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| Album
Information |
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| Released:
March 17, 1973 |
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| Recorded:
June 1972 – January
1973 |
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| Genre:
Progressive rock |
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| Length:
42:59 |
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| Label:
Harvest |
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| Capitol |
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| Producer:
Pink Floyd |
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Album Art |
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Background
The Dark Side of the Moon (titled in the 1993
CD release as Dark Side of the Moon, and often
abbreviated as DSotM) is a concept album by the
British progressive rock band Pink Floyd, released
in 1973 and engineered by Alan Parsons. It is
notable for its use of Musique concrète
and philosophical lyrics, something that would
eventually become a trademark of Pink Floyd's
music. The album was a landmark in rock music,
as it featured radio-friendly songs such as "Money",
"Time", "Us and Them", and
"Brain Damage/Eclipse". Some music critics
use the album as a point of reference in determining
between "classic" blues rock and the
then-new genre of electronic music.
The Dark Side of the Moon explores the nature
of the human experience. For example, "Time"
deals with aging and the overwhelmingly fast approach
of death. "Money" deals with materialism
with tongue-in-cheek lyrics and wealth-related
sound effects. "Us and Them" deals with
conflict, ethnocentrism, and the belief that a
person's self is "always in the right".
The Dark Side of the Moon is widely hailed by
many critics and fans as Pink Floyd's magnum opus,
and is generally considered their definitive album.
In 2006 it was voted "My Favourite Album"
by viewers and listeners to the Australian Broadcasting
Corporation. In 1990, Australian radio listeners
voted it the best album to make love to, and in
2003, Rolling Stone heralded The Dark Side of
the Moon as the 43rd greatest album of all time.
The Dark Side of the Moon spent 741 consecutive
weeks on the USA-based Billboard 200 album chart,
the longest duration in history. It is also the
fifth highest selling album globally of all time,
selling more than forty million units.
The only time there is a gap of silence on the
whole album is between The Great Gig in the Sky
and Money, where there is a side change on the
LP; this pause was filled in with a barely audible
transition by Alan Parsons for its CD release.
Recording
Recorded by the band and engineer Alan Parsons
at Abbey Road Studios between June 1972 and January
1973, the album sessions made use of the most
advanced techniques available for recording instruments
and sound effects in rock music at that time.
Along with the conventional rock band instrumentation,
Pink Floyd added prominent synthesisers to their
sound as well as some unconventional noises: an
assistant engineer running around the studio's
echo chamber (during "On the Run"),
myriad antique clocks chiming simultaneously (as
the intro to "Time"), and a specially-treated
bass drum made to sound like a human heartbeat.
The heartbeat is most audible as the intro and
the outro to the album, but it can also be heard
underneath most of the album—the song "Time"
and "On the Run" has the low thudding
underneath the rest. Roger Waters wrote all of
the lyrics in the album and created the early
demo tracks in a small garden shed-turned-recording
studio at his home. It was in there he also created
the intro to "Money" by experimenting
with dropping a range of monetary objects.
Another novelty found on The Dark Side of the
Moon is the metronomic sequence of sound effects
played during "Speak to Me" and "Money."
This was achieved by labouriously splicing together
recordings of ringing cash registers, clinking
coins, tearing paper, and buzzing counting machines
onto a two-track tape loop (later adapted to four
tracks in order to create a unique "walk
around the room" effect in quadrophonic presentations
of the album). Due to the sonic experimentation
on the album, many songs on The Dark Side of the
Moon (particularly "On the Run") required
every member of the band to operate the faders
simultaneously in order to mix down the intricately
assembled multitrack recording.
Pink Floyd also perfected the use of other studio
techniques such as the doubletracking of vocals
and guitars (allowing David Gilmour to harmonise
flawlessly with himself), flanging effects, odd
trickery with reverb and the panning of sounds
between channels. To this day, audiophiles use
The Dark Side of the Moon as a reference standard
to test the fidelity of audio equipment despite
the fact that it was originally mixed from third-generation
tape with Dolby noise reduction.
All four members of Pink Floyd, which included
guitarist David Gilmour, drummer Nick Mason, bassist
and lyricist Roger Waters, and keyboardist Richard
Wright, had some form of participation in the
writing and production of the album, which is
a rarity among later Pink Floyd albums. However,
it is the first of five consecutive Pink Floyd
albums with lyrics completely credited to Roger
Waters.
On most CD pressings, a barely-audible orchestral
version of The Beatles' "Ticket to Ride"
is audible after "Eclipse", playing
very faintly over the heartbeats that close the
album. It is unknown why this was included, but
it may have been the consequence of a mastering
error. The bootleg recording A Tree Full of Secrets
includes an amplified, re-processed version of
this oddity, which allows it to be heard clearly.
This is not found on the original vinyls.
Although The Dark Side of the Moon was the planned
title of the album, upon the discovery that the
band Medicine Head was to release an album of
the same name in 1972, the year prior to The Dark
Side of the Moon's release, the band changed the
album's title to "Eclipse: A Piece for Assorted
Lunatics". However, the Medicine Head album
flopped, so Pink Floyd was able to revert to the
original title without trouble.
Voices
The vocals for "The Great Gig in the
Sky", which are intended to make the listener
think of death, were done by Clare Torry. However,
in 2004 she sued EMI and Pink Floyd for songwriting
royalties, claiming that she co-wrote "The
Great Gig in the Sky" with keyboardist Richard
Wright. She was originally paid £30 for
Sunday studio work. The High Court concluded that
Torry was correct but the terms of the lawsuit
have yet to be decided. On Pink Floyd's 2006 live
DVD P*U*L*S*E, Torry is credited with the vocal
composition for "The Great Gig in the Sky"
segment.
Snippets of dialogue between and over the top
of the songs are also featured on the recording.
Roger Waters devised a method of interviewing
people, whereby questions were printed on flashcards
in sequential order and the subject's responses
were recorded uninterrupted. The questions related
to central themes of the album such as madness,
violence, and death. Participants were commandeered
from around Abbey Road, placed in the darkened
studio in front of a microphone, and told to answer
the questions in the order which they were presented.
This provoked some surprising responses to subsequent
questions. For example, the question "When
was the last time you were violent?" was
immediately followed by "Were you in the
right?"
Recordings of road manager Roger "The Hat"
Manifold were the only ones obtained through a
conventional sit-down interview because the band
members could not find him at the time and his
responses (including "give 'em a quick, short,
sharp shock..." and "live for today,
gone tomorrow, that's me...") had to be taped
later when the flashcards had been lost. Another
roadie, Chris Adamson, was on tour with Pink Floyd
at the time and recorded his explicit diatribe
that opens the album ("I've been mad for
fucking years, absolutely years, over the edge
for yonks...").
Pink Floyd's executive road manager Peter Watts
(father of actress Naomi Watts) contributed the
repeated laughter during "Brain Damage"
and "Speak to Me." The monologue about
"geezers" who were "cruisin' for
a bruisin'" and the often-misheard "I
never said I was frightened of dying" (during
the middle of "The Great Gig in the Sky")
came from Peter's wife, Myfanwy Watts.
The responses "And I am not frightened of
dying, any time will do I don't mind. Why should
I be frightened of dying, there's no reason for
it you've got to go some time" (during "The
Great Gig in the Sky") and closing words
"there is no dark side of the Moon really...
as a matter of fact it's all dark" (over
the "Eclipse" heartbeats) came from
the Abbey Road Studios' Irish doorman at the time,
Gerry Driscoll. Paul and Linda McCartney were
also interviewed, but their answers were considered
too cautious for inclusion. McCartney's bandmate
Henry McCullough contributed the famous line "I
don't know, I was really drunk at the time."
(Apparently in answer to the question "Why
does anyone do anything?", which immediately
preceded it.)
Alan Parsons engineered the album while on staff
at Abbey Road. He once said in an interview that
he swapped shifts with colleagues in order to
work on the whole project.
Source: Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia |
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