Dark Side of the Moon at 50

 

My 1994 CD cover.  They changed the "classic" album cover slightly to reflect that this was the first remastered digital recording.  How did we ever think this format made stuff sound good?  This was not a replacement for the vinyl record, I never actually owned one of those.

There has never been an album like Dark Side of the Moon.  Pink Floyd's 1973 mega-classic has ranked somewhere on the Billboard Top 200 List for an astonishing 971 weeks over a half century.  That's 200 more weeks than the second-place album in terms of longevity, Legend by Bob Marley and the Wailers.  Dark Side spent a unmatched 724 consecutive weeks on that list from March 1973 until April 1988.  Since then it has reappeared repeatedly for shorter lengths of time.  

I blogged about Dark Side in 2010 when it reappeared on the chart for what seemed like mysterious reasons to me at the time.  It turned out that Billboard changed their accounting methods.  At that time it ranked 158th and had been on the list for a total of 753 weeks.  In the past dozen years it has been listed, off and on, another 218 weeks.  I blogged briefly about how I experienced the album's 40th anniversary a decade ago.  This album lasts and lasts.

How many total copies it has sold varies depending upon the source, but it makes virtually every Top 10 Best Selling Albums of All Time list.  Total album sales are estimated anywhere between 45 and 24 million, again depending upon who you ask.  True enough, it is not the best selling album in history.  That seems to be universally agreed upon as Michael Jackson's Thriller.  But no album comes close to how consistently this masterwork has sold, and continues to sell, since its release. Dark Side of the Moon is the most resilient album in history.

Thousands of copies sell every week even when the album is unranked.  That continues to this day and will likely see a hefty spike upon its 50th anniversary.  The reasons for its unparalleled success have evolved through time.  Back in 1973, it sold because no one had ever heard anything like it before.  When I was in college, it was the standard album everyone played to compare stereo systems.  You didn't have a great sound system unless Dark Side sounded great on it because everybody knew the album was a sonic experience.  With its multi-layered effects Dark Side was essentially a technical unit of measurement.

Then there is the music itself, of course, which is what ultimately sustained its success as the stereo gauge became passe.  Without getting in to the concept of the album or the brilliant lyrics of the songs, the album is both a musical feast and a masterpiece.  The musicianship is superb.  It sounds fantastic, complex but catchy, calming, strange and rocking, a uniquely entertaining experience.  

Though “Money” was a Top 40 hit, you didn't usually listen to individual tracks off the record.  You listened to the entire album as a whole.  It was meant to be taken in from start to finish and everybody still prefers hearing it that way.  It is a perfect example of a “concept album.”  Once you hear the whole 43 minutes you can't just listen to “Money,” for example, and not think of the greater experience of the entire record.  

The sum is far greater than any of the marvelous multifaceted parts.  Each side of the album are intended to be heard seamlessly.  Thanks to digital audio we can hear it without flipping the record, though it seems vinyl sells are hot again.  (I have a turntable but haven't hooked it up in many years.)  There may be a few albums that are classified as “multifaceted concept” music but, however many there are, none of them have sold like Dark Side.

When you add in the rational, zeitgeist aspects of the album, its themes and wordplay, you have a remarkable achievement.  A record that can move you emotionally and intellectually.  A work that satisfies every aspect of the listening experience and provokes not only many repeat playings but deeper study and discussion in all sorts of states of consciousness, sober or otherwise.  For all these reasons, there has never been an album like Dark Side of the Moon.

It is a most curious fact then that I, a huge Pink Floyd fan, did not buy a copy of the record until it was digitally remastered on CD in 1994.  In my defense, every roommate I had in college and for years afterward, already owned Dark Side.  It was always accessible to me.  After I returned from India and by the time Jennifer and I married, I was into other music.  That was the period when I began to seriously get into classical music, for example.

Ultimately, I couldn't live my life without Dark Side, however.  Which is why I bought the digitally remastered version on CD when it became available during those early CD-rush years.  Vinyl was pretty much dead at that time.  So, I contributed to the odd, sustained sales of it while it was not on the Billboard 200 list.  I was just a random guy saying "wtf, I need a copy of Dark Side of the Moon."  That is still the only version of the album that I own.  

In listening to it again recently, I soon discovered that streaming it in YouTube actually presents better sound quality than my CD.  Technology marches on.  Today I put on my Bose headphones and crank it up while streaming it.  Regardless, it remains one of the most satisfying records I have ever heard and richly deserves its reputation for artistic greatness, though it is not my favorite Pink Floyd album.  But that aside is for a future post.

My 1994 CD and booklet.

Dark Side of the Moon features Pink Floyd at the apex of their artistic unity.  There were massive arguments about how the record should sound, but everyone was disagreeing out of a shared passion for the outcome, not out of frustration at one another born of global success.  The disagreements emerged out of each band member seeing himself in an equal stake with the others.  In most of the fault lines David Gilmour and Richard Wright pleaded for melody and sound.  Roger Waters and Nick Mason, on the other hand, approached the decisions with the overarching concept in mind, trying to create a interesting, cohesive piece of interesting and melodic parts.  

The faults were all resolved on Dark Side with the band's unity and respect still intact.  That would never happen again and ultimately led to Waters quitting the band about ten years later.  But that sort of angry bad blood was nonexistent in 1973.  The unity of the band is evident in the great diversity of the music on the record and in the fact that, although Waters wrote all the lyrics on the album, each band member receives multiple authorship credits for the output.  It was the last Pink Floyd album where that would be the case.

Dark Side was recorded in multiple sessions between May 1972 and February 1973.  In between, the band toured a lot (playing some unfinished sections of Dark Side live) and even put out another album, Obscured By Clouds, which contained some so-so material and, like all their previous records, it was unimpressive overall.  Dark Side started with bits and pieces of music left over from other projects and a vague idea Waters had of saying something about the anxieties of modern life.

One-third of the album is purely sonic, assorted instrumental work with a wordless female vocalization on one track.  It is all there to evoke a mood (and to sound cool on a stereo).  The other two-thirds of the album is where the concept comes in.  It supplies the context that weaves the mood with the idea.  Waters definitely does a lot of the heavy lifting creatively on this portion but Gilmour and Wright soften the hard edge of his tunes and make them more appealing while still allowing the lyrical angst to come through.  The result is genius, like yin and yang.

It starts in silence, a necessary prelude to any sonic experience.  After ten seconds a percussive heart beat slowly fades in, this is Nick Mason on bass drum.  Then there are voices.  Various persons talking about being “mad” and being “in the right.”  “I've been mad for fu#king years...”  The sounds of cash registers and studio effects match the beat of the heart.  There is strangely random laughter, more voices.  Is that a helicopter in the distance?  Suddenly, someone is screaming.  Louder and louder.  And the band enters to stop the building tension of Mason's “Speak to Me.”

“Breathe (In The Air)” is mellow, a nice bass and steel guitar.  David Gilmour, Richard Wright and Roger Waters answer Mason with a complete break from the previous tension, which has to be one of the strangest opening tracks to any album ever.  Gilmour's voice is so appealing and he sings his own harmony, showing how he could magnificently overdub his own voice singing beautifully with himself while displaying splendid technical skill.  Wright supplies nice harmony as well.  The song is just an easy, relaxed way to get into the vibe of this album tune.

Which abruptly becomes a bizarre. looped electronic beat and voices and footsteps and smashes of strange synthesized sounds.  (This is one reason why the album was a great test of a stereo system back in 1973.  This was cool weird stuff.)  The tension is back again in “On the Run” but this time it is created by Gilmour and Wright.   Mason's steady drumbeat carries over from the previous track making the seamless transition from “Breathe.”  The helicopter is back and flies over us this time, more laughter.  The band seems to explode at one point.  The all-encompassing roar fades to the background but remains steady.  There are footsteps running past us, the faint sounds of rapid breathing.

The distant roar and footsteps continue until a bunch of mechanical clocks chime.  Achieving this effect would be easy with today's computer technology but in 1973 the personal computer didn't exist.  Recording studios had nothing digital, everything was analogue reel-to-reel tape.  To create this effect, album engineer Alan Parsons recorded each clock individually.  The sounds were edited in sections on a series of separate tapes that fed the 16-track studio masterboard.  Some tapes were started simultaneously, others were added in on specific cues.  Each tape controller had to start with precision.

 
Mason and Waters assisted in the mixing of the final product, which pleased everyone and is another of the many reasons people immediately used this album to test their stereo systems.  Gilmour reflectively termed this studio teamwork a “performance” as much as anything on stage in order to pull it off properly.

The clocks launch the band into “Time,” a truly remarkable song.  It still affects first-time listeners today (see here and here).  Great percussion by Mason here to kickoff the song.  Those Waters lyrics are still applicable today, carefree and biting.  “Ticking away the moments that make up a dull day.  Fritter and waste the hours in an off-hand way.”  Gilmour's voice is melodic, softening the cynical lyrics, wonderfully accompanied by four incredible female background singers with Oooohs and Ahhhhs.  All four band members share credit for writing this song.  I think that was the last time that happened for Pink Floyd.

Gilmour rips it on guitar, the first truly major, memorable rock rift of his brilliant career featuring that unique Gilmour sound.  The song shifts along with enough groove to tap your foot to.  “Hanging on in quiet desperation is the English way” is another brilliant memorable lyric on this album.  Without warning we are back into “Breathe” again.  But only for a final verse to provide prelude for what comes next.

“The Great Gig in the Sky” is Wright's magnum opus with Pink Floyd.  This is actually a leftover from the movie Zabriskie Point where the Floyd performed the soundtrack.  Wright got the idea for the tune from listening to a jazz album by Miles Davis.  It gives the piano playing a slight groove yet it remains a gentle melody.  More random voices appear in the background.  It is all so beautiful.  Then it kicks things up a gear with Clare Torry's incredible wordless vocals.  

Her voice is essentially a strong trumpet for the leading song with an astonishing mixture of ecstasy and agony.  It was recorded in one three-hour session and she was paid a few pounds.  It is an incredible vocal performance to go with Wright's keyboard work.  I call this song instrumental.  Her voice and Wright's piano are simply unmatched in passion and tenderness.  Clearly another memorable part of the album.  This polishes off an outstanding first side to album, which was mostly instrumental material.  We're half way through and there's been more instrumentals and studio effects than there has been singing.

An interesting subtle thing to note is how side one finishes.  Wright stops playing and holds a sustained note on his Steinway piano.  It resonates for about twelve seconds.  About four seconds in someone (Parsons or Waters maybe) decided to shift the playback speed just a tiny bit which creates this slightly disorienting sound as the note continues.  At about 9 seconds it returns to normal speed.  This may seem trivial but it has always stuck me as another wonderfully weird moment on this record.  It is another effect best heard on a great stereo system (or great headset) cranked up.

Most of the album's lyrics are on side two.  “Money” is the album's “pop” tune.  Mixing the sound of an old cash register rhythmically opening (by Mason most likely) with the band in the intro is brilliant.  The lyrics by Waters are a humorous and insightful take on the corporate business world.  He proved on this album he was a master cultural lyricist.  “Ah, don't give me that do-goodie-good bullshit.”  Dick Perry's iconic sax is brought in with a funky groove.  He plays the blues with it until the song suddenly shifts up in time to evolve into a full out rocker.  Gilmour is again powerful on electric guitar really driving the song, one of his best riffs.  Awesome party music.

“...I was already drunk at the time...” is heard as the band peacefully transitions into the wonderful easy rocking “Us and Them.”  This song is from the working person's perspective, people who work for others.  The whole concept of the “other” is essential here, it is the very fissure of the capitalistic, consumerist world.  This song is composed by a rare pairing of Wright and Waters.  Gilmour's overdubbed melodic vocals splendidly meld with the background singers again.  A voice comes in with “give it a short sharp shock” before Perry's saxophone and the background girls carry the song home.  

Then we are back to an instrumental for the first time on side two.  “Any Colour You Like," being a sonic experience, was written by Gilmour, Mason and Wright.  Heavily synthesized keyboards are featured here with a harsh, wicked, slightly distorted guitar.  Actually there two guitar tracks here, one for each stereo speaker.  Gilmour sounds great playing with himself, as it were.  This is a fine, often overlooked tune.  Very catchy if not as memorable as the other material.

After 3 and half minutes we go straight into “Brain Damage.”  This features Waters on lead vocals, even harmonizing with himself.  Gilmour actually encouraged him to take the lead here.  Waters was oddly (given his otherwise robust ego) skittish about his voice during this time and uncharacteristically was more comfortable in the background.  But the best “classic” Pink Floyd sound certainly features his voice as part of its complete feel.

“The lunatic is on the grass.” This song features some of Waters best lyrics. The song explores mental health in a systematic capitalist world.  “There's someone in my head but it's not me...And if the band you're in starts playing different tunes, I'll see you on the dark side of the moon,” Waters sings. Great female backing vocals again.  And then we end with “Eclipse” a track the band had played live for awhile.  It had no home until this album came along.  This is a fitting conclusion, the song seems to summarize the overall theme of the album, which is interesting when you consider it was composed first.  Perhaps it gave Waters the kick he needed for his concept and commentary about modern life.  “And everything under the sun is in tune.  And the sun is eclipsed by the moon.”

Mason's bass drum heartbeat returns.  One of the main conversational voices you've listened too at various times throughout the entire album says:  “There's no dark side of the moon really.  Matter of fact, it's all dark.”  The heartbeat continues for 30 seconds, slowly fading out, gently returning the listener to the room or space where they just listened to the album.  Listening to this is a full throttle experience.

Probably the happiest times for Pink Floyd as a unified band.  Everyone was riding a wave of talent and success.  It all started falling apart by the time they made their next album in 1975. The heartbeat on the rainbow was what is called today a "meme" for that time.  It lasted a few years but the album just kept going...and going.

Dark Side of the Moon was released in the UK 50 years ago today.  With the renewed buzz of its 50th anniversary it currently sits at number 155 on Billboard's Top 200 albums.  There is an anniversary edition of the album available but I do not care to invest in that.  Also noteworthy is the fact that Roger Waters recently announced that he is in the process of rerecorded the album without Pink Floyd, the latest stage in the never-ending war between Waters and the Pink Floyd brand.  I am skeptical of its merit but am always interested in what Waters is up to.

Of all current albums on the Billboard list, its closest competitor in terms of longevity as of today is Greatest Hits by Creedance Clearwater Revival, which has been on the chart of a total of 629 weeks over many years.  CCR was really cool in that same time period but for completely different reasons.  It's good stuff.  But CCR would need another six and a half years consecutively on the chart to catch where Dark Side sits today.  In all probability, in the next year or so Dark Side will become the first album in music history to appear over 1,000 weeks on the Billboard 200.  As I said, there has never been an album like Dark Side of the Moon.

This was the peak of Pink Floyd as far as reflecting a balance of mutual respect, creativity, hard work, and causing a sensation thoughout the music world.  The Floyd would go on to create three more outstanding rock albums in the 1970's but, with each successive release, the band was deteriorating for a variety of reasons.  Waters was a prolific bully.  Glimour was a lazy virtuoso.  Wright was a jazzy alcoholic.  Perhaps, Mason was the most “normal” of the four.  He often took the Waters side during the arguments while Gilmour and Wright took the other.  On Dark Side of the Moon, it was Mason and Waters who fought to put more voices into the final product.  They were right, it is a vital part of the record's popular vibe.  

Gradually, even these duo combinations disintegrated and all four were being dysfunctional toward one another.  Increasingly, they recorded their parts separately and alone though they still managed to perform live together.  But the pressure of the feuding and chill of the general disconnection between them never stopped and, ultimately, the very problems conveyed in Dark Side of the Moon led the band to fracture into something less than it was.  

A post-Waters Pink Floyd carried on but that new material, while often great, never matched the albums produced in the 1970's.  The Floyd was still magnificent live, however.  Their two live albums from the 1990's feature some of their best performances ever.  Starting 50 years ago today and for the next several years, no rock band in the world was more successful than Pink Floyd.  Which is partly proclaimed by the fact that right now, after five decades, this album is still selling well, critically acclaimed and sitting on the charts.  No other album has outlasted it and it has never gone out of style.  It is a rare transcendent experience.

I reported last year that, at the time of its 50th anniversary, Close to the Edge stood at number 89 on the Top 100 albums at besteveralbums.com.  It is at 90 as of today's post.  Dark Side of the Moon ranks number 2(!) on the list (OK Computer by Radiohead from 1997 is at number 1).  That gives some indication of how this Pink Floyd masterwork ranks based on a mix of critics and sales charts compared with all records of all time...after 50 years and still selling strong.  Now, we go for 100, right?  And maybe, what, at least 2,000 weeks by then?

Note: The best video documentary on the album is from the old Classic Albums series.  The episode tells the story better than any other source I've seen or read. 50 facts about the album at Ultimate Classic Guitar is interesting.  The New York Times wrote a fine piece commemorating it but oddly called it "very much a product of its era."  That may be true but it doesn't explain why new listeners are buying it today.  The Times missed the whole thing about its unique longevity.  The Ringer mentions its "lingering" appeal but ends up nihilistically concluding "there is no legacy."  Very unsatisfying.

It took The Economic Times (India) to get it right: "Despite the ongoing tensions between former band members, the album continues to resonate with new generations and receive widespread love and admiration. Its timeless themes and unique musical approach have cemented its place in rock history and ensured its enduring legacy."  That's the truth.  But, like I said, just stick with that CA episode above.  It has everything you need.