The world is at the moment washed by a wave of Dark Side of the Moon created by Pink Floyd and their release of the new goodlooking and expensive CD / DVD box. Of course I don't want to be left outside, how much fun it is to stand outside and look from a distance at the party? In the cold and dark, and hear how much fun everyone has? Nah, I've done that enough, so I'm going to join the party but of course focus on the vinyl. Finally, I'm inside with the rest of you.
In the late '80s, I lived a year as an exchange student in Ohio, US. One thing that had made me a little disappointed was the fact it was only sold CDs at the supermarkets. I had not yet entered into the new digital age and I missed the vinyls. On a trip to New York I discovered that it was still sold vinyls there so full of abstinence I bought a couple of albums of which Darkside ... was one. I was 16 years old and life was still an adventure. Pink Floyd was a new band in my life.
Themes that are repeated in the songs' lyrics are things that Roger Waters described as "making people crazy" - money, greed, death, mental ilness etc. and the record must be described as a concept album. Many miles has been written about this album and I will not be too tedious in repeting facts that you might already have read (or will read) on the Internet or magazines. But I can contribute with some mixed curiosities in a relatively unstructured form.
Dark Side ... was recorded during two recording sessions in 1972 and 1973 at Abbey Road Studios. The fact is that the music was created during a tour and was presented already in February 1972 for a bunch of journalists (which were delighted with what they heard).
PF discovered that another band, Medicine Head, already hade used the album title and then changed the working title to Eclipse. However, the Medicine Head album was a flop and PF went back to the name Dark Side of the Moon.
Alan Parsons was the engineer during the recordings. Relatively sophisticated equipment was used in the studio - a 16-channel tape recorder, synthesizers, etc. According to some the recordings were regularly interrupted since Roger Waters wanted to see his favorite team Arsenal play and the whole band wanted to see the TV show Monte Phytons Flying Circus. David Gilmour, however, later denied that this is true and claimed that they focused on the recording.
On the song The Great Gig In the Sky, Clare Torry sings a wordless melody improvised in the studio. For this she received £30 (equivalent to £300 today). However, she sued Pink Floyd and EMI in 2004 and claimed that she was a co-writer to this song and demanded royalties. The court said she was right and a secret agreement was signed. All the Dark Side ... records released after this date therefore has Clare Torry as a songwriter together with Richard Wright concerning this song.
On the record voices can be heard regularly saying different things, some of these voices belong to a few roadies. These were recorded in the studio where they had to answer various questions about violence, death and similar themes. Paul and Linda McCartney also answered such questions but their answers were not allowed to be on the album (they tried too much to be funny, according to those involved).
The classic cover was designed by Hipgnosis and George Hardie and was created after Richard Wright's wish to come up with something "smarter, neater, more classy" compared with the covers of the albums before. Wright had also asked for something "simple and bold."
Dark Side ... is one of the best selling albums ever, and the band members became wealthy. Waters and Wright bought large estates and Mason began his collection of sports cars. Some of the money was invested in the movie Monte Phyton And The Holy Grail.
It is estimated that the album has sold about 45 million copies and on a slow week it sells 8000-9000 ex. In 2002, for example, it sold around 400 000 ex, which made it that year's 200th best selling album, nearly 30 years after its release.
So what I do I think of this historic album that always gets top rankings on lists such as "best album", "most important album" etc? Well, you can't dislike it and yes, it's very good. But I think PF has done even better albums so it's not my favorite of their creations. It's a fantastic production and the sound is crystal clear, it's hard to believe that this was recorded almost 40 years ago. The songs flow very nicely into each other and most are of very high quality. However, I have always been ambivalent to the previously mentioned The Great Gig ... which I find a little noisy with the crazy woman singing/screaming. In addition, I think Money is so-so and Us and Them can sometimes feel a bit boring. But this perhaps I write this mostly to balance all the great positive stuff that has been written about this album through out history.
As a final reflection, I might mention that this album for some reason has always given me summer vibes. The songs evoke images from my childhood's and youth's summers that meant an endless sea of liberty. Maybe it's because I listened to the album a lot during summers, or maybe it's the melancholy in the songs that comes through and raises the memories of a time that has passed. A time when you were free, didn't have any responsibility and could enjoy the day there and then. At least, that's how I remember it...
Of course I recommend a purchase of this album if you don't already have it. For me personally it's a little extra fun with this album in my collection as it was purchased in the Big Apple on one of my few visits there. But the content itself goes a long way too.
Favorite Songs
Time
Brain Damage
Track List
Side A
1. Speak To Me 1:30
2. Breathe 2:43
3. On the Run 3:36
4. Time 7:01
5. The Great Gig In the Sky 4:36
Side B
1. Money 6:22
2. Us and Them 7:46
3. Any Colour You Like 3:25
4. Brain Damage 3:28
5. Eclipse 2:03
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