Dark Side of the Moon released 50 years ago

[sal paradise]

For all you Roger Waters fans, UK release date was 16.03.73.

It still stands up as one of the best blues rock albums of all time. Plus you get all that space in the mix. And actually Waters’ bass playing fits those tracks perfectly.

[Embenny]

A momentous landmark. For a full half-century, every party has had that one douchebag who goes on and on and on about how DSOTM is the greatest rock album of all time, every college dorm has had at least one prism poster on the wall, and every concert of remotely rock-related music has had someone in the t-shirt.

[Larry Mal]

It's not one of my favorite albums in general or by Pink Floyd, either, at the same time it is in fact a landmark in a lot of ways. I'd have to say that it really showed what rock and roll music was capable of being in a way that nothing else had really done beforehand.

Pink Floyd basically just used every element at their disposal, there's electronic music there, saxophones, whatever worked, they used it. And from the viewpoint of recording it's a stunning achievement.

But I never listen to it. And none of the songs mean anything to me.

[sal paradise]

They managed to make a pop masterpiece that also almost stuck to their roots. Clever stuff.

I actually really like the album. The first half is super instant, except the ambient tracks. The 2nd half is beautiful.

The surprising part is how famous the album is vs how few people have actually listened to it. Not like Rumours or Carole King where everyone knows the songs. The album cover/title is more famous than the songs on it. It’s weird.

[marqueemoon]

Pink Floyd is a no for me. Sorry.

[bluemonday]

It's a melancholy listen. Themes of the passing of time, greed, and madness. It's like ambient music which floats by dream-like with the obvious exception of Money which is why it's the "single". I love the piano and chord changes to "Us And Them" and the last part of "Brain Damage". The saxophone featured throughout also adds a different mood. They really pushed the available technology and I suppose Alan Parsons is responsible for so much. I have no problem understanding why this album enjoys the reputation and sales it does. It's going to be right up there for as long as people listen to music.

[Fiddy]

I love the album. Didn’t really think it was categorized as a blues album though.

And then one day you find, 10 years have......No one told you when to run, you missed the starting gun...

Ive always identified with that line.

[sal paradise]

I love the album. Didn’t really think it was categorized as a blues album though.

I don’t think it is. But I really got into it when I was listening to a lot of blues rock. And I’ve always heard that within it underneath the production.

[Futuron]

I view it as a concept album. Not many 'songs' to listen to in isolation, but in its context the album is enjoyable. The production is fun.



Cast me out, but I skip the waily bit. I actually find it very annoying.

[Dok]

I fucking love this record. It's perfect. I like getting high and listening to it and I like trying to sync it with Wizard of Oz. All of that shit, all the lore, etc. Sign me up!

I absolutely cannot stand The Wall, however.

[luau]

It's not something I listen to but it usually stops me in my tracks whenever I hear it, unless it's Money. I do listen to Animals every once in a while.

[Embenny]

The surprising part is how famous the album is vs how few people have actually listened to it. Not like Rumours or Carole King where everyone knows the songs. The album cover/title is more famous than the songs on it. It’s weird.

I fucking love this record. It's perfect. I like getting high and listening to it and I like trying to sync it with Wizard of Oz. All of that shit, all the lore, etc. Sign me up!

I think these two posts summarize my impression of the album and my experience talking to people.

It seems like it was a whole experience for a lot of boomers, and a smaller number of younger people. They listened to it, usually stoned, at an impressionable age and had some profound emotional experience, which doesn't translate to other people who heard it in a different context. A "you had to be there, man" type of thing.

If I asked someone my own age who had the t-shirt, poster, etc, to hum me three melodies from the album that weren't Money, I don't think they could do it. It doesn't seem to be about that type of thing for them. They'd be more inclined to say, "man, the way it goes, like, bwowow wow wowww....kshhh, bwowwwwwww, it just hits you, man."

But I wasn't there, man. When I was in my prime music-discovery phase, I had access to an extra few decades of genres and material, and I could find boatloads of music on Napster and KaZaA. I didn't have that experience of only having access to whatever number of LPs my local store stocked, chosen from among whatever rock music had been recorded by 1973. I never had that moment, at least with that particular album, I mean. But for a lot of kids, I can understand that it may have been a mind-blowing type of thing.

So it lives on, with people from each generation discovering it at the right moment to have a very powerful emotional response to it, but for those of us who didn't have that moment, it seems to completely miss the mark in a way that other "classic" albums don't. I don't consider myself a Beatles fan, but there are probably a dozen songs I could hum off the top of my head, and I'd probably remember a least part of the lyrics for each.

DSOTM, however - until someone posted about Money in this thread, I did not even remember that that song was on that album. Looking at the tracks online, I don't know a single other song on there by name. I don't know a single line of the lyrics - and I know I've listened to the album in the past. They just passed through without leaving a mark.

So that's how it seems to be with that album. You either form an intense emotional relationship with it at a young age, or you forget the songs completely and roll your eyes every time someone tells you about how it was the zenith of musical achievement that has not be matched since.

[Larry Mal]

So that's how it seems to be with that album. You either form an intense emotional relationship with it at a young age, or you forget the songs completely and roll your eyes every time someone tells you about how it was the zenith of musical achievement that has not be matched since.

A third possibility is that you have heard all the songs so God damn much on the radio that you just can't imagine making any effort towards playing them whatsoever.

That's kind of me with Pink Floyd in general, some of it like the Wall and DSOTM I just have heard so God damn much that I can't want to hear any of it. I also really don't like Wish You Were Here other than the song.

It can be hard to relate to Pink Floyd. I didn't know Syd Barrett, and don't like any of his music, so I don't really relate to songs written by his boyhood friends about him. I haven't ever been a major rock star so I don't have any complaints about how hard that must be, but it must have some difficulties for Roger Waters to have written so many disparaging songs about his own incredible success.

Been a while, though, maybe I should put on "Welcome to the Machine" next time I have to load the kids up and take them to pick up the Aldi order.

Animals is the only great thing Pink Floyd ever did in my opinion, and Meddle is very good, but I'll just go ahead and accept that Dark Side of the Moon is a landmark anyway, even if I don't really connect with any of it.

[burpgun]

I was late coming to it because i associated it with all the meathead classic rock I couldn’t avoid growing up. When I did get to it and gave it a fair shake, I came to love it, although I hate the song “Money.” For me at least it manages to balance the whole band and not let Waters’ ego and bad vibes take over. I really don’t have much feeling for other PF albums outsides of spots on The Wall, which I generally find an unpleasant listen.

[PorkyPrimeCut]

...UK release date was 16.03.73.

Then 9 days later, I was born.

I'm a big fan of 60s and 70s Pink Floyd, particularly Ummagumma (which they all hate) and Wish You Were Here. Dark Side Of The Moon was the one that cemented it all, back in my mid-late teens. Hearing that for the first time was absolutely mind-blowing. I guess I've played it to death though.
The Wall tipped me over the edge, in terms of obsessing over the band. The film, along with Gerald Scarfe's incredible animation, was a huge influence on me, musically and visually. It's heavy going these days.

I still listen to bits & bats of DSOTM every now & then & love playing & singing Brain Damage on acoustic. Great song!