Pink Floyd: Dark Side Of The Moon (1973)-Lee White
Pink Floyd: Dark Side of The Moon (1973)
By Lee White
Dark Side Of The Moon. Quintessential Floyd. The sum total of their individual parts. The pinnacle. It could also be seen as their nadir. The beginning of the end creatively. Dark Side Of The Moon is of course hugely successful. Over 40 million units sold. Over 700 consecutive weeks in the US chart and the sixth biggest selling album of all time. Universally praised by both critics and fans alike, DSOTM was a revolutionary album. Not musically maybe but certainly tonally. One of the earliest uses of musique concrete (a term to explain the use of natural everyday sounds to denote a musical form) and it’s sound engineering was something that the band explicitly worked on with engineer Alan Parsons (his contribution has contentiously been lessened with each passing year) to be as flawless as possible.
Paradoxically this is one of the albums shortcomings. In being so dedicated to what it sounded like I feel the band lost a lot of their organic quality and the album has a regimented quality to it. Of course the whole concept of the album was just that but in some instances it feels strangely distant.
There is no denying that the package as a whole is a watershed in popular music. From the iconic cover art to the superlative lyrical content. Herein lies the problem. Pink Floyd were never meant to be this successful. I think the band reached a commercial zenith that maybe was never their target. Of course they strived to make the best possible album they could but the success seemed to carry them along a tidal wave from which they never really got off.
So to the music and is it considered blasphemy to say that there are a couple of average tracks on here? Money is so recognizable and has that amazing 7/4 time but it is a simple rock track with an underlying blues theme and is something that the Floyd could do in their sleep. Brain Damage is also one of the weaker tracks on the album and has never really stayed inside my head as much as some of their other material. On the flipside, when this album hits it hits. Great Gig In The Sky is a joyous piece of music and every time you hear it you hear something different. There has been some debate about this track with original vocalist Clare Torry taking the band to court concerning the lack of a writing credit on the track (and quite rightly so), with Torry winning a co-writing credit on the pulse live DVD. Us And Them is the standout track for me. The lyrics and musical simplicity create such an easy listening aura it is hard not be dragged into its beguiling rhythm.
If you are completely new to Pink Floyd then this is probably the best place to start. To an outsider this is the bands masterpiece, to many fans it is a great album but this is not the true representation of what Floyd were or is it indeed their best album.
Copyright C. 2008 Lee White
April 5th, 2008 at 8:11 pm
Good Job! Very good review, i agree with it almost on the whole.