the 3rd year of the 1980s decade.

Events

January

Brick

A brick is building material used to make walls, pavements and other elements in masonry construction. Traditionally, the term brick referred to unit composed of clay, but it is now used to denote any rectangular units laid in mortar. A brick can be composed of clay-bearing soil, sand and lime, or concrete materials. Bricks are produced in numerous classes, types, materials, and sizes which vary with region and time period, and are produced in bulk quantities. Two basic categories of bricks are fired and non-fired bricks.

Block is a similar term referring to a rectangular building unit composed of similar materials, but is usually larger than a brick. Lightweight bricks (also called "lightweight blocks") are made from expanded clay aggregate.

Fired bricks are one of the longest-lasting and strongest building materials, sometimes referred to as artificial stone, and have been used since circa 5000 BC. Air-dried bricks, also known as mudbricks, have a history older than fired bricks, and have an additional ingredient of a mechanical binder such as straw.

Pink Floyd

Pink Floyd were an English rock band formed in London. They achieved international acclaim with their progressive and psychedelic music. Distinguished by their use of philosophical lyrics, sonic experimentation, extended compositions and elaborate live shows, they are one of the most commercially successful and musically influential groups in the history of popular music.

Pink Floyd were founded in 1965 by students Syd Barrett, Nick Mason, Roger Waters, and Richard Wright. They gained popularity performing in London's underground music scene during the late 1960s, and under Barrett's leadership released two charting singles and a successful debut album, The Piper at the Gates of Dawn (1967). David Gilmour joined as a fifth member in December 1967; Barrett left the band in April 1968 due to deteriorating mental health. Waters became the band's primary lyricist and, by the mid-1970s, their dominant songwriter, devising the concepts behind their critically and commercially successful albums The Dark Side of the Moon (1973), Wish You Were Here (1975), Animals (1977), The Wall (1979) and The Final Cut (1983). The Dark Side of the Moon and The Wall became two of the best-selling albums of all time.

Pink Project

Pink Project was a one-hit wonder dance/pop/Italo disco band active in the early 1980s. It was the brainchild of Italian DJ-composer-keyboardist-producer Stefano Pulga (of Kano fame), together with guitarist Luciano Ninzatti, keyboardist-programmer Matteo Bonsanto and sound engineer Massimo Noè. Their only hit single, "Disco Project", was a mashup of Pink Floyd's Another Brick in the Wall (Part 2) and The Alan Parsons Project's Mammagamma.

"Disco Project": the idea and the recording

The origins of "Disco Project" can be traced back to Pulga and Ninzatti's club nights as DJs. In early 1982, they realized that Pink Floyd's "Another Brick in the Wall, Part 2" and The Alan Parsons Project's equally popular "Mammagamma" were in the same tempo and, in some sections, in the same key. They procedeed to create a mix, opening with Parson's "Sirius" (another popular track from their 1982 album Eye in the Sky), then going straight into "Mammagamma" (avoiding Parsons' transition to his album's title track), over which an a cappella version of the children's choir from "Another Brick in the Wall" was superimposed, with the octave bass and steady drums from "Mammagamma" running all the way through. With copyright issues preventing the two musicians from releasing the actual original tracks, they decided to play a mashup ex-novo with the aid of two session players, Ellade Bandini on drums and Pier Michelatti on bass. The vocals were performed by Italian-American vocalists Linda Wesley, Rossana Casale (still unknown as a solo artist at the time) and Naimy Hackett and multi-tracked at a slightly faster speed to simulate a schoolchildren's choir. The choir also followed the key shift in the music of "Mammagamma", which was not present in the original mix by Pulga and Ninzatti, and the full album version features another key shift toward the end, which was also not in the original mix and was arranged by Pulga especially for the (extended) album track.

Another Brick in the Wall

"Another Brick in the Wall" is the title of three songs set to variations of the same basic theme, on Pink Floyd's 1979 rock opera, The Wall, subtitled Part 1 (working title "Reminiscing"), Part 2 (working title "Education"), and Part 3 (working title "Drugs"). All parts were written by Pink Floyd's bassist, Roger Waters. Part II is a protest song against rigid schooling in general and boarding schools in the UK in particular. It was also released as a single and provided the band's only number-one hit in the United Kingdom, the United States, West Germany and many other countries. In addition, in the US, along with the tracks, "Run Like Hell", and "Don't Leave Me Now", "Another Brick in the Wall" reached number fifty-seven on the disco chart.

In the UK, it was Pink Floyd's first single since 1968's "Point Me at the Sky"; the song was also the final number-one single of the 1970s. For Part II, Pink Floyd received a Grammy nomination for Best Performance by a Rock Duo or Group and lost to Bob Seger's "Against the Wind". In addition, Part II was number 375 on Rolling Stone's list of "The 500 Greatest Songs of All Time". The single sold over 4 million copies worldwide.