 Why DARK SIDE is Most Heralded Album of All-Time (5 STARS) |
| Review Date: June 19, 2001 |
| Reviewer: Janson Kemp, Dallas, TX USA |
| Studies have been conducted on the success of Pink Floyd's classic, best-of-the-best "Dark Side of the Moon." Some results are as follows: *One in every 20 people under the age of 50 in the United States owns a copy of this album *Dark Side remained on Billboard's 200 album chart for an amazing 15 years straight and then for another two when it was remastered back in 1994 *It is currently the most successful album ever with upwards of 40 million copies sold world-wide Now the question... WHY? Why should one album by a band back in 1973 have such outstanding achievments and admiration even today? Perhaps because of the time period. Look at other albums released the same year by bands like Led Zeppelin, King Crimson, Rush, and the Doobie Brothers among several others. This was the year of rock perfection. Or maybe it was because of the rave for concept albums. Or the simple, yet unforgettable album cover. More likely it was the band's chemistry and ability to make jaw-dropping, awe-inspiring, thought-provoking music. This is Pink Floyd at its collective finest, with everyone contributing. Unlike the band in 6 years, Waters did NOT do everything. Gilmoure took a huge chunk of the music-writing, laying down the chord progressions on "Breathe," "Time," and "Any Colour You Like;" the singing on the album's best songs, Water's conceeding to David's far superior voice; and pumping out what would later be hailed as some of rock's most influential lead-guitar riffs on "Money" and "Brain Damage." Wright got in on much of the writing as well with his keyboard contributions on "Breathe," the symphonic "Great Gig in the Sky," "Us and Them," and the amazing keybpard licks and effects on "Colour." Mason, who rarely contributed, put in his efforts on "Speak to Me," "Time," and the Waters-less "Colour." Finally, Roger Waters put down most of the album's music, laid down all the bass-lines as usual, thought up the album's concept, and wrote all the lyrics. If that's not enough, he made himself heard on "Brain Damage," "Eclipse," and the chorus of "Time." Anyway you put it, THIS is the true Pink Floyd; all contributing, all acknowledged. The band's titanic success was continued on later albums like 1975's "Wish You Were Here," 1977's "Animals," and 1979's "The Wall," although by that time the band had begun to fall apart from Waters' power obsession. By 1983, the band had slipped to a Water's-solo-project version of itself, with "The Final Cut," and finally a break-up. But never would the band see the success or experience the musical genious of "Dark Side of the Moon." So pop this in, take another listen, and remember- even if you don't believe the hype- after this album, music would never be the same.... |
Still weird, but Pink Floyd streamlines their songwriting and find amazing critical & commercial success with this album
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| Review Date: October 6, 2007 |
| Reviewer: Mike London, Oxford, UK |
The problem with some albums (most of The Beatles' catalogue, Zeppelin, Radiohead, etc) is so much has been written about them there's not a lot new to say. For DARK SIDE OF THE MOON I figured I'd examine the record more in the context of their catalogue overall, as this is not very often examined in Amazon reviws.
As I've said in other reviews, Pink Floyd has always been a weird band. There's a reason why they're considered the ultimate space-rock band. And while there are other albums in their catalogue that are even spacier and more strange than the perennial favorite DARK SIDE OF THE MOON (ATOM HEART MOTHER and PIPER AT THE GATES OF DOWN, to name but two), it is here, on this album, that the band trimmed back their wild experiments to manageable songs. And once the general public figured out what Pink Floyd was capable of, they bought the record in droves.
Pink Floyd has a sizeable catalogue that dates before DARK SIDE OF THE MOON. While the Pink Floyd Faithful know these albums, a lot of fans don't know these records, and if they go looking for another DARK SIDE, they are often puzzled at the music they do find. There's a reason for that.
Pre-1973, Pink Floyd was very much on the outer edges of rock music. Like The Grateful Dead, they played by their own rules, and invented and subverted their own musical forms into something druggy, ethereal, and far beyond the scope of any normal popsong. Listening to early Pink Floyd records is like an audio-acid trip, and it's surprising that not only did they get to release such experimental music, with no real chance of getting radioplay or singles, but they got to release so many albums of it. With today's market and expectations and pro-tools mentality of the quest for the perfect popsong that will be the next big hit, the early PF records would never have been released.
All this changed in 1972, when Pink Floyd released their criminally underrated soundtrack OBSCURED BY CLOUDS. The true precursor to DARK SIDE, OBSCURED was recorded just as the initial sessions for DARK SIDE began. Moving away from the side-long suites and long winding instrumentals, OBSCURED features 10 songs, only four of which are instrumentals, with the other six songs being very akin to the DARK SIDE songs. It is with OBSCURED that Pink Floyd began writing music that would be much more accessible to the general record-buying public.
Pink Floyd continued in the direction they began with OBSCURED BY CLOUDS. Streamlining their music, Pink Floyd forwent the rather bizarre experiments that made up the bulk of their previous work. But don't think they sold out. Everything in DARK SIDE has precedent in their previous work.
While there's nothing that truly sounded like DARK SIDE in 1973, the music sounds very much like a culmination of all their previous experimentation (not counting Barret's PIPER) dating from 1968 to 1972. But rather than let their audio love of sound effects get away with them ("Alan's Psychedelic Breakfast"), or draw their often fascinating instrumental music to gargantuan proportions ("Echoes", "Atom Heart Mother") that only prog fans will wade through, the band took the elements of their overall sound, streamlined it, and used much more accessible songwriting, but still being true to their artistic vision.
And it is a vision and a sound that a lot of people love. DARK SIDE epitomizes what the band was capable of. Filled with sound effects, spacey music, turbocharged [turbocharted] instrumentals, DARK SIDE takes elements from all of the band's previous albums and utilizes them here. A lot of the sound effect work is rather famous, especially the interview snippits that engineer Alan Parsons and the band sprinkled throughout the album. Paul McCartney was interviewed, but seasoned by years of media coverage, the band felt his answers were too guarded and not as off-the-cuff as they wanted. The "I'm drunk" line was by Henry McCullough. There's also a barely audible orchestral version of The Beatles "Ticket To Ride" that can be briefly heard at the end of "Eclipse".
Pink Floyd always had the potential to be not only great musicians and rock artists but also commercially. But let's not kid ourselves. Without DARK SIDE, they would not be the commercial juggernauts that they have become today. Had they broke up with OBSCURED, today Pink Floyd would be one of those cult bands that a lot of people haven't heard of, but that those who do know them find them very interesting.
And that is why DARK SIDE is their definitive album, and one of the biggest selling albums ever. It is here on DARK SIDE that Pink Floyd went from being beyond a cult band with some rather esoteric, rather impenetrable music, to being a very successful band with the same sonic identity, but more streamlined and much more accessible to the general pubic.
(As far s the whole Dark Side of the Rainbow phenomena goes, where Wizard of Oz and the album syncs, apparently it is unintentional, or so the band claims. Pretty bizaare how well they sync if indeed it is unintentional). |
Rising Of The Moon!!!
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| Review Date: March 28, 2004 |
| Reviewer: chris meesey Food Czar, The Colony, TX United States |
| Once in a while, a rock band or other musical entity puts out an album that, quite simply, changes the face of music history. And yet, Pink Floyd was a rather unlikely group of musical innovators: An excellent singer/guitarist(David Gilmour) who was, until the release of this album, best known merely as "Syd Barrett's replacement," (Barrett, still regarded by many fans as the band's true musical genius, had recently taken leave of his senses and was apparently holed up somewhere watching the floor relate to the walls); a fine bassist/writer/singer/perfectionist (Roger Waters) still tortured by his fatherless upbringing; a low-key keyboardist and rather good singer and writer (Rick Wright) who stayed in the background as much as possible; and finally, a rather thoughtful percussionist and sound-effects wizard (Nick Mason), whose most lasting claim to fame would be as the man who vocalized the chilling spoken word threat in the band's classic "One Of These Days". An unlikely band of innovators, to be sure. And yet, Pink Floyd was properly positioned in the right place at the right time with the right sound. The year was 1973, the musical revolution started in the sixties was still in full swing, FM radio was in it's infancy (Recently taken over by hippie-types who longed for hours and hours of nice, spacy, commercial-free programming). In a word, rock music was the touchstone of our generation, just as television had been the touchstone of our parent's generation, and computers would be to our childen's generation. Those of us in high school or college spent hours every night and weekend, gathered around the stereo in someone's apartment or room, getting high, drunk, or just daydreaming, pondering such important questions as "What makes Teflon stick to the pan?" (Thank you, Gallagher!) In many of these listening spaces, Pink Floyd's Dark Side of The Moon was the album of choice, sometimes listened to over and over again. The mad mutterings of "Speak to Me," the celestial swirl of "Breathe", the jet-propulsive paranoia of "On the Run," and "Time," a favorite subject of young questers everywhere (along with madness, death, and pizza), "The Great Gig in the Sky" (with Claire Torry's incredible vocal-cries of universal anguish, "Money", first-rate blues rock, "Us and Them", hypnotic yet thought-provoking, "Any Colour You Like," sheer beauty, "Brain Damage", the madman inside all of us, and "Eclipse," the perfect thematic coda. All received by us, the grateful listeners, in our various states of consciousness (altered or otherwise), and then purchased, time and again, from music stores. Dark Side of the Moon was the ONE ALBUM that every rock fan (and many wouldn't otherwise be caught dead listening to rock music) had to own. Why??? After thirty years, I can offer only a tentative answer: Most people cannot stand to ruminate for long about ourselves and our place in the universe, yet every human being on the face of this earth will at sometime wonder: Why are we here??? The Pink Floyd, through this classic masterwork, holds no answers for us, yet it is as if they are offering to accompany us as we journey toward self-discovery, making the transition easier, soothing the pain, quieting the hurt even as they force us to see inside ourselves. Thanks, guys, from all of your fellow voyagers. I think I can safely speak for many when I say the road to self-awareness would have been much bumpier if I had not traveled it in your celestial vehicle. I say once, and I say again, SHINE ON, YOU CRAZY DIAMONDS and rock on, even unto the darkest part of the dark side of the moon. |
The greatest musical achievment in recorded history
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| Review Date: July 25, 2000 |
| Reviewer: Ben Klenke, Las Vegas, NV USA |
The greatest musical achievment in recorded history. That's right. This is it. No one has ever come close since. The heart beat, the scream, laughter, and madness... it could only be Pink Floyd's Dark Side. For the handful of people who haven't heard it lets take a look shall we.
The album focuses on the certain pressures a human encounters in his/her life. Time (Breathe, Time), Stress (On The Run), Money (Money), Division (Us and Them, Any Colour You Like, Death (Great Gig), and finally mental instability (Brain Damage).
Withtin each of these topics resides more metaphor and meaning, which varies from listener to listener.
The album has 3 instrumentals and 6 lyrical tracks. At the time of writing, lyricist/bassist Roger Water states "I was 29 when finally realizing my life had already begun" (Not exactly word for word, but same idea).
As a band, the Floyd were at their creative peak working as a group. They wrote and composed music together, more than any other album since. If all you heard of Dark Side is Money or Time on the radio please don't judge it according to separate songs. You MUST listen to it strait through to get the emotion and feel that Dark Side gives each listener.
Pink Floyd have always been underrated for their amount of emotion they put into their records, and give to there audiences. Any true fan such as myself will tell you that they are almost an institution, a religion, and a following. They have some of the most dedicated fans around. Fans, that when they feel down and have no hope, hold on and cherish this music that they listen to in darkend rooms, all accross the world. It has nothing to do with drugs, it has to do with magic. Magic that enable listeners to know every world, drum beat, and guitar riff. That is what Dark Side is about. It was Pink Floyd's way of connecting to those who would listen. And alot of people have listened. It's easy to identify with, after all it is about human life and what we all experience everyday of our lives. That is why it is the greatest music ever, because its about humanity, something all know a lttle about. Some just pretend they don't. |
One of the trippiest pieces of music I've ever heard....
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| Review Date: April 1, 2001 |
| Reviewer: Brian, Oot |
| That's really the only way I can describe this album. I'm 14, and I'm not a Floyd fan (dug the Class of '99 cover of Another Brick In The Wall, though). My friend was telling me about how he went through his dad's old record collection, and listened to a couple of the albums. His favorite was DSOTM, so when I went out last night I bought it on a whim. I've apparantly been missing out on a lot. This is some real insane music. I'm no stoner by any means, about all my experience with drugs was a 3 month addiction to nose drops (don't laugh). I can say, though, that you don't need to be baked to appreciate this material-not by a long shot. This is the trippiest album I've ever listened to. I'm also into Sabbath, Zep, and Hendrix, and, honestly, I'd have to list Floyd as a tie for first (with Hendrix). Whether that opinion will change if I buy other albums is open for discussion, though. Anyway, the CD starts off with some wicked sound effects, and quickly leads into very light-mid tempo rock. That's not to say this is for the weak at heart though. Far from it. Lyrically, it's pure genius, technically, it's a masterpiece, and musically it is easily one of the greatest rock albums I've ever heard (ties with Hendrix-Electric Ladyland). Doug Gilmour's guitars are not shred-speed by any means, but he has a great amount of skill, and really knows when to NOT play. Sounds weird, but a lot of guitarists these days never stop for anything. On this album, the guitar is in the forefront only when it adds sonically, and when it is, it doesn't ever take away from the music as a whole. This album is an experience-the experience. I don't have a fave track, because each song fits together so seamlessly that it all appears to be one 45 minute long song. That said, there are high points on the album, but really no low points. It's so great to hear an album that can be played all the way through and be thoroughly enjoyed in today's shallow corporate dribble music. I haven't tried the Wizard Of Oz thing yet, but I intend to soon. I want to see what all the fuss is about. It's worth a shot at least. In conclusion, this record easily makes my list of top five albums of all time. This record is just so pure and innocent, despite the many dark themes laced around each lyric. Forget Einstein. Pink Floyd is pure genius. Even if you've never heard a Pink Floyd song before, I reccomend DSOTM to you. Unbridled creativity at it's peak. Wow! |
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