Pink Floyd
The Dark Side Of The Moon

Those who have had the fortune to listen to and appreciate Pink Floyd in their lives are privileged. Legendary band that has composed timeless music. Musicians from another planet.

The group at the time of the album release consisted of Roger Waters on bass, David Gilmour on guitar, Richard Wright on keyboards, and Nick Mason on drums. In the band, everyone sang and created vocal harmonies that have become legendary.

'The Dark Side Of The Moon' is the album that, in the eyes of the public, defined the very essence of Pink Floyd. The record was released on March 24th, 1973. Recorded in just 38 scattered days over seven months, the album barely made space for itself amidst the tangle of commitments that kept the band busy between 1972 and 1973. Moreover, the album was recorded with the urgency of having new material to perform live, as Pink Floyd were terribly bored with the set of songs they were playing.

Even before it was released, the album already held a record: an embryonic version of it, recorded during a London performance, was purchased by 120 thousand fans. When the real album came out, it literally swept the board: 29 million copies sold, it remained for 760 weeks, that is over 14 years, in the American charts and 350 in the British ones. The compact disc version released in 1988 became one of the most profitable back catalogue operations undertaken by the recording industry. The reasons for this enormous success? A mystery. Pink Floyd said that the album had such success because it is pleasant and linear. The truth is that with this record, the band comes down to Earth and demonstrates their connection to ordinary mortals. Indeed, after years of psychedelic rock, they write a work that is finally accessible. Both the lyrics and the music are accessible.

The record was recorded on a 16-track with the then innovative quadraphonic technique; the clean and impeccable sound earned sound engineer Alan Parsons a Grammy for the best-produced album of 1973. Over time, the record has gained the reputation of being the perfect tester for stereo systems. Alan Parsons said that the band spent entire days working on the sounds and timing; they were perfectionists. The divergences between Waters and Gilmour were resolved by manager Steve O'Rourke, who called in another impartial referee, Chris Thomas, who had already worked with the Beatles on the White Album, to mix the album. Despite everything, in this record, the personalities of Gilmour and Waters interact without issues. The album is a triumph of simplicity and almost literal translation of the group's ideas and music. The cover is impossible to miss. Richard Wright said he wanted something elegant, clean, that was related to the themes of ambition and madness. Of the seven drafted sketches, they chose the design depicting a prism on a black background reflecting a light beam splitting it into seven colors. Inside, the green band of the spectrum oscillates, recalling the heartbeat that opens and closes the album.

The heartbeat that opens the album introduces ''Speak To Me'', the voices you hear are answers to a Pink Floyd questionnaire on the album's themes, submitted to some friends in the studio to answer some questions like 'Are you mad? Is there a dark side of the Moon?' 'Breathe' is an invitation to seize the moment before 'running straight towards an early death.' 'On The Run' is the theater of the Pink Floyd's obsessions and their era. 'Time' which opens with a symphony of clocks recorded by Parsons with a quadraphonic effect in an antique shop, highlights the fear of passing time which for many passes in vain in pursuit of false goals or in anticipation of false events that will never occur. Gilmour exemplary here sings 'you are older every day, with shorter breath and one day closer to death.' 'The Great Gig In The Sky' arises from a phrase played by Wright to which the band overlays the famous wordless yet wonderful singing of Clare Torry, a white vocalist. Gilmour described her vocal performance as 'orgasmic.' The result will go down in history. This track has been the most popular soundtrack for erotic shows in Amsterdam's red-light district. It was voted as the best song to have sex to. 'Money' has a bizarre rhythm punctuated by some noises like the clinking of a cash register, a bag of coins being dropped, a piece of paper being torn, and the sound of a telephone keypad. 'Us And Them' is an invitation to seize the moment before 'running straight towards an early death', staging the 'sixty-eight' dualism and some considerations on the difficulty of communication between human beings. 'Any Colour You Like' is very inspired and commendable. Particularly, in the end, 'Brain Damage' and 'Eclipse' are performed by Waters. In both, the theme of madness emerges as the last station of a calvary to which modern man is subjected.

At the end, admit it: your life has changed, your way of seeing things and the events of the world, but above all your most hidden self. Music that touches your heart, that shakes you inside. It touches the part of everyone that only great emotions can reach. An immense masterpiece! A mythical band for a mythical album! Emotions that remain in the heart!