50 years of Dark Side of the Moon.
A moment of appreciation for one of the most iconic and influential records in rock history.
artwork by Charlotte Littlefield.
Never judge an album by its cover—unless it’s The Dark Side of the Moon. It is, without doubt, one of the most iconic and influential records in rock history, and it has an album cover to match. This past March marked fifty years of The Dark Side of the Moon by Pink Floyd, so let’s take a moment of appreciation for Pink Floyd’s magnum opus and one of my favorite records.
The Dark Side of the Moon was born out of a necessity for Pink Floyd to do something new. Five years earlier, the primary songwriter for Pink Floyd, Syd Barrett, developed symptoms of schizophrenia (according to most reports) and became unable to perform or communicate with his band members. When Barrett inevitably parted with the band in late 1968, Pink Floyd was in desperate need of a replacement and stumbled upon a then-unknown David Gilmour, whose blues-informed melodies and stirring tone cemented him as a legend of the guitar. Gilmour was not a prolific writer, though, and Pink Floyd struggled to replace the folksy psychedelia that characterizes Barrett’s writing. It was Roger Waters, the bassist, who proposed a new direction for the band: in his words, he wanted to “drag it kicking and screaming back from the borders of space, from the whimsy that Syd was into, to my concerns, which were more political and philosophical.” Early on in the album’s conception, Pink Floyd knew they wanted to employ an advanced, electronic, and extensively layered sound, so they hired Alan Parsons as their producer, who was at the forefront of using quadraphonic mixing.
In one critical jamming session, Waters played two simple chords, repeated them over and over, and brought the gloomy, ethereal sound of the album into focus. This motif is so distinctive to me that when Gilmour begins strumming these chords in “Breathe,” inexplicably, I always imagine a dark, rainy sidewalk, setting the scene for the rest of the record. After that session, everything began falling into place, and the recording process was finished in two months. After creating the iconic album cover and changing the name from “Eclipse: A Piece for Assorted Lunatics” to The Dark Side of the Moon, it was complete. The result is a concept album that loosely follows the life of a character from the perspective of a second-person narrator, as the character battles the anxieties of daily life and struggles to find meaning, ultimately becoming a “lunatic”—a word that has the same root as lunar, relating the moon to insanity. Though this symbolic relationship is not explicitly fleshed out: does the moon remind us of a cosmic insignificance that leads to lunacy perhaps? This one example highlights how this album is chalk-full of subtly-fashioned existential inquiries, and there is always more to find for an attentive listener.
I could make a tedious list of the ways it influenced electronic sound, concept albums, recording technology, the status quo for thematic content in rock, and the concert experience, but oddly enough, if it is widely known these days for a completely different reason. If you watch the 1939 film The Wizard of Oz and start the album at just the right time, the music appears to sync up with the movie (sometimes). Joe Rogan goes so far as to suggest the album was created for the movie, but to me, this association is a travesty. The album is entirely captivating to me without the crutch of a visual aid. That being said, the trend does point to a key facet of the album: its forward-moving, cohesive narrative structure demands that it be listened to as one piece. And it is: it is likely the fourth best-selling record of all time, and, even in the age of streaming, its record sales are rising, which speaks volumes to the timeless listening experience of the album as a whole. But if these broad proclamations don’t warrant 43 minutes of your AirPods’ time, read on four features of this album that I think are key to this record’s magic.
Theme: Before writing this article, I didn’t think much about the meaning behind the lyrics. To me, the term ‘psychedelic’ usually implies lyrics that sound nice but are ultimately inscrutable. When I started paying attention, though, I discovered the complex storytelling of Rogers’ writing and its desolate, dark beauty. Lyrics like “Hanging on in quiet desperation is the English way” knocked me off my feet. The album largely embodies a state of mental unhealthiness and demonstrates by impact how everyday anxieties like money and time can lead to mental illness. This may sound overly cerebral for an album, but the larger-scale concepts arise from concrete ideas on individual tracks that are often quite relatable. Time, for example, is a theme analyzed throughout the record, but the track “Time” specifically captures that feeling of a foregone opportunity for me. Importantly, this sort of thematic content was nearly uncharted territory at the time: few (if any) previous rock records address sources of everyday anxiety and mental health so directly and extensively.
Narrative: The first and last sounds heard on the album are that of a heartbeat, growing in the beginning and fading at the end. This gives the album a life of its own, so to speak, and also demonstrates Pink Floyd’s commitment to this being one cohesive piece of music. The consistent engagement with a single character creates an emotional investment in the listener, even though the story is sometimes left open-ended. Considering the relatability of much of the album’s content, the second-person narration often creates a sense that the voice is talking to you, which buys you in further to the album and its story. Considering the album aims to convey an entire life, one might expect it to rush through different events and stages of life, but the album takes its time;, in at least a third of the album, there is no singing. However, storytelling often occurs in the absence of words. This album extensively uses musique concrete, which is defined as “music created by mixing recorded sounds,” particularly sounds created by non-musical objects. The alarm clock sound in “Time” provides a jarring wake-up call for the character and development in the narrative: they are no longer “on the run” and are now considering what a waste it all was. To me, this sonic storytelling with familiar sounds, which I have never encountered in other music, grounds the album in reality and keeps me attentive. Overall, the album is truly unique in how it implements a narrative, and the techniques serve to make the album’s abstractions intimate to the listener.
Cohesion: The album’s sound is also highly cohesive, with its rich, lush textures and balanced, often sparing arrangement throughout creating the brooding but dynamic sound. Additionally, the first six songs flow into one another sonically, and so do the last four. Given the variety of tempos, keys, and emotional contents of the songs on the album, this is quite a feat. Pink Floyd emphasizes transitions between tracks, moods, or concepts: they can be sudden and jarring like the startling alarm clock in “Time”, or the music can remain in a prolonged state of transition, like in the opening track, “Speak to Me.” This particularly important track represents the birth of the character; and many of the motifs heard throughout the album are introduced (e.g. cash register, clock, Scottish man’s voice), thereby effectuating the sonic world that the rest of the album inhabits. This world is reinstated with several repeating motifs, both harmonic and non-tonal. My favorite instance of such a motif is the cash register in “Money”: the register appears in the background previously, but this time it is front and center, forming the grooving, bluesy beat of the song (in 7/4 time), so ultimately, the song sounds like money in more ways than one. Overall, the cohesion of the album provides the musical basis for such an extensive narrative structure and audacious thematic content to be pulled together.
Performance: The vocal performance of Gilmour is highly dynamic, ranging from raw and aggressive to distant and almost otherworldly, typical of Pink Floyd. “The Great Gig in the Sky” features a beautiful and powerful performance from Clare Torry, who had to wait 20 years to get her rightful dues for it from the band (oops). In addition, their use of electronic sound (prominently featured in “Any Colour You Like”) is far ahead of its time, not only in terms of the quality of sound produced but also in its melodic substantiation. I love the use of the organ on the album, which gives it a hint of blues. And last but not least, Gilmour’s soaring guitar solos on this album are unbelievable, and certainly among his best. Gilmour’s commitment to continuous melody gives his solos an almost conversational quality, and as he bends into higher and higher registers, his guitar’s unique voice becomes filled with emotion. The solo in “Time” remains legendary in the world of rock and is learned note for note by many guitar players.
It is not a hot take to say The Dark Side of the Moon is good, but it is worth taking a moment to admire at this 50-year mark. It is groundbreaking not only in its approach to organizing an album but also to organizing sound, such that it conveys emotions I have heard nowhere else. Its tone is often hopeless and despairing, but I believe that the listening experience can be therapeutic, in a similar way that horror movies can be fun: it naturalizes my everyday feelings of anxiety by aggrandizing them to a level of operatic drama in its central character. With that being said, get into the right headspace by whatever means, give this one a listen, and try not to end up on the dark side of the moon.
edited by Aidan Burt.
artwork by Charlotte Littlefield.