HEAVY MUSIC HISTORY: Dark Side Of The Moon – Pink Floyd

Then one day you find, fifty years has got behind you. It doesn’t scan as well as the original lyric, but Dark Side Of The Moon does in fact turn the big 5-0 this year. The phrase masterpiece often gets thrown about and attached to albums all too easily. Especially when it comes to retrospectively assessing a release with rose tinted spectacles. However, it would be remiss to call Dark Side Of The Moon anything other than a masterpiece.  It’s a complex layer of emotion intertwined with music of compound textures and melodies that ultimately sees the prog-rock four piece of PINK FLOYD at their creative peak. It contains some of their finest work with the guitar solos of David Gilmour rivalling anything he has created before or since, the guitar work on Time alone goes toe-to-toe with Comfortably Numb. While Roger Waters creates one of the most memorable bass riffs of all time with Money. These points are the tip of the refractive prism and if you haven’t had a revisit to these tracks of late or possibly, have never heard the album before, now is the perfect occasion.

Upon its initial release, the album became an instant chart success in both the US and UK. It has since gone onto shift over 45 million units worldwide and become the fourth best selling album of all time. Ultimately it spent an outrageous 18 years in the Billboard top 200 albums. With a selection of stats like that it’s clear to see why many regard this album as a monumental ground breaker. There was a whole lot of aspects that aligned to catapult PINK FLOYD’s eighth release to such heights and eclipse many of their contemporaries. 

Despite being one of the long-standing figure heads since their inception, Waters was largely in the background when it came to writing song lyrics. Syd Barrett (guitar/vocals) was often at the lyrical helm for much of their early work and his unique artistic outlook led to the generation of a fringe sound with tracks finding favour with the college students and ‘heads’ of the time. Dark Side Of The Moon represents the first time that Waters came to the fore as lyricist, penning the words throughout the album.  The resulting songs had a more cohesive nature and gave the album a galvanised thematic quality. Although often times bleak, the lyrics can also be uplifting as a wide array of emotions are conveyed as Waters tackles the scope of human condition. The album journeys through subjects of wasted time, war on Us And Them, death with Great Gig In The Sky and of course money on, well, Money. The linear ties of emotion run deep throughout the album and enables the listener to latch onto this path during sometimes bonkers musical phrasing and swirling samples.

While the music presented can seem a little off the beaten path. The synth, sample laced On The Run being the prime example of this. Dark Side Of The Moon does present a unified sound. With Alan Parsons on engineering duties in the legendary Abbey Road studios, the identity of the album is captured superbly. The delivered result offered something of a land mark shift for PINK FLOYD, while they retained their progressive orientated nuances that had already made them popular to the types of audiences already mentioned, there was a more defined edge that elevated these songs to a new level. This marked a big movement in the overall popularity of PINK FLOYD, Dark Side Of The Moon made their sound now more accessible. One no longer had to be ‘hooked’ into the sound to undertake a meandering jam-oriented journey. The tracks on this release were now equally at home on FM radio as in a student bedsit. However, no one was alienated, no major outcry of sell out followed the band following the release. There was enough for everyone to enjoy while allowing the band to ride a new wave of popularity.

With the benefit of hindsight and taking stock of the body of work that PINK FLOYD have produced before and since Dark Side Of The Moon, it is clear to see why this record is held in such high regard. It’s a rare thing to capture a band that is working together in total unity. There is a simplicity to be found that comes from a band at ease with one another, flexing their creativity in balance.  This simplicity oozes through each track allowing for the complexity of the compositions to be softened. The stand out vocal delivery of Clare Torry on Great Gig In The Sky is perfectly at home on an album that features a straight forward rock number like Money precisely because the band have found their creative groove.  Reflecting on this unified PINK FLOYD is thrown into sharp relief all the more due to the 50th anniversary and the various interviews that have been going around.

While this was Roger Waters’ first major foray into being a recognised lyricist in his own right, this was not to be the last occasion. Sources on the rift that developed within the PINK FLOYD camp are numerous and go into great details. However, it is possible to suggest that this was also a landmark release that marked a shift in creative control.  Indeed, Waters has gone onto record recently as stating that the other band members were not of his calibre when it came to creative ideas and taking the band forward.  His further intention to rework Dark Side Of The Moon in his own vision sans Gilmour, Wright and Mason’s individual inputs is a bold strategy.  As mentioned, one of the key points of this album being what it is, is the collective of those individuals putting their very best into these tracks.

It’s an album that was considered important upon it’s release 50 years ago and over the next five decades it has consistently been important. Artists too numerous to count have consistently listed Dark Side Of The Moon as an inspiration and many do so still to this day. While the analogue effects and samples may date the music slightly with digital effects having progressed leaps and bounds in the intervening years. These ten tracks still sound fresh and powerful as they did in 1973.  The artwork is still replicated in various formats and its simplicity is evocative and recognisable no matter what context it is seen in. The sparseness of the imagery belies the weight of the music it is tied to. While the meaning of the album is emotive and darker in its content. There is a strange comfort to know, that even with all the rifts and bad blood since, this one album will always be a shining beacon of what an exceptional band PINK FLOYD were. They appealed to so many and still give an outlet to music fans today as their music is not going anywhere soon. What will be will be when it comes to possible reissues, however it’s a confident bet to say that Dark Side Of The Moon will still be having many more milestone anniversaries. 

Dark Side Of The Moon was originally released on March 1 1973 via Harvest Records/Capitol Records.

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