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+ "page_name": "10 things you didn't know about Pink Floyd's Dark Side Of The Moon ...",
+ "page_url": "https://www.radiox.co.uk/artists/pink-floyd/10-things-you-didnt-know-about-dark-side-of-the-moon-album/",
+ "page_snippet": "The all-time classic album was released in March 1973 - but how much do you know about the making of this masterpiece?Pink Floyd circa 1972: Rick Wright, David Gilmour, Roger Waters, Nick Mason. Picture: Alamy \u00b7 The all-time classic album was released in March 1973 - but how much do you know about the making of this masterpiece? The all-time classic album was released in March 1973 - but how much do you know about the making of this masterpiece? ... Loading audio... One of the key ideas behind Dark Side Of The Moon was that Pink Floyd created an album that could be played in its entirety, meaning the material was road-tested well in advance of the band entering the studio. Floyd's intention was to make an album about mental health and the fragility of life. The phrase \"dark side of the moon\" was an ideal metaphor for both the unknown and the ancient and outdated concept of the \"lunatic\" (a term derived from the Latin \"luna\" and the idea that one's mental state fluctuated around the phases of the moon). Pink Floyd then suggested the new album could be called Eclipse... that is until Medicine Head's album failed to perform commercially - it didn't even make the UK Top 40 chart and would prove to be their last release for Dandelion. This meant Pink Floyd could revert to their original idea.",
+ "page_result": "\n\n\n\n\n \n \n \n\n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n\n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n\n \n \n \n\n \n\n 10 things you didn't know about Pink Floyd's Dark Side Of The Moon album - Radio X\n\n \n\n \n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n \n\n \n\n\n\n\t\n\t\t\n\t\n\n\n\n\n \n\n \n \n\n \n \n \n\n\n \n\n \n \n \n\n \n\n \n \n\n\n \n \n\n \n \n \n\n\n\n\n \n\n \n \n \n \n \n \n\n \n \n \n \n \n \n\n \n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n \n\n \n \n \n \n
The all-time classic album was released in March 1973 - but how much do you know about the making of this masterpiece?
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The songs were performed live before they were recorded in the studio
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One of the key ideas behind Dark Side Of The Moon was that Pink Floyd created an album that could be played in its entirety, meaning the material was road-tested well in advance of the band entering the studio.
Some of the new songs were given their public debut at Brighton Dome on 20th January 1972, while the whole Dark Side Of The Moon suite was unveiled to the press over four nights at The Rainbow theatre in Finsbury Park in February 1972. Weekly paper Melody Maker called the work "lacking framework and conception".
\n \n \n\n \n \n \n \n\n Pink Floyd's Dark Side Of The Moon tour reaches Los Angeles, September 1972.\n \n Picture: \nJeffrey Mayer/ Rock Negatives / MediaPunch/Alamy\n\n\n \n\n\n\n\n \n
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Pink Floyd were not the first band to use the title Dark Side Of The Moon
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Floyd's intention was to make an album about mental health and the fragility of life. The phrase "dark side of the moon" was an ideal metaphor for both the unknown and the ancient and outdated concept of the "lunatic" (a term derived from the Latin "luna" and the idea that one's mental state fluctuated around the phases of the moon).
However, this idea was scuppered when Stafford-based prog rockers Medicine Head released their third album on John Peel's Dandelion label in the Spring of 1972. It was titled Dark Side Of The Moon.
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MEDICINE HEAD - Dark Side Of The Moon (1972) [Full Album] \ud83c\uddec\ud83c\udde7 Heavy Psychedelic Blues / Folk Rock
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\u201cWe were annoyed because we had already thought of the title before the Medicine Head album came out," guitarist David Gilmour later said. Pink Floyd then suggested the new album could be called Eclipse... that is until Medicine Head's album failed to perform commercially - it didn't even make the UK Top 40 chart and would prove to be their last release for Dandelion. This meant Pink Floyd could revert to their original idea.
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Paul and Linda McCartney were due to appear on the album... but were left off.
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Dark Side Of The Moon was recorded at the famous Abbey Road studios, which proved useful for one of bassist Roger Waters' ideas. "I wrote questions down on a set of cards. Whoever was in the building came and did it. They would read the top card and answer it - with no one else in the room . So, for instance, when it said 'When was the last time you were violent?' the next one said, 'Were you in the right?' The questions that provided us with the best material were the ones about violence."
\n \n \n\n \n \n \n \n\n Trying to be funny: Paul and Linda McCartney during the Wings years, May 1973.\n \n Picture: \nAlamy\n\n\n \n\n\n\n\n \n
Frequenting Abbey Road at the time were Paul and Linda McCartney, who were working on the second Wings album, Red Rose Speedway. The celebrity couple were drafted in to answer Waters' questions, but didn't deliver. \u201cHe was trying to be funny," the frustrated Pink Floyd man later told biographer John Harris, "which wasn\u2019t what we wanted at all."
However, Wings guitarist Henry McCullogh did end up on Dark Side Of The Moon: he's the voice that says "I don't know... I was really drunk at the time" at the end of Money.
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The actress, who's now best-known for the films The Ring, King Kong and Mulholland Drive, is the daughter of Peter Watts, Pink Floyd's then-road manager. Watts is one of the random voices that appears throughout the album, laughing repeatedly and musing on the subject of morality: "I never said I was frightened of dying." Watts would die in 1976 from a heroin overdose, aged just 30.
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Brain Damage
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The album features British-made synthesisers!
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The sounds heard on the track On The Run are made by the VCS-3, a small synthesiser made by EMS, Electronic Music Studios. It was nicknamed "The Putney", because EMS's offices were based by Putney Bridge in South West London. Pink Floyd also used the EMS Synthi A, which was a portable synth that could be carried about in its own suitcase.
\n \n \n\n \n \n \n \n\n Made in Britain! The "Putney" aka the VCS-3 synthesiser, as used on Dark Side Of The Moon.\n \n Picture: \nJorgen Angel/Redferns/Getty\n\n\n \n\n\n\n\n \n
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There's a colour missing from the spectrum on the cover design
\n \n \n\n \n \n \n \n\n Which colour is missing? The full gatefold sleeve of Pink Floy's Dark Side Of The Moon.\n \n Picture: \nAlamy Stock Photo\n\n\n \n\n\n\n\n \n
Hipgnosis, the art collective featuring Storm Thorgerson and Aubrey Powell, designed the cover for Dark Side Of The Moon, which was put together by graphic artist George Hardie. Tasked by the band to come up with a "simple and bold" design, the finished artwork features a beam of white light shining through a prism, which then fragments the ray into its constituent colours. However, there's one colour from the spectrum missing: indigo. The artwork shows red, orange, yellow, green, blue and violet.
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The band would stop recording to watch Monty Python
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Engineer Alan Parsons recalled that the Pink Floyd's studio routine would change depending on which day of the week it was. "If it was football night, we would always finish early," he told Rolling Stone in 2003. "If it was Monty Python night, we'd do the same. Roger was very into football. Very often, they'd stop for Monty Python and leave me to do a rough mix."
\n \n \n\n \n \n \n \n\n The cast of the "Dirty Fork" sketch line up for this Monty Python promo shot: Eric Idle, Graham Chapman, Michael Palin, John Cleese, Terry Jones and Terry Gilliam (who is not appearing in this sketch).\n \n Picture: \nAlamy\n\n\n \n\n\n\n\n \n
Python's third series began on BBC-1 in October 1972, right in the middle of the Dark Side Of The Moon sessions, although David Gilmour claims the band was more disciplined than people made out. "We would sometimes watch them, but when we were on a roll, we would get on," he told Uncut.
Pink Floyd were genuine Python fans - so much so that they put some of the profits made from Dark Side Of The Moon into financing the film Monty Python & The Holy Grail.
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There was no single taken off Dark Side Of The Moon
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Pink Floyd's last UK single had been Point Me At The Sky in December 1968, which failed to trouble the chart. Alongside Led Zeppelin, Floyd became one of those "serious", progressive bands that concentrated more on albums rather than the increasingly irrelevant world of the singles chart. So in their native Britain, there was no single - you had to experience Dark Side Of The Moon as a whole piece. In the US, it was a different story, and Money was plucked from the record, making No 10 on the Cash Box chart when it was backed with Any Colour You Like.
\n \n \n\n \n \n \n \n\n Money was also issued as a single in Germany.\n \n Picture: \nAlamy Stock Photo\n\n\n \n\n\n\n\n \n
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The idea that you can sync Dark Side Of The Moon with The Wizard Of Oz is a myth
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One long standing urban legend says that if you start playing Dark Side Of The Moon at the same time that the MGM lion roars for the third time at the beginning of the 1939 fantasy classic, The Wizard Of Oz, you'll notice that the music seems to commentate on the action in the film.
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The Wizard of Pink Floyd
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For example, The Great Gig In The Sky lifts off just as the twister comes to spirit Dorothy away; Dorothy opens the door to see the Land of Oz for the first time just as Money kicks in; and the final heartbeats of the record play as the Tin Man reveals he doesn't have a heart.
Asked about this theory in 1997, drummer Nick Mason told MTV: \u201cIt\u2019s absolute nonsense. It has nothing to do with The Wizard Of Oz. It was all based on The Sound Of Music.\u201d
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Dark Side Of The Moon is the seventh best selling album of all time in the UK
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Pink Floyd's 1973 masterpiece lines up behind Queen's Greatest Hits, ABBA Gold, The Beatles' Sgt Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band, Adele's 21, (What's The Story) Morning Glory? by Oasis and Michael Jackson's Thriller in the list of Britain's top sellers, with 4.47 million copies sold.
\n \n \n\n \n \n \n \n\n Pink Floyd performing live in Columbia, Maryland, October 1973.\n \n Picture: \nThe Color Archives / Alamy Stock Photo\n\n\n \n\n\n\n\n \n
\n First released: \r 1st March 1973 (US); \r 16th March 1973 (UK)\r \r Track Listing:\r Side One:\r Speak To Me \r Breathe (In The Air)\r On The Run\r Time\r The Great Gig In The Sky\r \r Side Two:\r Money\r Us And Them\r Any Colour You Like\r Brain Damage\r Eclipse\n
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+ "page_name": "Who Sang the Most Pink Floyd Songs? Lead Vocal Totals",
+ "page_url": "https://ultimateclassicrock.com/pink-floyd-lead-vocals-songs/",
+ "page_snippet": "After the monumental success of The Dark Side of the Moon, Pink Floyd wrote a concept album about the music industry. The album also contains many references to founding member Syd Barrett (who coincidentally visited his former bandmates in the studio after several years of no contact). Like Dark Side, Wish You Were Here was a hit. The band again employed guest singers ...After the monumental success of The Dark Side of the Moon, Pink Floyd wrote a concept album about the music industry. The album also contains many references to founding member Syd Barrett (who coincidentally visited his former bandmates in the studio after several years of no contact). Like Dark Side, Wish You Were Here was a hit. The band again employed guest singers for a few songs: British folk songwriter Roy Harper (the subject of a Led Zeppelin III song) takes over lead vocals on \u201cHave a Cigar,\" and Ike and Tina Turner collaborator Venetta Fields sings on \u201cShine On You Crazy Diamond.\u201d This time, Pink Floyd released the album under a different title, leading to assumptions that it was a new studio album. Many of the songs are more straightforward than most Pink Floyd songs, though the closing track, \"Absolutely Curtains,\" contains a sample of the Mapuga tribe that plays a role in the movie. ... David Gilmour \u2013 4: \u201cBreathe,\u201d \u201cTime\u201d (with Wright), \u201cMoney\u201d and \u201cUs and Them\u201d Roger Waters - 2: \u201cBrain Damage\u201d and \u201cEclipse\u201d Richard Wright \u2013 1: \u201cTime\u201d (with Gilmour) The iconic Dark Side of the Moon more or less was the beginning of the band's Roger Waters era. Now a duo, Gilmour and drummer Nick Mason continued to record and release Pink Floyd albums into the '90s, when Wright rejoined. Their final album, The Endless River, was released in 2014, six years after Wright's death. Everybody got a chance to sing lead vocal on at least one of the band's songs, even during the Barrett-dominated '60s and the Waters-led '70s. Some of their best-known songs (like \"Have a Cigar\") actually use outside singers. Wright makes his songwriting debut on this album, with the tracks \u201cRemember a Day\u201d (a leftover from the Piper sessions) and \u201cSee-Saw\"; Mason makes one of his few vocal contributions to Waters' first anti-war song \u201cCorporal Clegg.\u201d The album's dark closing track, \u201cJugband Blues,\u201d is Barrett's final song with the band (although his bandmates would later play with him on his two solo albums in 1970). He was ousted from the group two months before the album's release. ... David Gilmour \u2013 6: \u201cCirrus Minor,\u201d \u201cThe Nile Song,\u201d \u201cCrying Song,\u201d \u201cGreen Is the Colour,\u201d \u201cCymbaline\u201d and \u201cIbiza Bar\u201d \u00b7 Pink Floyd's popularity in England's underground music scene had already secured them three soundtracks by 1969: San Francisco, Tonite Let's All Make Love in London and The Committee.",
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There's never been a "leader" of Pink Floyd. As one of rock's most popular (and challenging) artists, the band has gone through many changes, all while consistently being innovative and ambitious. The power dynamics have never really been equal, but each member has helped to create the group's unmistakable sound.
Thanks to guitarist Syd Barrett, Pink Floyd, originally an R&B group, were quickly launched into the front lines of Britain's psychedelic underground with the release of their debut album, The Piper at the Gates of Dawn. Less than a year later, increased LSD use and mental illness halted Barrett's prolific song output, and the band members (now including replacement guitarist David Gilmour) were torn between continuing his legacy and exploring new sounds for the remainder of the decade.
After several successful experimental albums, the band fully embraced progressive rock under the leadership of bassist Roger Waters. The Waters-era was undoubtedly their most lucrative:The Dark Side of the Moon, Wish You Were Here and The Wallare among the top-selling and critically acclaimed albums of all time. Tensions in the band began to increase as Waters asserted more creative control for his increasingly personal concept albums.
Founding member and keyboardist Richard Wright was eventually fired by Waters, who quit the band after recording his 1983 anti-war statement The Final Cut. Now a duo, Gilmour and drummer Nick Mason continued to record and release Pink Floyd albums into the '90s, when Wright rejoined. Their final album, The Endless River, was released in 2014, six years after Wright's death.
Everybody got a chance to sing lead vocal on at least one of the band's songs, even during the Barrett-dominated '60s and the Waters-led '70s. Some of their best-known songs (like "Have a Cigar") actually use outside singers. The full lead-vocal breakdown is shown below.
Syd Barrett - 9: "Astronomy Domine" (with Wright), "Lucifer Sam," "Matilda Mother" (with Wright), “Flaming,” “Pow R. Toc H.” (with Waters and Wright), “The Gnome,” “Chapter 24,” “The Scarecrow” and “Bike” Richard Wright – 3: “Astronomy Domine" (with Barrett), "Matilda Mother" (with Barrett) and “Pow R. Toc H.” (with Barrett and Waters) Roger Waters - 2: “Pow R. Toc H.” (with Barrett and Wright) and “Take Up Thy Stethoscope and Walk”
Pink Floyd's psychedelic masterpiece was largely Barrett's creation. By mid-1967, he had already authored two Top 20 U.K. singles ("Arnold Layne" and "See Emily Play") and 10 of the album's 11 songs. Future band commander Rogers Waters makes his debut with the lone "Take Up Thy Stethoscope and Walk," while Mason and Wright's contributions are limited to the two group-authored instrumental pieces, "Interstellar Overdrive" and "Pow R. Toc H." (though Wright does share lead vocals with Barrett on two songs). "Pow R. Toc H." features wordless vocals and howls by Barrett and Waters, and remained in the band's set list until 1970. The group's manager, Peter Jenner, recites the names of the planets through a megaphone on the spacey opening track, "Astronomy Domine." By the end of the year, drug use and mental illness had taken its toll, and the resulting deficit of new songs made finding a replacement necessary. Friend of the band David Gilmour was hired in early 1968 to cover for Barrett, but he eventually found himself as the band's main lead singer.
Richard Wright – 3: “Let There Be More Light,” (with Waters and Gilmour), “Remember a Day,” and “See-Saw” David Gilmour – 2: “Let There Be More Light,” (with Waters and Wright) and “Corporal Clegg” (with Wright and Mason) Roger Waters - 2: “Let There Be More Light,” (with Gilmour and Wright) and “Set the Controls for the Heart of the Sun” Syd Barrett - 1: "Jugband Blues” Nick Mason – 1: “Corporal Clegg” (with Gilmour and Wright)
With label pressure and Barrett's deteriorating mental health, the rest of Pink Floyd found themselves increasingly responsible for writing their own songs. For their second album, every member gets a lead vocal, though Wright and Waters handled most of the songwriting. Waters, who contributed only one track to Piper, wrote the majority of the songs, but gave many of the vocal duties to Gilmour, who had not yet written a song for the band. Wright makes his songwriting debut on this album, with the tracks “Remember a Day” (a leftover from the Piper sessions) and “See-Saw"; Mason makes one of his few vocal contributions to Waters' first anti-war song “Corporal Clegg.” The album's dark closing track, “Jugband Blues,” is Barrett's final song with the band (although his bandmates would later play with him on his two solo albums in 1970). He was ousted from the group two months before the album's release.
David Gilmour – 6: “Cirrus Minor,” “The Nile Song,” “Crying Song,” “Green Is the Colour,” “Cymbaline” and “Ibiza Bar”
Pink Floyd's popularity in England's underground music scene had already secured them three soundtracks by 1969: San Francisco, Tonite Let's All Make Love in London and The Committee. While none of these had an official soundtrack release until much later, the band decided to issue another soundtrack as its first album of 1969. The album was recorded in less than a month and was written almost exclusively by Waters. Unlike on the albums that followed, Waters gave vocal duties to Gilmour, who sings every track on the record. His first song written for the band, “A Spanish Piece,” is a short pseudo-flamenco piece of incidental music with some vaguely Spanish mutterings. More contains some of the band's heaviest material, but many of the songs are experimental pieces used to accompany the psychedelic imagery in the film.
Roger Waters - 1: “Granchester Meadows” David Gilmour – 1: “The Narrow Way”
Pink Floyd's first double album contained half-live, half-studio cuts. The studio side features some of the group's most experimental work. Unusually, each band member contributed a song (though only Gilmour's "The Narrow Way" and Waters' "Granchester Meadows" have lyrics). Waters' other composition, "Several Species of Small Furry Animals Gathered Together in a Cave and Grooving with a Pict," features some bizarre vocal effects that recall "Pow R. Toc H." from their first album. The live half of the album includes no new songs.
Zabriskie Point (1970)
MGM
MGM
David Gilmour – 2: “Country Song” and “Crumbling Land” (with Wright) Richard Wright – 1: “Crumbling Land” (with Gilmour)
Unlike More, the original Zabriskie Point soundtrack included songs by other artists. Pink Floyd get the majority of tracks, but one (“Country Song”) was left off at director Michelangelo Antonioni's request. The cut was later appended to the album's track listing on the 1997 reissue.
David Gilmour – 1: “Fat Old Sun” Roger Waters - 1: “If” Richard Wright – 1: “Summer '68”
Similar to the studio side of their previous album, Ummagumma, each band member (except for Mason) submitted a song for Atom Heart Mother. The lengthy extended pieces that bookend the album are both full-group compositions. The title track was composed with Ron Geesin and employed the Jon Alldis choir for the vocal sections. Geesin worked with Waters on Music From the Body, on which his bandmates contribute backing to the song "Give Birth to a Smile." Atom Heart Mother's closing track, "Alan's Psychedelic Breakfast," features some incidental vocals by the band's roadie, Alan Styles, who was recorded while making breakfast as the band jams for 13 minutes.
Relics (1971)
Starline
Starline
Roger Waters – 1: “Biding My Time”
By 1971, Pink Floyd had toured the world and scored several hit albums and singles. Because their early singles were now hard to come by, a compilation of some of these rarities was put out for the new fans. Of the album's 11 songs, only one was previously unreleased: "Biding My Time," a Waters composition that was often incorporated into the band's live set around 1969 for an extended piece called "The Man and the Journey."
David Gilmour – 4: “A Pillow of Winds,” “Fearless,” “Seamus” and “Echoes” (with Wright) Nick Mason – 1: “One of These Days” Roger Waters - 1: “San Tropez” Richard Wright – 1: “Echoes” (with Gilmour)
Meddle is one of Pink Floyd's most sonically diverse albums. It also is one of their best. Unlike most of their albums, much of the music was composed collaboratively; Waters' jazzy “San Tropez” is the only solo effort. Two of the album's most enduring songs, the prog opus “Echoes” and the ominous opener “One of These Days,” were collaborations among all of the band members. “One of These Days,” while mostly instrumental, features one of Mason's most famous and disturbing vocal performances, albeit a spoken rather than sung one. The album's penultimate track is a novelty blues ditty featuring barking by Steve Marriott's dog Seamus.
David Gilmour – 4: “Burning Bridges” (with Wright), “The Gold It's in the ... ,” “Wot's, Uh the Deal?” and “Childhood's End” Richard Wright – 2: “Burning Bridges” (with Gilmour) and “Stay” Roger Waters - 1: “Free Four”
More director Barbet Schroeder once again approached Pink Floyd to provide music for his new film, La Vallée. This time, Pink Floyd released the album under a different title, leading to assumptions that it was a new studio album. Many of the songs are more straightforward than most Pink Floyd songs, though the closing track, "Absolutely Curtains," contains a sample of the Mapuga tribe that plays a role in the movie.
David Gilmour – 4: “Breathe,” “Time” (with Wright), “Money” and “Us and Them” Roger Waters - 2: “Brain Damage” and “Eclipse” Richard Wright – 1: “Time” (with Gilmour)
The iconic Dark Side of the Moon more or less was the beginning of the band's Roger Waters era. The bassist wrote or co-wrote seven of the album's 10 tracks, but vocals were still mostly being handled by Gilmour at this point; Waters sings only the two closing tracks solo. The album also includes several notable vocal performances by outside artists, most famously Clare Torry on “The Great Gig in the Sky” (all post-2005 reissues of the album actually co-credit her as songwriter along with Wright). Interspersed throughout the album are spoken-word samples of the band's friends and contemporaries responding to questions written on note cards. These voices are most noticeable in “On the Run” and “Brain Damage.”
David Gilmour – 2: “Welcome to the Machine” and “Wish You Were Here” Roger Waters - 2: “Shine On You Crazy Diamond (Parts I–V)" and “Shine On You Crazy Diamond (Parts VI–IX)" Roy Harper – 1: “Have a Cigar”
After the monumental success of The Dark Side of the Moon, Pink Floyd wrote a concept album about the music industry. The album also contains many references to founding member Syd Barrett (who coincidentally visited his former bandmates in the studio after several years of no contact). Like Dark Side, Wish You Were Here was a hit. The band again employed guest singers for a few songs: British folk songwriter Roy Harper (the subject of a Led Zeppelin III song) takes over lead vocals on “Have a Cigar," and Ike and Tina Turner collaborator Venetta Fields sings on “Shine On You Crazy Diamond.”
Roger Waters - 5: “Pigs on the Wing (Part 1),” “Dogs” (with Gilmour), “Pigs (Three Different Ones),” “Sheep” and “Pigs on the Wing (Part 2) David Gilmour – 1: “Dogs” (with Waters)
Pink Floyd's winning streak continued with another Waters-penned concept album. Like Wish You Were Here, the album is bookended by a song that serves to unify the album, though this time the tracks are angry and political. Waters' personal and political beliefs would culminate on their next album, The Wall, but here he begins to implement his vision without much input from his bandmates; Gilmour sings only one song (which he co-wrote), "Dogs." Wright, whose role in the band had significantly diminished since the early years, quit the band during the recording, though he would temporarily come back for their next album.
Roger Waters - 23: “In the Flesh?,” “The Thin Ice” (with Gilmour), "Another Brick in the Wall, Part 1,” “The Happiest Days of Our Lives,” “Another Brick in the Wall, Part 2” (with Gilmour), “Mother” (with Gilmour), “Empty Spaces,” One of My Turns,” “Don't Leave Me Now,” “Another Brick in the Wall, Part 3,” “Goodbye Cruel Wrold,” “Hey You” (with Gilmour), “Is There Anybody Out There?” (with Gilmour), “Nobody Home,” “Vera,” “Bring the Boys Back Home,” “Comfortably Numb” (with Gilmour), “In the Flesh,” “Run Like Hell” (with Gilmour), “Waiting for the Worms” (with Gilmour), “Stop,” “The Trial” and “Outside the Wall” David Gilmour – 11: “The Thin Ice” (with Waters), “Another Brick in the Wall, Part 2” (with Waters), “Mother” (with Waters), “Goodbye Blue Sky,” “Young Lust,” “Hey You” (with Waters), “Is There Anybody Out There?” (with Waters), “Comfortably Numb” (with Waters), “The Show Must Go On,” “Run Like Hell” (with Waters) and “Waiting for the Worms” (with Waters)
Waters continued to assert his dominance over his bandmates during the sessions for his most complex work yet. Waters' sprawling double-album concept record contained some of the band's most ambitious and theatrical songs. Three years after its release in 1979, the album was adapted into a movie, and the band's brief tour of Europe and North America in support of the LP featured complex visual effects. The album was a critical and commercial success too, topping the U.S. chart for 15 weeks. But relations among band members wasn't so great. Gilmour and Wright were recording solo albums at the same time, while Waters left little room for his bandmates on his album. Tensions culminated when Waters fired Wright. Of the album's 26 songs, Waters sings 23; Gilmour sings only three by himself.
Roger Waters - 12: "The Post War Dream," “Your Possible Pasts," "One of the Few," "The Hero's Return," "The Gunner's Dream," "Paranoid Eyes," "Get Your Filthy Hands Off My Desert," "The Fletcher Memorial Home," "Southampton Dock," "The Final Cut," "Not Now John" (with Gilmour) and "Two Suns in the Sunset" David Gilmour – 1: "Not Now John" (with Waters)
Waters made his mark with his last Pink Floyd album. For the first time, he sang and authored every song (except for "Not Now John," on which Gilmour shares lead vocals). Waters even passed by Hipgnosis, a regular collaborator, for the cover art. Like The Wall, The Final Cut is a personal statement based on Waters' life and political beliefs. Specifically, the album deals with the then-current Falklands War and the death of Waters' father on the battlefield in World War II. Tensions were high during the recording sessions; Mason and Gilmour contributed little to the album. This is the only Pink Floyd LP without Wright.
David Gilmour – 9: "Signs of Life" (with Mason), "Learning to Fly," "The Dogs of War," "One Slip," "On the Turning Away," "Yet Another Movie," "A New Machine (Part 1)," "A New Machine (Part 2)" and "Sorrow" Nick Mason – 1: "Signs of Life" (with Gilmour)
After writing the majority of Pink Floyd material for much of the past decade, Roger Waters left the band in 1985. Wright, who was fired by Waters in 1979, returned for this album, but for legal reasons is not credited as a member. Gilmour stepped up as chief songwriter and sings on all of the album's non-instrumental tracks. Mason recites a poem on the opening track, marking his final vocal performance with the band.
David Gilmour – 9: "What Do You Want From Me," "Poles Apart," "A Great Day for Freedom," "Wearing the Inside Out" (with Wright), "Take It Back," "Coming Back to Life," "Keep Talking," "Lost for Words" and "High Hopes" Richard Wright – 1: "Wearing the Inside Out" (with Gilmour)
Like A Momentary Lapse of Reason, The Division Bell was released without any participation from Waters. Wright, who joined Gilmour and Mason for what turned out to be their last-recorded album, was back in the band and received his first writing credit since 1975. That song, “Wearing the Inside Out,” also features his only vocal on the album, a co-lead with Gilmour. The album was certified triple platinum, and the successful world tour in support of it resulted in a No. 1 live album, Pulse. A leftover hour-long ambient piece from the sessions called “The Big Spliff” would eventually make its way onto the band's last album, The Endless River, 20 years later.
The band's final LP is partially composed of leftover pieces from their previous album, The Division Bell. Again, Waters did not participate in the album's creation (though he did briefly reunite with his bandmates onstage a few times in the '00s). Wright, who died in 2008, is credited as composer on many of the album's tracks. Most of the album is filled with ambient sounds. Only one track features vocals: “Louder Than Words.” The opening track contains some spoken words, and “Talkin' Hawkin'” contains samples of physicist Stephen Hawking. Gilmour and Mason have both said that The Endless River will be the last Pink Floyd album.
Syd Barrett - 4: "Arnold Layne,” “Candy and a Currant Bun,” “See Emily Play” and “Apples and Oranges” David Gilmour – 3: “Julia Dream,” “Point Me at the Sky” (with Waters) and “Embryo” Richard Wright – 2: “Paintbox” and “It Would Be So Nice” Roger Waters - 1: “Point Me at the Sky” (with Gilmour)
Pink Floyd cleaned out their vault with a massive 33-disc compilation box set in 2106. While casual fans may not find much they know here, collectors and Barrett devotees rejoiced at the abundance of early singles (which are documented above) and previously unreleased recordings. Among them are the band's first six recordings from 1965, a scrapped single and live recordings from the group's first seven years. The first disc includes both sides of their three non-album singles from 1967; the second disc collects the rest. Some songs on the other discs found their way on albums, though only a handful of these tracks - like “Embryo,” first included on a label compilation - contain vocals.
Non-Album Song: "When the Tigers Broke Free" (1982)
Columbia
Columbia
Roger Waters – 1: “When the Tigers Broke Free”
Pink Floyd hadn't released an exclusive song as a single since 1968's “Point Me at the Sky”/“Careful With That Axe, Eugene.” “When the Tigers Broke Free,” released in conjunction with the film Pink Floyd The Wall, featured The Wall track “Bring the Boys Back Home” as its B-side. “When the Tigers Broke Free” was originally written for The Wall, but Waters' bandmates dismissed it as "too personal."
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+ "page_name": "Pink Floyd: The Dark Side of the Moon Album Review | Pitchfork",
+ "page_url": "https://pitchfork.com/reviews/albums/pink-floyd-the-dark-side-of-the-moon/",
+ "page_snippet": "The band hired Barrett\u2019s childhood mate David Gilmour as a live replacement, and one day they simply headed to a gig without picking up their singer. While Barrett was a master of making quotidian things charmingly weird, Roger Waters\u2014who\u2019d become Pink Floyd\u2019s leader by dint of his ...The band hired Barrett\u2019s childhood mate David Gilmour as a live replacement, and one day they simply headed to a gig without picking up their singer. While Barrett was a master of making quotidian things charmingly weird, Roger Waters\u2014who\u2019d become Pink Floyd\u2019s leader by dint of his forceful personality and big ideas\u2014was honest about his careerist impulses and grand aims. Without their putative leader and most charismatic member, Pink Floyd recorded a string of low-budget film soundtracks, released the classically gassy concept albums Ummagumma and Atom Heart Mother, helped Barrett record his 1970 solo debut Madcap Laughs, and toured the world. On the penultimate Dark Side track \u201cBrain Damage,\u201d he leads the band on a quest to find their wayward friend. There are elements of old Floyd on the verses: Gilmour alternates between major and minor chords, Waters sings of creeping madness like a seance leader while a man\u2019s deep voice emits a maniacal haunted-house laugh. There are elements of old Floyd on the verses: Gilmour alternates between major and minor chords, Waters sings of creeping madness like a seance leader while a man\u2019s deep voice emits a maniacal haunted-house laugh. But on the choruses, the band soars skyward into a gospel-rock echo of \u201cYou Can\u2019t Always Get What You Want\u201d and \u201cLet It Be,\u201d with Waters making an even grander attempt toward cosmic connection: \u201cAnd if the band you\u2019re in starts playing different tunes/I\u2019ll see you on the dark side of the moon.\u201d \u00b7 Pink Floyd\u2019s expansion of the interpersonal to the intergalactic materialized at a moment when the record industry was more than ready to accommodate it.",
+ "page_result": "Pink Floyd: The Dark Side of the Moon Album Review | Pitchfork
Each Sunday, Pitchfork takes an in-depth look at a significant album from the past, and any record not in our archives is eligible. Today, we revisit one of the biggest albums of all time: its origins, its impact, and why it remains a permanent fixture in the rock canon.
When Pink Floyd first premiered what would become the most successful rock album of all time, it was quite literally too big for the system to handle. A half-hour into the band\u2019s concert in Brighton on January 20, 1972\u2014the live debut of what was then called \u201cEclipse: A Piece for Assorted Lunatics\u201d\u2014the band started to play \u201cMoney,\u201d which required synchronizing their performance to a pre-recorded sound collage of jingling coins and ka-ching-ing cash registers. But coupled with the band\u2019s power-sucking sound system and lighting rig, the show slowly ground to a halt. After a brief break, bassist Roger Waters came to the mic to explain: \u201cDue to severe mechanical and electronic horror, we can\u2019t do any more of that bit, so we\u2019ll do something else.\u201d Less than a month later, the band had to abandon a performance at the Manchester Free Trade Hall when the same thing happened.
Over the prior half-decade, Pink Floyd had established themselves as, if not the best psychedelic rock band, then certainly the most technologically extravagant. From late 1966 through the fabled Summer of Love, they were the house band at the UFO, the Swinging London rock club/art space/drug den, which gave them free rein to blend their droning jams with trippy visuals, sound effects, fog machines, and extreme volume. That August, Waters told Melody Maker that he wanted Pink Floyd to travel from city to city with a circus-style big top. \u201cWe\u2019ll have a huge screen 120 feet wide and 40 feet high inside and project films and slides.\u201d
His prediction never came to be, but for an invite-only gig at Queen Elizabeth Hall in May 1967, the band installed a joystick dubbed \u201cThe Azimuth Co-ordinator\u201d on top of Richard Wright\u2019s keyboard to send the band\u2019s potent, droning sound and sci-fi effects careening around the first-of-its-kind quadraphonic playback system in the venue. For the back cover photo of the 1969 double album Ummagumma, drummer Nick Mason arranged the band\u2019s road gear to resemble an aircraft carrier, a concise reversal of one philosopher\u2019s claim that rock music is not much more than \u201ca misuse of military equipment.\u201d Waters told Melody Maker that Pink Floyd\u2019s gear fixation was a matter of going where no band had gone. \u201cWe\u2019re trying to solve problems that haven\u2019t existed before.\u201d
So, too, was NASA, whose decade-long effort to put men on the moon was coming to fruition at the same time. It was a perfect match: Around 10 p.m., Pink Floyd appeared on the BBC\u2019s marathon telecast of the Apollo 11 landing and jammed on a song they called \u201cMoonhead.\u201d Along with the requisite panels of astronomers and physicists, the quartet was joined by space-themed poetry readings from Ian McKellen and Judi Dench, and recordings of Richard Strauss\u2019 \u201cAlso Sprach Zarathustra\u201d\u2014prominently featured in Stanley Kubrick\u2019s sci-fi opus 2001: A Space Odyssey\u2014and the new single \u201cSpace Oddity,\u201d released to capitalize on moon mania by ambitious 22-year-old folkie David Bowie.
Though Bowie was just beginning to explore the cosmos, Pink Floyd had been traveling the spaceways since their inception: The first track on their debut album was \u201cAstronomy Domin\u00e9,\u201d a slab of B-movie sci-fi cheese masterminded by the band\u2019s co-founder, songwriter, and frontman Syd Barrett, which, along with \u201cInterstellar Overdrive,\u201d landed them the \u201cspace rock\u201d sobriquet from critics. Though no band likes to be classified so generically, they grew to embrace the idea. Eighteen years later, the band\u2019s official tour t-shirt read \u201cPink Floyd: Still First in Space.\u201d
Barrett watched the moon landing at his Wetherby Mansion flat in London with a group of friends and hangers-on. By 1969, Barrett had disappeared into a haze of quaaludes and LSD that eroded his already-fragile mental health. There was a depressing irony in the fact that Barrett had churned out the whimsical art-pop character studies \u201cArnold Layne\u201d and \u201cSee Emily Play\u201d that got the group signed by EMI, then immediately soured on the non-stop promotional requirements that came along with hit singles. When Barrett showed up to live gigs in 1967, he was more of a distraction than a contributor. Forced to lip-sync on TV, he barely moved.
The band hired Barrett\u2019s childhood mate David Gilmour as a live replacement, and one day they simply headed to a gig without picking up their singer. While Barrett was a master of making quotidian things charmingly weird, Roger Waters\u2014who\u2019d become Pink Floyd\u2019s leader by dint of his forceful personality and big ideas\u2014was honest about his careerist impulses and grand aims. \u201cThat was always my big fight,\u201d Waters later said, \u201cto try and drag it kicking and screaming back from the borders of space, from the whimsy that Syd was into, to my concerns, which were much more political and philosophical.\u201d It would take a half-decade after splitting with Barrett for Waters to reroute his obsession with outer space into a grand treatise on\u2014as he\u2019d later call it\u2014inner space.
In the five years between Barrett\u2019s departure and the 1973 release of The Dark Side of the Moon, Pink Floyd wandered the hinterlands as European psychedelia fractured into the high-minded progressive rock of the Moody Blues, the Nice, Procol Harum, Yes, King Crimson, and Jethro Tull; the jazz-fusion experiments of John McLaughlin and Soft Machine; the rock-operatic pretensions of the Who and Genesis; fellow space-rock travelers Hawkwind; and the synth-obsessed German bohemians Kraftwerk, Neu!, Tangerine Dream, and Popol Vuh. Without their putative leader and most charismatic member, Pink Floyd recorded a string of low-budget film soundtracks, released the classically gassy concept albums Ummagumma and Atom Heart Mother, helped Barrett record his 1970 solo debut Madcap Laughs, and toured the world. They earned enough money from their elaborate live shows\u2014which journalists were beginning to describe in terms of tonnage\u2014to make up for their paltry album sales.
With 1971\u2019s Meddle, the band finally settled into a studio groove. The best of the new songs was the side-long \u201cEchoes,\u201d over 20 minutes of airtight studio jamming, a bit of jazz and folk, a single, repeating piano note fed through a Leslie speaker, and Waters\u2019 newfound lyrical focus on the riddles of social alienation. Gilmour and Wright\u2019s serenely harmonized voices intone Waters\u2019 lyrics: \u201cStrangers passing in the street/By chance, two separate glances meet/And I am you and what I see is me.\u201d This recognition of a stranger\u2019s shared humanity and pessimistic view that empathy is an impossible thing to communicate was rooted in Waters\u2019 regret at being increasingly unable to reach his friend Syd. But as \u201cEchoes\u201d demonstrated, that fear could be blown out to galactic proportions.
There\u2019s a good chance that Waters was among the billion or so humans who first saw the far side of the moon on Christmas Eve 1968, when Apollo 8 beamed the first detailed images of the mysterious lunar surface to televisions around the world. As astronomers have stressed for decades, \u201cfar side\u201d is the accurate scientific term, but the spooky indeterminacy of \u201cdark side\u201d allows everyone else to tap into the same stoned undergraduate awe of learning that \u201clunatic\u201d is derived from the 13th-century notion that some forms of mental illness were caused by adverse reactions to the moon\u2019s phases. For Waters, the dark side of the moon was an inaccessible psychic space to which Barrett had retreated, perhaps forever, ingesting immeasurable amounts of psychedelics to cope with the unbearable stresses that accompany life on Earth, let alone one lived in the luminous glare of the public eye.
On the penultimate Dark Side track \u201cBrain Damage,\u201d he leads the band on a quest to find their wayward friend. There are elements of old Floyd on the verses: Gilmour alternates between major and minor chords, Waters sings of creeping madness like a seance leader while a man\u2019s deep voice emits a maniacal haunted-house laugh. But on the choruses, the band soars skyward into a gospel-rock echo of \u201cYou Can\u2019t Always Get What You Want\u201d and \u201cLet It Be,\u201d with Waters making an even grander attempt toward cosmic connection: \u201cAnd if the band you\u2019re in starts playing different tunes/I\u2019ll see you on the dark side of the moon.\u201d
Pink Floyd\u2019s expansion of the interpersonal to the intergalactic materialized at a moment when the record industry was more than ready to accommodate it. Waters\u2019 ambition toward art-rock as gestalt\u2014records, packaging, films, and concerts combined into an overwhelming whole\u2014accelerated the rapid growth of the rock-industrial complex of the 1970s. In 1972, Pink Floyd introduced Dark Side\u2019s songs in 3,000-capacity theaters. By 1975, they and their arena-rock contemporaries were playing 60,000-seat stadiums. Like the post-Sgt. Pepper\u2019s Beatles, Led Zeppelin, and many of their prog peers, Pink Floyd viewed the album as the paragon of rock meaning, and Dark Side is the culmination of rock\u2019s transformation into sacred druggie ritual and the elaborately packaged rock album\u2019s transmutation into a rockist totem, a bearer of secrets, something to be decoded. With the help of their Cambridge friends Aubrey Powell and Storm Thorgerson of design firm Hipgnosis, the Dark Side album\u2019s prism-on-black design ushered in a new era for rock iconography, as stark and suggestive as 2001\u2019s obelisk.
The Dark Side of the Moon is by just about any measure rock\u2019s most overdetermined album: It can be hard to talk about the music itself, and not the stats and legends accreting around the eighth-highest-selling album of all time. The music\u2019s sense of scale and gravity communicates importance, but 741 consecutive weeks on the album chart is something else entirely. Dark Side\u2019s unhurried tempos and swells of emotion are grandly cinematic, and the band maintained mystery by avoiding the press, but that\u2019s true for lots of bands that don\u2019t generate widespread conspiracy theories about secretly composing their music to sync up with The Wizard of Oz. In truth, Dark Side\u2019s music didn\u2019t sound much like Pink Floyd\u2019s previous work, and went places that firmly separated the band from its peers. Few 1973 bands were blending rock with jazz, sound montages, electronic sequencers, and interviews with average people about their deepest fears and secrets. Overwhelming earnestness and statement-making are tough for a band to pull off at the same time, and attempts at making profound alienation sound beautiful that aren\u2019t Dark Side or OK Computer inevitably fail.
Though Waters himself has described Dark Side\u2019s theme as a simple battle between darkness and light with outer space as a backdrop, he\u2019s actually underselling the album\u2019s elegant doomerism\u2014apropos of, well, everything that was happening at the time. Some light bleeds through, but not much. From the moment your lungs draw air your innocence is lost, and your life is spent fighting against the forces of time, money, religion, death, and politics, culminating in a sizable psychic (\u201cBrain Damage\u201d) and existential (\u201cEclipse\u201d) collapse. If the real subject of English psychedelia, as the Beatles\u2019 chronicler Ian Macdonald has it, is neither drugs nor love, but the lost innocence of childhood, then The Dark Side of the Moon could reasonably be called the end of the 1960s countercultural dream. The vivid spectrum of refracted light surrounded by depthless pitch black. The sun is eclipsed by the moon.
Dark Side was the No. 1 album in the U.S. for a week in April 1973, pushed to the top by incessant FM radio airplay of the single \u201cMoney.\u201d Preceded by the same coin-and-cash register montage that melted down their 1972 Brighton concert, Waters\u2019 spongy introductory bassline marks a tonal shift in the album\u2019s mood and flow. Even with the necessity of a side-flip between tracks, the decision to follow the orgasmic death-wail of \u201cThe Great Gig in the Sky\u201d with the crass sounds of commerce counts as the album\u2019s lone wanly humorous moment. In interviews, Gilmour has implied that he took Waters\u2019 demo as an opportunity to make a kind of prog-rock \u201cGreen Onions,\u201d but the closest comparison to a blues in 7/4 with a sarcastic lyric about grotesque greed, complete with a fiery sax solo and a three-part guitar solo, was Steely Dan\u2019s July 1973 single \u201cShow Biz Kids\u201d (the following year, the O\u2019Jays would issue the definitive take, with the definitive bassline, on the topic).
Though Pink Floyd had to be talked into even releasing \u201cMoney\u201d as a single, the programmers in the Album-Oriented Rock radio format wouldn\u2019t have minded either way. The most successful new format of the decade, AOR was a corporatized, data-driven update of the late-\u201960 \u201cfree-form\u201d model of radio programming. Free-form merged the anti-establishment tenor of the era with the FM band\u2019s sonic superiority over AM (the home of transistor radio-friendly Top 40) to merge political progressivism and progressive rock, eschewing standardized playlists and constant advertisements in favor of the Ummagumma version of \u201cA Saucerful of Secrets\u201d and plugs for local head shops and third-party candidates. But in the same capitalist metamorphosis that turned field festivals into arena shows, AOR engulfed free-form, replacing the DJ\u2019s ear with demographic research and point-of-sale polling. Rock album sales exploded: Apart from Dark Side\u2019s week at No. 1, 39 weeks of 1973\u2019s Billboard 200 album chart were topped by AOR-programmed acts: the Moody Blues, Alice Cooper, Led Zeppelin, the Beatles, Wings, George Harrison, Chicago, Jethro Tull, the Allman Brothers Band, the Rolling Stones, and Elton John.
That list underscores two effects of the AOR revolution: the final cleavage of (white) \u201crock\u201d from (Black) rock\u2019n\u2019roll, R&B, funk, and soul; and AOR\u2019s blatant preference for music made by men. One of Dark Side\u2019s greatest tricks is making sure that suburban stoners could find their way into songs like \u201cMoney\u201d or \u201cUs and Them\u201d through their countercultural aura, while Wright\u2019s modal jazz tints, Gilmour\u2019s tone, and Parsons\u2019 lush quadraphonic engineering could just as easily rope in the \u201chigh-fidelity first-class traveling set\u201d of pseudo-cosmopolitan Playboy readers (who voted it fourth in their 1973 Jazz and Pop poll in the \u201csmall combo\u201d category, behind Chicago IV, Mahavishnu Orchestra\u2019s Birds of Fire, and Jethro Tull\u2019s A Passion Play).
During production, Waters advocated for a drier sound, and more intense psychological exploration inspired by Plastic Ono Band, an idea that was thankfully nixed in favor of what Gilmour called a \u201cbig and swampy and wet\u201d mix. \u201cBreathe,\u201d \u201cOn the Run,\u201d and \u201cTime\u201d are the exemplars of this approach, forming the sonic and theoretical core of the album\u2019s Side A. \u201cBreathe\u201d dramatically blooms into existence out of the album\u2019s opening sound collage with Gilmour\u2019s placid Fender 1000 twin neck pedal steel at the fore. Though the steel guitar was a mainstay in Jerry Garcia\u2019s country-rock arsenal at the time, Gilmour\u2019s open-G tuning hewed closer to the languid tones of the Hawai\u2019ian islands where it was born. Combined with the vibrato effect of the Uni-Vibe pedal on his Stratocaster, the track is both impossibly tranquil and gently unnerving. The recommendation to simply \u201cbreathe\u201d can be said to someone giving birth, meditating, or having a panic attack or bad trip, and Waters moves the story quickly through the beginnings of life through an existence marked by tireless labor, then a premature death.
When Pink Floyd entered the studio in May 1972, they\u2019d road-tested their new material for a year; the songs were all fairly far along, leaving ample time for production and experimentation. On Meddle and the Obscured by Clouds soundtrack they recorded in France a few months prior, they\u2019d deployed one of Wright\u2019s new gizmos: a synthesizer and primitive sequencer made by the English company EMS Synthi-A that he had bought from the BBC Radiophonic Workshop. They were all the rage in 1973\u2014John Paul Jones fed his piano through one to create the eerie mood of Led Zeppelin\u2019s dirge \u201cNo Quarter\u201d and Brian Eno used one on the Roxy Music song where Brian Ferry sings about having sex with a robot. For Waters, however, the Synthi\u2019s eight-note sequencer generated an inhuman, hyper-modern sound-swirl that, when mixed with the recorded sounds of airport terminal announcements, mimicked the intense travel panic that he was increasingly experiencing as a touring musician. Life as he saw it was not a matter of wrangling modern technology toward a sunny future, like Kraftwerk a year later, but a numbing cycle of alienated labor and idle, wasted moments.
Introduced with its own two-minute overture that moves from Parsons\u2019 clock-sounds montage and Nick Mason\u2019s roto-tom solo, \u201cTime\u201d is Dark Side\u2019s grooviest and simplest song, with Gilmour\u2019s taut riffs backing Waters\u2019 best set of lyrics\u2014a far more serious take on the sardonic Kinks-glam of Obscured\u2019s \u201cFree Four.\u201d About as close to a Marxian statement on industrial capitalism as one could hear on FM radio, \u201cTime\u201d combines with \u201cBreathe\u201d to evoke Marx\u2019s well-traveled claim that capital\u2019s institution of tight factory clock regulations caused a psychic rupture in the human understanding of time, and a took a physical toll on our bodies. When you are young and time is long, your days are occupied \u201ckilling\u201d time, but as you age, you increasingly focus on \u201csaving\u201d and \u201cspending\u201d it\u2014until, all of a sudden, it runs out. \u201cTime\u201d gives way to a brief \u201cBreathe\u201d reprise introducing the opioid effects of softly spoken magic spells.
Titled \u201cReligion\u201d in its demo form, \u201cThe Great Gig in the Sky\u201d initially took shape as a cyclical Wright-led instrumental with Gilmour accompanying on pedal steel, but the band made the last-minute decision to add a female vocal to the track. They called in Parsons\u2019 acquaintance Clare Torry, a local session singer who came into the studio cold, and was prompted by Gilmour and Wright to, she recalls, improvise over the track while imagining a \u201cbirth and death concept.\u201d She nailed the album\u2019s ecstatic emotional peak in a few takes. In the context of Dark Side, \u201cThe Great Gig\u201d feels like a transitional point\u2014in musical flow and skyward narrative ascent\u2014but AOR programmers extracted and rotated it regardless. In the right sequence\u2014say, near Merry Clayton\u2019s powerhouse choruses on \u201cGimmie Shelter\u201d or Jim Gordon and Duane Allman\u2019s elegiac piano-and-slide coda to \u201cLayla\u201d\u2014it slotted in perfectly.
So did \u201cUs and Them,\u201d the album\u2019s best song, which gently moves through Wright\u2019s modal chord changes and highlights the album\u2019s soulful backup quartet (which included Doris Troy, who\u2019d co-written her own hit a decade earlier, and had provided vocal punch for the rollicking coda of \u201cYou Can\u2019t Always Get What You Want\u201d). The seductive music is a feint, of course, softening the blow of an evocative and elemental Waters sentiment about the cruel abstractions of war. Waters\u2019 father was a schoolteacher and member of the Communist Party who, after initially refusing to join the Army in lieu of volunteering closer to home, decided to join the 8th Battalion Royal Fusiliers as a second lieutenant. He died on the beaches of Anzio when Waters was five months old. Thirty years later, \u201cGreat Gig\u201d and \u201cUs and Them\u201d cycled through the FM airwaves, providing a doleful backdrop for the senseless, state-sponsored murders slowly concluding in the dense jungles of Vietnam.
The Dark Side of the Moon remains Pink Floyd\u2019s greatest musical achievement, and despite the band releasing four more albums before dissolving a bit more than a decade later, sent an early signal of its demise. Waters was growing ever more certain of his singular genius and forcing his will, while Gilmour and Wright resented his lack of musical chops and production choices in the studio. When the band split after 1983\u2019s The Final Cut, Waters and Gilmour released solo albums within a month of each other, and toured separately while performing the same Dark Side songs. Waters\u2019 new band (including Squeeze\u2019s Paul Carrack on vocals) was still capable of booking arenas, but Gilmour, Wright, and Mason, as Pink Floyd, staged the highest grossing tour of the 1980s. Leave it to Pink Floyd to generate quantum versions of its original self.
In a 1987 Rolling Stone feature pegged to the release of the first post-Waters Floyd LP Momentary Lapse of Reason, David Fricke interviewed the ex-bandmates separately, surfacing just how much Gilmour resented Waters\u2019 megalomania, which had driven Wright out of the band during the tense 1979 Wall sessions, and paraphrasing Waters\u2019 characterization of the remaining Floyd members as \u201clazy, greedy bastards hacking out a record and sleepwalking through a tour to build up a multimillion-dollar retirement nest egg,\u201d using, in Waters\u2019 words, \u201cthe goodwill and the name Pink Floyd.\u201d
By the time of Pink Floyd 3.0\u2019s 1994 Division Bell world tour, the band was a cultural institution and had long been recognized as a formative cog in the same globalized, financialized record and touring industry that they used their music to decry. In Europe the tour was sponsored by Volkswagen, which released a \u201cPink Floyd Edition\u201d Golf in commemoration. Such a tacky corporate tie-in\u00a0may have caused a younger Waters to retch, but Gilmour\u2014who\u2019d recorded much of his post-Waters music\u00a0on his posh houseboat\u2014defended his affluence matter-of-factly in\u00a0a 1995 interview: \u201cWhen you compare [my wealth] to what chairmen of big companies earn, I think that I am more entitled to my millions than they are. After all, I have made the world happier than Unilever.\u201d
The second set of each Division Bell date featured Dark Side played in full, and the tour was the largest-grossing in history before the Rolling Stones\u2019 Voodoo Lounge trek eclipsed it the same year. When it came to Indianapolis\u2019 Hoosier Dome in June 1994, a high school senior named Charlie Savage drove down from Fort Wayne with some friends to see one of his favorite bands for the first time. A few months later as a college freshman, Savage availed himself of his university\u2019s internet connection to explore Usenet\u2014a messageboard predecessor to the World Wide Web that contained information and discussion about thousands of topics\u2014and quickly dove into alt.music.pink-floyd. There, he learned about a DIY multimedia ritual that Floyd fans had concocted, likely by stoned accident: synchronizing the CD version of Dark Side (which didn\u2019t have to be flipped over) with the VHS version of The Wizard of Oz. At numerous moments, the music seemed to perfectly soundtrack the film\u2019s action, inspiring speculation about whether the band had secretly intended it that way. The next summer, Savage wrote a piece about the phenomenon for his hometown Fort Wayne Journal-Gazette during an internship (Pink Floyd didn\u2019t return several faxed requests for comment), and once he reposted it online, it went mid-\u201990s viral. By 2000, TCM paired with Capitol Records to program it.
While there\u2019s no truth to the rumor, the \u201cDark Side of the Rainbow\u201d myth does provide bold evidence for two dimensions of Pink Floyd and Dark Side. First, its omnipresence. Despite being one of the 20th century\u2019s most recognizable works of popular culture, Dark Side has never ranked highly on any of Rolling Stone\u2019s canon-creating album lists: It came in at No. 35 on their 1987 20th-anniversary Top 100, dropped to No. 40 on the 2003 Top 500 and slid to No. 55 on the 2020 edition. But it kept selling and selling and selling, only dropping off the bottom of the Billboard 200 in 1988\u2014fittingly, the year after its home format, the vinyl LP, was outsold by its successor, the compact disc. The solemn, rockist vinyl rituals that Pink Floyd helped initiate with Dark Side were reimagined for the era of CDs, VCRs, and urban legends spreading online. It says something that Savage has won a Pulitzer Prize for his political reporting but still receives more questions about his college Floyd piece.
The second thing that \u201cDark Side of the Rainbow\u201d highlights is that Pink Floyd is perhaps the classic rock band for whom the descriptor \u201ccinematic\u201d not only rises above clich\u00e9, but feels absolutely necessary. Their career started, after all, playing at the London Free School and UFO Club with synchronized imagery that engulfed them. Though they declined Stanley Kubrick\u2019s request to use \u201cAtom Heart Mother\u201d in A Clockwork Orange, the methodical pace, overwhelming seriousness, precision-tooled production, and obsession with man/machine dynamics of Dark Side and its follow-up Wish You Were Here are deeply Kubrickian. \u201cBreathe\u201d was originally written as part of the soundtrack to the 1970 Vanessa Redgrave-narrated documentary The Body, and Michelangelo Antonioni rejected Wright\u2019s \u201cUs and Them\u201d instrumental for a riot scene in Zabriskie Point. In 1973, an Australian filmmaker commissioned \u201cEchoes\u201d for a legendary surfing film, and for part of their 1974 tour, Pink Floyd commissioned several animations and short films to project on giant screens behind the stage. Though it\u2019s true that any music played under any motion picture will inevitably synchronize somehow (\u201cEchoes\u201d over the end of 2001 works decently), it also makes perfect sense that this particular conspiracy attached itself chiefly to Pink Floyd.
The full Pink Floyd reunited for the London portion of Live 8, Bob Geldof\u2019s 2005 sequel to Live Aid. Taking the stage between sets by the Who and Paul McCartney was a fitting end to a live career that began in Swinging London with must-see psychedelic multimedia spectaculars that both McCartney and Townshend popped in on. Waters and Gilmour were diplomatic and agreeable on stage\u2014though Gilmour later said it felt like \u201csleeping with your ex-wife\u201d\u2014and they ran through \u201cBreathe,\u201d \u201cMoney,\u201d and \u201cWish You Were Here,\u201d Waters\u2019 tribute to his long-lost friend Syd Barrett, whom Waters acknowledged from stage. Barrett died at his parents\u2019 home a year later.
Like its predecessor, Live 8 was based on the notion that rock stars could save the world by staging a large enough spectacle. In 1985, at MTV\u2019s early peak, that idea wasn\u2019t yet as quaint as it would seem in 2005, long after rock stars had ceded the cutting edge of cultural and political conversation to subsequent generations and new technological infrastructure. In 2020, Gilmour and Mason reformed Pink Floyd for a one-off charity single, \u201cHey Hey Rise Up,\u201d to support Ukraine\u2019s battle against a Russian invasion, but it came and went without much fanfare. Waters, on the other hand, enters political debates with a vengeance, and with the kind of \u201cfreethinking\u201d contradictions that suggest deep YouTube rabbit holes. In Waters\u2019 mind, support for Palestinian independence and disdain for Donald Trump share space with anti-Semitic conspiracy theories, his desire to perform in SS-style uniforms in Germany, and his both-sides view of Russia\u2019s invasion of Ukraine. Where he once barked at his ex-bandmate in the pages of Rolling Stone, Gilmour and his wife, writer Polly Samson, lit Waters up on Twitter.
Over the past few years, Merck Mercuriadis, the avaricious industry veteran, has spent billions buying up the publishing rights to dozens of Pink Floyd\u2019s classic rock contemporaries and others, naming his firm Hipgnosis in tribute to the Dark Side designers. Waters himself has decided to expand the Dark Side franchise, re-recording its songs in new arrangements, ostensibly pegged to the album\u2019s 50th anniversary, but also, one suspects, so that he can reap the profits from what one might call \u201cMoney (Roger\u2019s Version).\u201d And though the music and fanbases are different, trace backward in time from Taylor Swift and Beyonc\u00e9\u2019s blockbuster 2023 stadium tours and you\u2019ll find Dark Side-era Floyd hiring the Bond films\u2019 effects coordinator and filling multiple semi-trailers with their amps and lighting rigs. Pink Floyd\u2019s era of the rock star guru gave way to multiple waves of larger-than-life icons decades ago, but any performer-mogul bent on building impossibly huge and expensive musical experiences to call the faithful to their knees is, to some degree, working from The Dark Side of the Moon\u2019s original text.
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+ "page_name": "Pink Floyd\u2019s \u2018The Dark Side of the Moon\u2019 Still Reverberates ...",
+ "page_url": "https://www.nytimes.com/2023/02/28/arts/music/pink-floyd-dark-side-of-the-moon-50th-anniversary.html",
+ "page_snippet": "Pink Floyd\u2019s enduring blockbuster merged grandeur and malaise. Very much a product of its era, it became one of the best-selling albums of all time.Pink Floyd\u2019s enduring blockbuster merged grandeur and malaise. Very much a product of its era, it became one of the best-selling albums of all time. ... From left: Nick Mason, David Gilmour, Roger Waters and Richard Wright of Pink Floyd. The group\u2019s 1973 album, \u201cThe Dark Side of the Moon,\u201d has had a long life on radio playlists and the Billboard chart.Credit...Michael Ochs Archives/Getty Images Waters has also announced his own full-length remake of \u201cDark Side,\u201d that will have his own lead vocals \u2014 not the husky, doleful voice of Pink Floyd\u2019s guitarist, David Gilmour \u2014 with Waters\u2019s spoken words over the album\u2019s instrumentals, along with \u201cno rock \u2019n\u2019 roll guitar solos.\u201d In the digital era, \u201cThe Dark Side of the Moon\u201d album returned to the charts on CD, selling and then streaming more millions. The success of \u201cDark Side\u201d stoked the ambitions of Pink Floyd and its leader, Roger Waters, who has toured arenas and stadiums ever since; Waters, 79, is playing his \u201cfirst ever farewell\u201d dates this year. From left: Nick Mason, David Gilmour, Roger Waters and Richard Wright of Pink Floyd. The group\u2019s 1973 album, \u201cThe Dark Side of the Moon,\u201d has had a long life on radio playlists and the Billboard chart.Credit...Michael Ochs Archives/Getty Images",
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After Half a Century, \u2018The Dark Side of the Moon\u2019 Still Reverberates
Pink Floyd\u2019s enduring blockbuster merged grandeur and malaise. Very much a product of its era, it became one of the best-selling albums of all time.
From left: Nick Mason, David Gilmour, Roger Waters and Richard Wright of Pink Floyd. The group’s 1973 album, “The Dark Side of the Moon,” has had a long life on radio playlists and the Billboard chart.Credit...Michael Ochs Archives/Getty Images
Glum, ponderous songs about madness, mortality and greed, punctuated with tense instrumentals. Was that a blueprint for a blockbuster? It hardly sounds like the makings of one of the best-selling albums of all time.
But there\u2019s no denying the popularity and tenacity of \u201cThe Dark Side of the Moon,\u201d the indelible album that Pink Floyd released 50 years ago, on March 1, 1973. Looming like an inscrutable monolith, \u201cDark Side\u201d spent nearly all of the next 14 years \u2014 through punk, disco, early hip-hop and the pop heyday of MTV \u2014 lodged in Billboard\u2019s Top 200 album chart. It arrived during the analog, material days of record stores and vinyl LPs, when an album purchase was a commitment. And no matter how familiar \u201cDark Side\u201d went on to become as an FM radio staple, people still wanted their own copy, or perhaps a new copy to replace a scratched-up one. In the digital era, \u201cThe Dark Side of the Moon\u201d album returned to the charts on CD, selling and then streaming more millions.
The success of \u201cDark Side\u201d stoked the ambitions of Pink Floyd and its leader, Roger Waters, who has toured arenas and stadiums ever since; Waters, 79, is playing his \u201cfirst ever farewell\u201d dates this year. He conceived the \u201cThe Wall,\u201d a narrative rock opera released in 1979, that would foreground his anti-authority reflexes, from schoolmasters to heads of state; he has performed it against the backdrop of the Berlin Wall. Decades later, Waters would go on to spout cranky, conspiracy-theory-minded, pro-Russia political statements that many former fans abhorred. When \u201cDark Side\u201d appeared, all that was far in the future.
There will, of course, be another deluxe edition for the latest \u201cDark Side\u201d anniversary. Arriving March 24, the new boxed set has high-resolution and surround-sound remixes and other extras, though it\u2019s largely redundant after the exhaustive \u201cImmersion Edition\u201d reissue in 2011. Both \u201cImmersion\u201d and the new set include a worthy 1974 concert performance of \u201cDark Side,\u201d with brawny live sound and extended onstage jams.
Waters has also announced his own full-length remake of \u201cDark Side,\u201d that will have his own lead vocals \u2014 not the husky, doleful voice of Pink Floyd\u2019s guitarist, David Gilmour \u2014 with Waters\u2019s spoken words over the album\u2019s instrumentals, along with \u201cno rock \u2019n\u2019 roll guitar solos.\u201d
Uh-oh.
In 1973, \u201cDark Side\u201d was an album that worked equally well to show off a new stereo \u2014 or, for a few early adopters, a quadraphonic system \u2014 or to be contemplated in private communion with headphones and a joint. The ticking clocks, alarms and chimes that open \u201cTime\u201d are startlingly realistic even when they\u2019re no longer a surprise, and the perpetual-motion synthesizers and desperate footfalls of \u201cOn the Run\u201d are eternally dizzying.
Stately tempos, cavernous tones and solemn framing announce the high seriousness of \u201cDark Side,\u201d which begins and ends with the sound of a heartbeat. The album juxtaposes overarching sonics and grand pronouncements with human-scale experience. Its tracks are punctuated with voices from Pink Floyd\u2019s road crew and friends, dispensing loop-ready tidbits like \u201cI\u2019ve always been mad\u201d in working-class accents.
Like other overwhelming best sellers of the 1970s and 1980s \u2014 Michael Jackson\u2019s \u201cThriller,\u201d Eagles\u2019 \u201cHotel California,\u201d Fleetwood Mac\u2019s \u201cRumours\u201d \u2014 \u201cDark Side\u201d deals with disillusionment, fear and resentment despite the polish of its production. It\u2019s troubled and obsessive at heart, not tidy. Countless bands and producers would learn from Pink Floyd how to fuse grandeur and malaise, how a few well-placed sounds can say far more than a showy display of virtuosity.
\u201cDark Side\u201d was very much a product of its era. The early 1970s were prog-rock\u2019s heyday, particularly in Britain, where bands like Genesis, King Crimson and Yes were constructing suite-length songs and unveiling elaborate conceits. But the early 1970s were also a time when the utopian promises of the hippie era were fading, pushed back by entrenched interests and corporate co-optation. \u201cDark Side\u201d captures na\u00efve hopes falling away.
It was Pink Floyd\u2019s eighth album, the continuation of a cult career that had been synonymous with psychedelia and progressive rock: with extended structures and open-ended jams, with verbal conundrums and with an oh-wow appreciation of reverberant textures and spatial effects.
Pink Floyd\u2019s founding songwriter, Syd Barrett, left the band in 1968 with mental health problems, taking its sense of whimsy with him. Waters emerged as its new, more saturnine leader. But it took a string of uneven albums, full of amorphous studio jams, before the relative concision and clarity of \u201cDark Side\u201d came into focus. While the album unfolds as a 42-minute prog-rock suite \u2014 despite the necessity, in 1973, of flipping over an LP \u2014 it also features clearly delineated verse-chorus-verse songs that radio stations could play. Waters deliberately made his lyrics blunter and more down-to-earth than he had before: \u201cMoney, it\u2019s a gas/Grab that cash with both hands and make a stash.\u201d
Waters tackled big topics: \u201cTime,\u201d \u201cMoney,\u201d war, the inevitability of death, the triviality of daily life, the importance of seizing the moment. His perspective is dour. In \u201cBreathe (in the Air),\u201d he describes life as a \u201crace towards an early grave\u201d; in \u201cTime, he observes that every sunrise brings you \u201cOne day closer to death.\u201d But the reason \u201cDark Side\u201d became a blockbuster is that Pink Floyd\u2019s music \u2014 the full band, with Richard Wright\u2019s self-effacing but fundamental keyboards, Waters on bass, Nick Mason\u2019s steadfast drumming and Gilmour\u2019s probing, slashing, keening guitar \u2014 defies all that miserabilism.
The album builds dramatically and inexorably toward the songs that close each side of the LP. \u201cThe Great Gig in the Sky,\u201d which ends Side 1, is a progression of tolling, processional keyboard chords from Wright, topped by spoken words denying fear of death \u2014 \u201cYou\u2019ve got to go sometime\u201d \u2014 followed by Clare Torry\u2019s leaping, soaring, riveting vocal improvisation. She\u2019s a pure life force, with pain and freedom and determination in her voice, refusing to accept oblivion. (Torry only received composer credit for her top line in 2005, along with an undisclosed settlement, after suing the band.)
The album\u2019s conclusion \u2014 \u201cBrain Damage\u201d seguing into \u201cEclipse,\u201d both written by Waters \u2014 reads as bleak but feels like transcendence. In \u201cBrain Damage,\u201d the singer feels himself succumbing to mental illness. \u201cThe lunatic is in my head,\u201d he warns, answered by a snippet of maniacal laughter; in the chorus, he sings, \u201cIf your head explodes with dark forebodings too/I\u2019ll see you on the dark side of the moon.\u201d
Then, in \u201cEclipse,\u201d he makes his way toward a revelatory oneness \u2014 \u201cAll that is now and all that is gone/And all that\u2019s to come and everything under the sun is in tune\u201d \u2014 only to see it swallowed by darkness as \u201cthe sun is eclipsed by the moon.\u201d But in both songs, the music swells behind him, with churchy organ and robust major chords, pealing guitar and gospelly choir harmonies. As the album ends, tidings of catastrophe sound like triumph; it\u2019s a fist-pumping arena-rock finale.
In recent interviews, Waters has described the message of the album more positively. \u201cWhat is really important is the connection between us as human beings, the whole human community,\u201d he told Berliner Zeitung in February. That\u2019s revisionist; \u201cDark Side\u201d luxuriates in alienation, futility and desperation. Its persistence reveals just how many listeners feel the same.
Jon Pareles has been The Times\u2019s chief pop music critic since 1988. A musician, he has played in rock bands, jazz groups and classical ensembles. He majored in music at Yale University.More about Jon Pareles
A version of this article appears in print on \u00a0, Section C, Page 3 of the New York edition with the headline: Fifty Years and the Mood Still Hasn\u2019t Lifted. Order Reprints | Today\u2019s Paper | Subscribe
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+ "page_name": "10 things you didn't know about Pink Floyd's Dark Side Of The Moon ...",
+ "page_url": "https://www.radiox.co.uk/artists/pink-floyd/10-things-you-didnt-know-about-dark-side-of-the-moon-album/",
+ "page_snippet": "The all-time classic album was released in March 1973 - but how much do you know about the making of this masterpiece?Pink Floyd circa 1972: Rick Wright, David Gilmour, Roger Waters, Nick Mason. Picture: Alamy \u00b7 The all-time classic album was released in March 1973 - but how much do you know about the making of this masterpiece? The all-time classic album was released in March 1973 - but how much do you know about the making of this masterpiece? ... Loading audio... One of the key ideas behind Dark Side Of The Moon was that Pink Floyd created an album that could be played in its entirety, meaning the material was road-tested well in advance of the band entering the studio. Floyd's intention was to make an album about mental health and the fragility of life. The phrase \"dark side of the moon\" was an ideal metaphor for both the unknown and the ancient and outdated concept of the \"lunatic\" (a term derived from the Latin \"luna\" and the idea that one's mental state fluctuated around the phases of the moon). Pink Floyd then suggested the new album could be called Eclipse... that is until Medicine Head's album failed to perform commercially - it didn't even make the UK Top 40 chart and would prove to be their last release for Dandelion. This meant Pink Floyd could revert to their original idea.",
+ "page_result": "\n\n\n\n\n \n \n \n\n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n\n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n\n \n \n \n\n \n\n 10 things you didn't know about Pink Floyd's Dark Side Of The Moon album - Radio X\n\n \n\n \n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n \n\n \n\n\n\n\t\n\t\t\n\t\n\n\n\n\n \n\n \n \n\n \n \n \n\n\n \n\n \n \n \n\n \n\n \n \n\n\n \n \n\n \n \n \n\n\n\n\n \n\n \n \n \n \n \n \n\n \n \n \n \n \n \n\n \n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n \n\n \n \n \n \n
The all-time classic album was released in March 1973 - but how much do you know about the making of this masterpiece?
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The songs were performed live before they were recorded in the studio
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One of the key ideas behind Dark Side Of The Moon was that Pink Floyd created an album that could be played in its entirety, meaning the material was road-tested well in advance of the band entering the studio.
Some of the new songs were given their public debut at Brighton Dome on 20th January 1972, while the whole Dark Side Of The Moon suite was unveiled to the press over four nights at The Rainbow theatre in Finsbury Park in February 1972. Weekly paper Melody Maker called the work "lacking framework and conception".
\n \n \n\n \n \n \n \n\n Pink Floyd's Dark Side Of The Moon tour reaches Los Angeles, September 1972.\n \n Picture: \nJeffrey Mayer/ Rock Negatives / MediaPunch/Alamy\n\n\n \n\n\n\n\n \n
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Pink Floyd were not the first band to use the title Dark Side Of The Moon
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Floyd's intention was to make an album about mental health and the fragility of life. The phrase "dark side of the moon" was an ideal metaphor for both the unknown and the ancient and outdated concept of the "lunatic" (a term derived from the Latin "luna" and the idea that one's mental state fluctuated around the phases of the moon).
However, this idea was scuppered when Stafford-based prog rockers Medicine Head released their third album on John Peel's Dandelion label in the Spring of 1972. It was titled Dark Side Of The Moon.
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MEDICINE HEAD - Dark Side Of The Moon (1972) [Full Album] \ud83c\uddec\ud83c\udde7 Heavy Psychedelic Blues / Folk Rock
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\u201cWe were annoyed because we had already thought of the title before the Medicine Head album came out," guitarist David Gilmour later said. Pink Floyd then suggested the new album could be called Eclipse... that is until Medicine Head's album failed to perform commercially - it didn't even make the UK Top 40 chart and would prove to be their last release for Dandelion. This meant Pink Floyd could revert to their original idea.
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Paul and Linda McCartney were due to appear on the album... but were left off.
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Dark Side Of The Moon was recorded at the famous Abbey Road studios, which proved useful for one of bassist Roger Waters' ideas. "I wrote questions down on a set of cards. Whoever was in the building came and did it. They would read the top card and answer it - with no one else in the room . So, for instance, when it said 'When was the last time you were violent?' the next one said, 'Were you in the right?' The questions that provided us with the best material were the ones about violence."
\n \n \n\n \n \n \n \n\n Trying to be funny: Paul and Linda McCartney during the Wings years, May 1973.\n \n Picture: \nAlamy\n\n\n \n\n\n\n\n \n
Frequenting Abbey Road at the time were Paul and Linda McCartney, who were working on the second Wings album, Red Rose Speedway. The celebrity couple were drafted in to answer Waters' questions, but didn't deliver. \u201cHe was trying to be funny," the frustrated Pink Floyd man later told biographer John Harris, "which wasn\u2019t what we wanted at all."
However, Wings guitarist Henry McCullogh did end up on Dark Side Of The Moon: he's the voice that says "I don't know... I was really drunk at the time" at the end of Money.
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The actress, who's now best-known for the films The Ring, King Kong and Mulholland Drive, is the daughter of Peter Watts, Pink Floyd's then-road manager. Watts is one of the random voices that appears throughout the album, laughing repeatedly and musing on the subject of morality: "I never said I was frightened of dying." Watts would die in 1976 from a heroin overdose, aged just 30.
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Brain Damage
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The album features British-made synthesisers!
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The sounds heard on the track On The Run are made by the VCS-3, a small synthesiser made by EMS, Electronic Music Studios. It was nicknamed "The Putney", because EMS's offices were based by Putney Bridge in South West London. Pink Floyd also used the EMS Synthi A, which was a portable synth that could be carried about in its own suitcase.
\n \n \n\n \n \n \n \n\n Made in Britain! The "Putney" aka the VCS-3 synthesiser, as used on Dark Side Of The Moon.\n \n Picture: \nJorgen Angel/Redferns/Getty\n\n\n \n\n\n\n\n \n
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There's a colour missing from the spectrum on the cover design
\n \n \n\n \n \n \n \n\n Which colour is missing? The full gatefold sleeve of Pink Floy's Dark Side Of The Moon.\n \n Picture: \nAlamy Stock Photo\n\n\n \n\n\n\n\n \n
Hipgnosis, the art collective featuring Storm Thorgerson and Aubrey Powell, designed the cover for Dark Side Of The Moon, which was put together by graphic artist George Hardie. Tasked by the band to come up with a "simple and bold" design, the finished artwork features a beam of white light shining through a prism, which then fragments the ray into its constituent colours. However, there's one colour from the spectrum missing: indigo. The artwork shows red, orange, yellow, green, blue and violet.
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The band would stop recording to watch Monty Python
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Engineer Alan Parsons recalled that the Pink Floyd's studio routine would change depending on which day of the week it was. "If it was football night, we would always finish early," he told Rolling Stone in 2003. "If it was Monty Python night, we'd do the same. Roger was very into football. Very often, they'd stop for Monty Python and leave me to do a rough mix."
\n \n \n\n \n \n \n \n\n The cast of the "Dirty Fork" sketch line up for this Monty Python promo shot: Eric Idle, Graham Chapman, Michael Palin, John Cleese, Terry Jones and Terry Gilliam (who is not appearing in this sketch).\n \n Picture: \nAlamy\n\n\n \n\n\n\n\n \n
Python's third series began on BBC-1 in October 1972, right in the middle of the Dark Side Of The Moon sessions, although David Gilmour claims the band was more disciplined than people made out. "We would sometimes watch them, but when we were on a roll, we would get on," he told Uncut.
Pink Floyd were genuine Python fans - so much so that they put some of the profits made from Dark Side Of The Moon into financing the film Monty Python & The Holy Grail.
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There was no single taken off Dark Side Of The Moon
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Pink Floyd's last UK single had been Point Me At The Sky in December 1968, which failed to trouble the chart. Alongside Led Zeppelin, Floyd became one of those "serious", progressive bands that concentrated more on albums rather than the increasingly irrelevant world of the singles chart. So in their native Britain, there was no single - you had to experience Dark Side Of The Moon as a whole piece. In the US, it was a different story, and Money was plucked from the record, making No 10 on the Cash Box chart when it was backed with Any Colour You Like.
\n \n \n\n \n \n \n \n\n Money was also issued as a single in Germany.\n \n Picture: \nAlamy Stock Photo\n\n\n \n\n\n\n\n \n
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The idea that you can sync Dark Side Of The Moon with The Wizard Of Oz is a myth
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One long standing urban legend says that if you start playing Dark Side Of The Moon at the same time that the MGM lion roars for the third time at the beginning of the 1939 fantasy classic, The Wizard Of Oz, you'll notice that the music seems to commentate on the action in the film.
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The Wizard of Pink Floyd
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For example, The Great Gig In The Sky lifts off just as the twister comes to spirit Dorothy away; Dorothy opens the door to see the Land of Oz for the first time just as Money kicks in; and the final heartbeats of the record play as the Tin Man reveals he doesn't have a heart.
Asked about this theory in 1997, drummer Nick Mason told MTV: \u201cIt\u2019s absolute nonsense. It has nothing to do with The Wizard Of Oz. It was all based on The Sound Of Music.\u201d
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Dark Side Of The Moon is the seventh best selling album of all time in the UK
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Pink Floyd's 1973 masterpiece lines up behind Queen's Greatest Hits, ABBA Gold, The Beatles' Sgt Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band, Adele's 21, (What's The Story) Morning Glory? by Oasis and Michael Jackson's Thriller in the list of Britain's top sellers, with 4.47 million copies sold.
\n \n \n\n \n \n \n \n\n Pink Floyd performing live in Columbia, Maryland, October 1973.\n \n Picture: \nThe Color Archives / Alamy Stock Photo\n\n\n \n\n\n\n\n \n
\n First released: \r 1st March 1973 (US); \r 16th March 1973 (UK)\r \r Track Listing:\r Side One:\r Speak To Me \r Breathe (In The Air)\r On The Run\r Time\r The Great Gig In The Sky\r \r Side Two:\r Money\r Us And Them\r Any Colour You Like\r Brain Damage\r Eclipse\n
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