The Dark Side of the Moon

This is one of them albums that everyone told me is great, so I never bothered to listen to verify as it seemed so unanimous. I guess I was missing out.

You knew, without even looking or thinking, that this album was going to be on the list. In fact, if this album wasn't on the list, the list would be useless.

This is a great album start to finish. If not Floyd's best work, it's for sure their most important.

And like every other hipster out there, this was the first album I listened to when I bought my fist record player. Easy 5 stars.

The crazy thing is that it isn’t even their best or even second best album.

I am ashamed to admit that I haven't listened to this album before, but holy cow its great! I have heard snippets of a few of these songs before, but I never recognized their origins. This is so smooth, such good listening.

5/5 :)

going into this project, i was not a big fan of pink floyd, but i had never really gotten the chance. early on on this journey, i was given 'wish you were here' and was a little bit blown away. this album, however, is one that i was already a little familiar with - and how could you not be? it's one of the most famous albums of all time. but because of its notoriety, i had written it off and was always annoyed by the songs from it as they came up on the radio. well, what did i think about it this go-around?

i liked it. i don't know that i think it is as good as it's always made out to be, but it's good. it gets a little proggy (like, Yes proggy) at points, but is a pretty fun, straightforward album. hands down my favorite moment of the album is the closing combo of 'brain damage' into 'eclipse' but there's nothing truly bad here either. one thing i will say is that i'm not entirely fond of roger waters' melody style and that's true here too. a lot of times his melodies are sort of sing-songy in a way that i find a little incessant. but yeah, good, solid album.

I've had a string of flops, so I'm excited to listen to this one as a whole for the first time. The fact that this is 60 years old is wild. 5*
It's very atmospheric and would work very well in an IMAX theater with space footage playing. It may not be an album I return to often, but I recognize how grand it is. It has the overarching feeling of a symphony.
Highlights: breathe, us and them (epic buildup, these dudes know how to use dynamics), brain damage

What can you say about an album that spent 962 weeks on the Billboard Charts, is 14x Platinum, and has one of the highest ratings I've seen yet on this 1001 site?

How about... it's kinda boring?

On the other hand, it's a philosophical work - with its message conveyed through a mixture of music and lyrics. (Every other song on the album is instrumental or ambient, till the last track breaks the pattern.)

"Time," the best song in my opinion, has excellent lyrics, perspective, and emotional range. You just have to wait 2.5 minutes for the song to kick in. I guess that's making a point, now that I think about it.

I do not disparage others for loving this album even though it doesn't do a whole lot for me. It has vision, some degree of depth...it's saying something.

But it leaves me wondering why 1000 other albums didn't stay on the charts that long??

Ugh another album that sounds like an alien abduction

I'd never listened to Pink Floyd so wasn't sure what to expect. But going by the ratings on here I had high hopes

Starting with the bad points -

The screeching wailing woman in "The Great Gig In The Sky" ruined the song

All the clock noises in "Time" were like nails on a chalkboard. Awful

Now for the good points -

I did enjoy the male singers voice and the songs without offensive noises. "Us and Them" was a very nice song and I recognised "Money"

I liked the chill guitar songs towards the end of the album and how the songs flowed into each other

I can't rate this album as enjoyable on the whole because the first half was that bad. Which is a shame because the 2nd half was very good

I feel like this album is either overhyped, or the people giving it 5's were high as fuck

3 ⭐️

What do you say about an album that’s had as much ink if not more spilled over it than all other albums? What fool has brought a torch to bright-burning Troy? Well, let me first add what my wife said about this album on our most recent listen: “this album has a bit of everything, so it’s like a denizen of the other side of the moon came around to our side and, during one revolution of our satellite, listened to all the sounds of Earth, and when he went back around to what we call ‘the dark side’ of the moon, he made this music, rendering back to us our own sounds but filtered through his experience.” Damn. Why can’t I just come up with things that like to say? Anyway… Dark Side. A lot of the poignancy of this masterpiece is found in the lyrics, as they paint a bleak picture of modern life and as they detail the stress we feel living in this kind of world. Don’t you sometimes feel just a little bit crazy being mixed up in this modern soup? For all its supposed complexity, this album has no histrionics, no immersion in sound, and no musical complexity. It relies on “found” sounds, such as the iconic cash register, spoken parts, running, and heartbeat. The success of this album was (still is?) unprecedented, with a run on the US Top 200 chart for 741 weeks! That’s just over 14 years.

Ok.

The Dark Side Of The Moon is the best produced album of all time.

I have written two papers on this album and can talk endlessly about its tragic backstory with Syd Barrett or the deep meaning of it's lyrics, but I want to focus instead on the production of this album. Specifically it's composition and layout.

This album is truly a masterpiece as a whole, and should be listened to as a completed package rather than individual tracks. Every song perfectly builds on the next. They bleed together so seamlessly you don't know when one ends and the next begins. 10 songs split perfectly in half with 5 on side A and 5 on side B. It's organized absolutely perfectly and hasn't been topped since.

The intro song "Speak To Me" is a perfect set up. It starts out with a few seconds of silence to get you to think "Is my volume turned up?", and once you start to turn it up you begin to hear the heart beat of the album. The song takes you through a quick journey of what's to come with ticking clocks, cash registers, melodic wailing of a strange women, and the laughter of a mad man. It all builds into a crescendo until it stops and the next song tells you to....

"Breathe" and relax. That was only a taste of what's to come. You can take it easy and sit back in your chair. This album has only just started, so take a deep breath and gather yourself before we need to get...

"On The Run". A bridge between songs that on a normal album would only be 30 seconds long. Pink Floyd was able to make a bridge that keeps you engaged, but more importantly sets the pace for the next song. This track is much more than a waste of...

"Time". It was intended to lull you into a rhythm that is purposely interrupted by alarm clocks and ringing bells. Wake up, because this song is a big one! Played on the radio all over the world and the second most recognizable track on the album. There's not much that needs to be said about the heights this song has reached. It has climbed all the way to...

"The Great Gig In The Sky". Where we float high above everyone around us and bask in the openness. There are no words that need to be said when you're looking out at the vast emptiness. Just the emotions to be felt from deep within. So much can be pulled from Clare Torry's vocals. It's a beautiful song, but it won't be played on the radio and let's be honest, we need to make some...

(This is where side one ends on the vinyl. It's a perfect fade away and an intended break in the album to allow you to flip the record and let the next song to come in hard without sounding out of place.)

"Money". The big single from the album. Is it ironic that this is the most profitable song off the album? Or that it's criticism of wealth and capitalism has made the band millions? Is Pink Floyd still able to relate to the common man, or has their success put them on the other side of...

"Us And Them"? Should there even be an us and them? After all we are only ordinary men. Can't we all sit back and enjoy some beautiful saxophone? It's important to remember that we shouldn't be putting everyone into categories and fighting. Anyone can be...

"Any Color You Like". Another 3 minute long bridge song, but in reality it's the backbone of the back half of this album. Side B blends perfectly together because of this song. It links everything so that it could be enjoyed as a whole even if you had...

"Brain Damage". My favorite track off this album. It's a beautiful song with deeper meaning than just the struggle with mental illness. It's a song dedicated to Syd Barrett that hits so hard they made an entire album referencing back to him with Wish You Were Here. It's a reminder that this band has a past history, and it shouldn't be forgotten. It is a shame though because The Dark Side Of The Moon put everything Pink Floyd did before it in an...

"Eclipse". And there we have it. We've come back around with another song encompassing everything that has come before. A perfect summary of the album with a fade out back into the heart beat we heard at the start. Not only does every song play perfectly into each other, but the album plays back into itself. You can loop it right back to the beginning and not lose a beat.

Now take all of that perfectly composed genius and wrap it up in the most iconic album art ever. Every aspect of the album is so perfectly put together that I believe it is the best produced album of all time.

It's honestly nuts that the 1-minute intro to this album, consisting primarily of cash register noises, a droning generator, and a heart-beat/kick-drum metronome has over one hundred million streams on Spotify. It proves how holistic and iconic this album is, separate from its specific songs. 'The Dark Side of the Moon' is about the album experience, which makes sense, Pink Floyd has always had a knack for conceptually driven albums. It's to the point where it feels like every song before 'Time' is an interlude. It's the main reason why I'm more partial toward a 'Wish You Were Here' or 'Animals', where each song is so defined and secluded. From my taking also, I feel like this album's concept is far looser, and simultaneously not too eagerly indulged in.

While the interlude and gimmicky moments might've been impressive and unique at the time, they only ended up bogging the album down for me. The "full" songs here though, holy, they're as good as Pink Floyd songs get. The three-piece 'Time', 'Great Gig in the Sky', and 'Money' are bluesier and more soulful than what I'd typically associate the band with. The former's existential leanings and mid-way explosive guitar barrage never fail to bring me unmatched joy. The 'Money' bassline, no matter how many times I've heard it, still fucks. 'Us and Them' is such a powerful song that keeps giving with these meaty, luscious harmonies sprouting throughout the song. It's a tear-jerker with a message tackling the unwavering nationalism and close-mindedness of global conflict opinion. Following it is 'Any Colour You Like', which is probably my favorite 'interlude' moment here - especially the messy, yet flourishing synth melodies that kick the track off.

Going back to the idea of "song streams", has there ever been another band or musician in history who built an identity out of making "longer than usual" songs, yet still managed to achieve this unmatched level of popularity? It speaks to their quality. Everyone can love Pink Floyd, like everyone, there's not a single soul who can listen to this music and not like it to some degree - it's, historically, a popular music constant.

What a great album, in every sense. I think I like "Wish you were here" just a teensy bit more than this one, but that takes nothing away from this masterpiece. It's impossible for me to untangle the songs from memories of reading books while listening to the album, or of watching Laser Floyd to various tunes from this album (although I was always disappointed that the laser show part never seemed all that magical), but regardless I love it that the album is so seamless, and yet there are also several truly great songs on their own. "Time" is probably my favorite, but "Us and Them", "Money" and "Brain Damage" are also up there too, plus all the non-lyric tracks.

I think what sets this album apart, more than any other I've heard before or since, is how unique it sounds. I'm sure it's been classified this way and that, genre-wise, but to me it's a complete experience that doesn't really sound enough like anything else to be easily categorized.

Perhaps not surprisingly, the Wikipedia entry is enormous and comprehensive, but also worth reading (at least to me). I particularly enjoyed reading about how they got Clare Torry's wordless singing on "The great gig in the sky", as well as where all of those quirky and candid fragments came from (flashcard interviews, although kind of the opposite of Brian Eno's famous flashcards, as it turns out). And I love it that Alan Parsons was involved in the recording, and I love it even more that the album's very large proceeds helped Pink Floyd fund "Monty Python and the Holy Grail".

Perfection

This record is a bore. There’s nothing here that I find very interesting. I feel like Pink Floyd is one of those bands that if you find them at the right time you love - for me, I never got the appeal.

That was nice. I wish I had been there for the cultural phenomenon as I don't get all the hype, but it was still a good listen.

Unreal!

A masterpiece. This album is a gateway drug. Maybe not for everyone but for me it definitely was. It’s accessible enough for someone starting on their music journey but also opens your ears to new possibilities. I wrote out a whole diatribe but it was rambling so I cut it. The crux of it is that this album was one of the catalysts for helping me explore new kinds of music. And unlike some other gateway albums/bands this one stays with me. It’s just as good now as it was when I first got into it. Probably in different ways, the themes hit you different depending on where you are in life. But it’s endlessly relistenable and still one of the greatest albums of all time.

355 records in my collection and i still haven’t bought the one that damn near everyone owns.

Deserves all the praise it’s gotten. Absolutely magnificent across the board: the playing, the songwriting, the production, the sequencing, everything. A truly perfect record.

5/5