Dark Side Of The Moon: How An Album About Mental Illness, Mortality, And Human Empathy Became One Of The Most Iconic Album In The History Of Music
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Pink Floyd had established themselves as an incomparable supergroup in an era of flamboyant bands like Led Zeppelin, Fleetwood Mac, The Who with "Meddle" and the side-long classic "Echoes."
After Syd Barrett left, Roger Waters had taken over as the musical director and "The Dark Side of the Moon" was the first record for which he directed the themes and wrote the lyrics.
Released in 1973, the album was mainly developed during the band’s live shows where they would premiere an early version of songs months before the recording even began.
The album was engineered by Alan Parsons and recorded at Abbey Road Studios. The band used keyboards, sequencers, and sound effects that were ground-breaking at the time, and as a result, pushed the boundaries of 16-track analogue studio technology.
“Roger and Nick tend to make the tapes or effects like the heartbeat on the LP. The heartbeat alludes to the human condition and sets the mood for the music, which describes the emotions experienced during a lifetime. Amid the chaos, there is beauty and hope for mankind. The effects are purely to help the listener understand what the whole thing is about." David Gilmour explained.
Apart from the music, what made The Dark Side of The Moon a cult record was its album cover designed by Aubrey Powell and Storm Thorgerson of Hipgnosis.
They had no limits in creative freedom since they were given the bare minimum in terms of creative direction by Pink Floyd; "Do something clean, elegant and graphic" said Richard Wright.
Thorgerson showed from a physics textbook a picture of how a prism scatters light, along with 7 potential concepts. The band almost immediately zeroed in on the prism which went on to become one of the most recognizable images in the history of pop culture.
The album topped the Billboard Top 200 chart for a week and remained in the chart for 741 weeks from 1973 to 1988.
With over 700 different record pressings—from the original UK edition from March 1973 to the most obscure ones from Nicaragua, Mozambique and everything in between, The Dark Side of the Moon is undoubtedly one of the most celebrated albums in music history.
Also read: The Ultra-rare Pink Floyd comic book
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