The Dark Side of the Moon

The Dark Side of the Moon (titled Dark Side of the Moon in the 1993 CD edition) is a concept album by the English progressive rock band Pink Floyd. It was released on 17 March 1973 in the United States and 24 March 1973 in the United Kingdom.^[1]

The Dark Side of the Moon built on the ideas Pink Floyd had explored in their live shows and recordings, but it lacked the extended instrumental excursions which had characterised their work following the departure of founding member, principal composer and lyricist, Syd Barrett. The album's themes include conflict, greed, aging, and mental illness, the latter partly inspired by Barrett's deteriorating mental state.^[2]

Developed during the band's live concert tours, it was recorded between 1972 and 1973 at Abbey Road Studios in London, making use of some of the most advanced studio techniques of the time. Innovative ideas included multitracking, analogue synthesizers, and tape loops.

The band's most commercially successful release, The Dark Side of the Moon is often considered to be their magnum opus,^[3] and is frequently ranked by music critics as one of the greatest and most influential albums of all time.

History

Following the release of Meddle, in December 1971 the band assembled for an upcoming tour of Britain, Japan, and the United States. Rehearsing in Broadhurst Gardens in London, there was the looming prospect of a new album although their priority at that time was the creation of new material.^[4] In a band meeting at drummer Nick Mason's home in London, bassist Roger Waters proposed that a new album could form part of the tour. Waters' idea was for an album dealing with things that "make people mad", focusing on the pressures faced by the band during their arduous lifestyle and dealing with the apparent mental problems suffered by former band member Syd Barrett.^[5]

I really can't remember exactly how it happened—just that at some point Roger came in and said that instead of just one or two lyrics for individual songs that we had already been working on he had got an idea that was going to run through the whole album. Having Roger coming up with a cohesive idea of what the whole thing was going to be about was very good. We had explored some of that area before when we did a thing called "The Man and the Journey" which was a live thing we did in 1969. That was the story of the life of a person. But I think we all thought—and Roger definitely thought—that a lot of the lyrics that we had been using were a little too indirect. There was definitely a feeling that the words were going to be very clear and specific.

— David Gilmour, ^[6]

"Money (demo)"

Waters' early demo recording of "Money"

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All four members of Pink Floyd—bassist and principal lyricist Roger Waters, guitarist David Gilmour, drummer Nick Mason and keyboardist Richard Wright—participated in the writing and production of the album, a rarity in later Pink Floyd albums. Waters created the early demo tracks at his home, in a small recording studio he had built in his garden shed. Some parts of the new album were taken from previously unused material: the opening line of "Breathe" came from an earlier work by Waters and Ron Geesin written for the soundtrack of The Body;^[7] the basic structure of "Us and Them" was taken from a piece originally written for the film Zabriski Point.^[2] The new album was developed during rehearsals and provisionally named The Dark Side of the Moon, but on discovering that title had already been used by another band, Medicine Head, it was temporarily changed to Eclipse.^[8]

At one time, it was called Eclipse because Medicine Head did an album called Dark Side of the Moon. But, that didn't sell well, so what the hell. I was against Eclipse and we felt a bit annoyed because we had already thought of the title before Medicine Head came out. Not annoyed at them but because we wanted to use the title.

— David Gilmour, ^[8][9]

Waters is credited as the author of all the album's lyrics,^[10] making The Dark Side of the Moon the first of five consecutive Pink Floyd albums with lyrics credited only to him.^[10][11] When in 2003 he was asked if his input on the album was "organising [the] ideas and frameworks" and David Gilmour's was "the music", Waters replied:

That's crap. There's no question that Dave needs a vehicle to bring out the best of his guitar playing. And he is a great guitar player. But the idea which he's tried to propagate over the years that he's somehow more musical than I am is absolute fucking nonsense. It's an absurd notion but people seem quite happy to believe it.

— Roger Waters, ^[5][12]

For their upcoming tour, they purchased new equipment which included a mixing desk, a quadraphonic sound system, and a custom-built lighting rig. The band's nine tons of equipment was transported in three lorries. This was the first time the band had taken an entire album of material on the road, but it allowed them to refine and improve their material. In preparation, they rehearsed at a warehouse in London owned by The Rolling Stones, and then at the Rainbow Theatre.^[13] The album was performed live in the same order in which it would eventually be recorded, but obvious differences included the lack of synthesizers in tracks such as "On the Run", and Bible readings in place of Clare Torry's vocals on "The Great Gig in the Sky". The tour was widely acclaimed by the public, and following a performance at the Rainbow theatre, the band received critical acclaim from the press;^[14] Michael Wale of The Times described the piece as "... bringing tears to the eyes. It was so completely understanding and musically questioning."^[15]

Throughout 1972 the band toured Europe and North America, introducing continual enhancements to both the scale and quality of the performances.^[16] Studio sessions were squeezed between tour dates; the tour began in England on 20 January, but in late February the band began recording music for La Vallée, a French film by director Barbet Schroeder.^[14][17][18] They then performed in Japan and returned in March to complete work on La Vallée. Several dates in North America followed before the band returned to begin recording the album, from 24 May–25 June. After more concerts in Europe and North America, the band again returned on 9 January 1973 to complete work on the album.^[19][20]

Concept

The album builds upon previous experiments Pink Floyd had attempted in their live shows and recordings, but without the extended instrumental excursions which, according to critic David Fricke, had become characteristic of the band after founding member Syd Barrett left in 1968. Guitarist David Gilmour, Barrett's replacement, would later refer to these instrumentals as "that psychedelic noodling stuff". Both Gilmour and Waters cite 1971's Meddle as a turning point toward what would be realised on The Dark Side of the Moon.^[2]

The album's themes include conflict, greed, aging and mental illness (or "insanity"), the latter inspired in part by Barrett's deteriorating mental state; he had been the band's principal composer and lyricist.^[2] The album is notable for its use of musique concrète and conceptual, philosophical lyrics, as found in much of the band's other work.

The release of The Dark Side of the Moon is seen as a symbolic point in the history of rock music. Beginning and ending with a fading heartbeat, there are five tracks on each side, each one linked to reflect the various stages of human life. The album explores the nature of the human experience and according to Waters, "empathy".^[2] "Speak to Me" and "Breathe" together stress the mundane and futile elements of life along with the ever-present threat of madness and the importance of living one's own life—"Don't be afraid to care".^[21] "On the Run", a synthesizer-driven instrumental, evokes the stress and anxiety of modern travel, in particular Wright's fear of flying, by shifting the scene to an airport.^[22] "Time" looks at the manner in which the passage of time can control one's life, followed by a retreat into solitude and withdrawal in "Breathe (Reprise)". The first side of the album ends with "The Great Gig in the Sky", a soulful metaphor for death. Opening with the sound of cash registers and loose change, the first track on side two, "Money", mocks greed and consumerism, with tongue-in-cheek lyrics and wealth-related sound effects. "Money" has been the most commercially successful track from the album, with several cover versions produced by other bands.^[23] "Us and Them" addresses ethnocentrism and conflict,^[9] and the use of simple dichotomies to describe personal relationships. "Brain Damage" looks at a mental illness resulting from the elevation of fame and success above the needs of the self. In particular the line "And if the band you're in starts playing a diff'rent tune" reflects the mental breakdown of former band-mate Syd Barrett. The album ends with "Eclipse", which espouses the concepts of alterity ("otherness") and unity, while forcing the listener to recognise the common traits shared by humanity.^[24][25]

Recording

The album was recorded at Abbey Road Studios, in two sessions, between May 1972 and January 1973. Staff engineer Alan Parsons had previously worked with the band on Atom Heart Mother.^[26] The recording sessions made use of the most advanced studio techniques of the time. The studio was capable of sixteen track mixes which offered a greater degree of flexibility, although the band would often use so many tracks that to make more space available second generation copies were made.^[27]

Beginning on 1 June, the first track to be recorded was "Us and Them", followed six days later by "Money". Waters had created effects loops from recordings of various money-related objects, including coins thrown into a food-mixing bowl taken from his wife's pottery studio. These loops were later re-recorded to take advantage of the band's decision to record a quadraphonic mix of the album (Parsons has since expressed dissatisfaction with the result of this mix, attributed to a lack of time and the paucity of available multi-track tape recorders).^[26] "Time" and "The Great Gig in the Sky" were the next pieces to be recorded, followed by a two-month break during which the band spent time with their families and prepared for an upcoming tour of the US.^[28]

Returning from the US in January 1973, they recorded "Brain Damage", "Eclipse", "Any Colour You Like" and "On the Run", simultaneously fine-tuning the work they had already done in the previous sessions. A foursome of female vocalists was assembled to sing on "Brain Damage", "Eclipse" and "Time", and saxophonist Dick Parry was booked to play on "Us and Them" and "Money". Once these sessions were complete, the band began a tour of Europe.^[29]

Recording sessions were regularly interrupted; Roger Waters, a supporter of Arsenal F.C., would regularly break from recording to see his team compete. The band would often stop work to watch Monty Python's Flying Circus on the television, leaving Parsons to work on any material recorded up to that point.^[27] David Gilmour has since disputed this claim; in an interview in 2003 he said: "We would sometimes watch them but when we were on a roll, we would get on."^[30][31]

Instrumentation

Along with the conventional rock band instrumentation, Pink Floyd added prominent synthesizers to their sound. For example, the band experimented with an EMS VCS 3 on "Brain Damage" and "Any Colour You Like", and a Synthi A on "Time" and "On the Run". The band also devised and recorded some unconventional noises: an assistant engineer running around the studio's echo chamber (during "On the Run"),^[32] and a specially-treated bass drum made to sound like a human heartbeat (during "Speak to Me", "On the Run", "Time", and "Eclipse"). 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.^[2] The myriad clocks ticking then chiming simultaneously (during "Time") were recorded as a quadraphonic test by Parsons, not specifically for the album.^[33]

"The Great Gig in the Sky"

"The Great Gig in the Sky" features Richard Wright's piano composition accompanied by improvised vocal work from Clare Torry

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"Money"

"Money" makes use of tape loops and a 7/4 time signature

The album is also notable for the metronomic sound effects during "Speak to Me" and the opening of "Money". For "Money", this was achieved by splicing together Waters' recordings of clinking coins, tearing paper, a ringing cash register and a clicking adding machine to create a 7-beat effects loop (later adapted to four tracks in order to create a "walk around the room" effect in quadraphonic presentations of the album).^[34] At times the sonic experimentation on the album required the engineers and all band members to operate the mixing console's faders simultaneously to mix down the intricately assembled multitrack recordings of several of the songs (particularly "On the Run").^[2]

Voices

Perhaps one of the less noticeable aspects of the album is the ability of Richard Wright and David Gilmour to perfectly harmonise with each other, such as on "Us and Them" and "Time". In The Making of The Dark Side of the Moon, a 2003 DVD documentary on the making of the album, Roger Waters attributes this to the fact that, along with their talent, their voices both sound extremely similar. To take advantage of this, Parsons perfected the use of other studio techniques such as the doubletracking of vocals and guitars, and other vocal multitracking which allowed Gilmour to harmonise with himself. He also made prominent use of flanging and phase shifting effects on vocals and instruments, odd trickery with reverb^[2] and the panning of sounds between channels (most notable in the quadraphonic mix of "On the Run", when the sound of the Hammond B3 organ played through a Leslie speaker rapidly swirls around the listener).^[35]

The album's credits include, "Vocals on "The Great Gig in the Sky" by Clare Torry". Torry was a cover singer who had worked on a variety of pop material, and after hearing her perform, Parsons invited her to the studio to sing on "The Great Gig in the Sky". In a few short takes on a Sunday night she improvised a wordless melody to accompany Richard Wright's emotive piano solo. For her contribution she was paid £30, equivalent to about £500 as of 2024,^[36] and given a credit for the track's vocals.^[37] In 2004, Torry sued EMI and Pink Floyd for song writing royalties, claiming that she co-wrote "The Great Gig in the Sky" with keyboardist Richard Wright. The High Court concluded that Torry was correct but the terms of the lawsuit were not disclosed.^[38][39] All post-2005 pressings including "The Great Gig in the Sky" credit both Wright and Torry for the song.^[40]

Snippets of voices both between and over the music are a feature of the album. During recording sessions, Roger Waters recruited both the staff and the temporary occupants of the studio to answer a series of questions printed on flashcards. The interviewees were placed in front of a microphone in a darkened studio room and shown such questions as "What's your favourite colour?" and "What's your favourite food?", before moving on to themes more central to the album (such as madness, violence, and death). Questions were answered in the order they were presented, provoking some surprising responses. For example, the question "When was the last time you were violent?" was immediately followed by "Were you in the right?"^[2] The recording of road manager Roger "The Hat" Manifold was the only one obtained through a conventional sit-down interview as initially the band could not find him, and by then the flashcards had been mislaid. His responses included "give 'em a quick, short, sharp shock ..." and "live for today, gone tomorrow, that's me ..." 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". Pink Floyd's road manager Peter Watts (father of actress Naomi Watts)^[41] contributed the repeated laughter during "Brain Damage" and "Speak to Me". The monologue about "geezers" who were "cruisin' for a bruisin'" was delivered by Peter's second wife, Puddie (short for Patricia) Watts.^[42] 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 studios' Irish doorman, Gerry O'Driscoll. Paul and Linda McCartney were also interviewed, but their answers were not included on the album.^[43] McCartney's band mate Henry McCullough contributed the famous line "I don't know, I was really drunk at the time" (during the segue between "Money" and "Us and Them").^[44]

Completion

Following the completion of the dialogue sessions, producer Chris Thomas was hired to provide "a fresh pair of ears". Waters and Gilmour had a minor disagreement over the style of the mix, the former preferring a "dry" and "clean" mix, and the latter preferring a subtler and more "echoey" mix. Nick Mason has agreed with this recollection, but Thomas later claimed there were no such disagreements:

There was no difference in opinion between them, I don't remember Roger once saying that he wanted less echo. In fact, there were never any hints that they were later going to fall out. It was a very creative atmosphere. A lot of fun.

— Chris Thomas, ^[45]

Although the truth remains unclear, Thomas' intervention resulted in a welcome compromise between Waters and Gilmour, leaving both entirely satisfied with the end product. Thomas was responsible for significant changes to the album, including the perfect timing of the echo used on "Us and Them". He was also present for the recording of "The Great Gig in the Sky", although it was Alan Parsons who was responsible for hiring Clare Torry.^[46]

Interviewed in 2006, when asked if he felt his goals had been accomplished in the studio, Roger Waters said:

When the record was finished I took a reel-to-reel copy home with me and I remember playing it for my wife then, and I remember her bursting into tears when it was finished. And I thought, "This has obviously struck a chord somewhere", and I was kinda pleased by that. You know when you've done something, certainly if you create a piece of music, you then hear it with fresh ears when you play it for somebody else. And at that point I thought to myself, "Wow, this is a pretty complete piece of work", and I had every confidence that people would respond to it.

— Roger Waters, ^[47]

It felt like the whole band were working together. It was a creative time. We were all very open.

— Richard Wright, ^[48]

Both Roger Waters and David Gilmour have on occasion downplayed the contribution of Alan Parsons to the success of the album, although Nick Mason has praised his role.^[49] Reflecting on its success, in an interview for Rolling Stone Parsons said:

I think they all felt that I managed to hang the rest of my career on Dark Side of the Moon, which has an element of truth to it. But I still wake up occasionally, frustrated about the fact that they made untold millions and a lot of the people involved in the record didn't.

— Alan Parsons, ^[31]

LP packaging

The album was originally released in a gatefold LP sleeve designed by Hipgnosis and George Hardie, of Nicholas Thirkell Associates, and bore Hardie's iconic refracting prism on the cover.

Hipgnosis had designed several of the band's previous albums, with controversial results; EMI had reacted with confusion when faced with the cover designs for Atom Heart Mother and Obscured by Clouds, as they had expected to see traditional designs which included lettering and words. Designers Storm Thorgeson and Aubrey Powell were able to ignore such criticism as they were employed by the band. For The Dark Side of the Moon Richard Wright instructed them to come up with something "smarter, neater—more classy." The prism design was inspired by a photograph that Thorgeson had seen in a brainstorming session with Powell. The artwork was created by Hipgnosis employee George Hardie. Hipgnosis offered the band a choice of about ten designs, but all four members agreed that the prism was by far the best. The prism design represents three elements; the band's stage lighting, the album lyrics, and Richard Wright's request for a "simple and bold" design.^[2] Added shortly afterward, the gatefold design represents the heartbeat used throughout the album, and the back of the album cover contains Thorgeson's suggestion of another prism recombining the spectrum of light, facilitating interesting layouts of the sleeve in record shops.^[50]

Inside the sleeve were two posters, one bearing pictures of the band in concert with the words PINK FLOYD broken up and scattered about, and the other an image of the Great Pyramids of Giza taken on infrared film by Powell and Thorgeson.^[50] Also included was a sheet of stickers of the pyramids. In a 1991 issue of Rolling Stone, the refracting prism album cover was #35 on Rolling Stone's list of the 100 greatest album covers of all time.^[51] In 2003 VH1 named the album's cover as their 4th-greatest album cover of all time,^[52] and in 2009 listeners of the UK radio station Planet Rock voted it the greatest album cover of all time.^[53]

Reception

The album was released in March 1973, but with the exception of Wright, the band boycotted the press reception at the London Planetarium, as the quadraphonic mix was not yet complete. The stereo mix of the album was presented through a poor-quality public address system.^[54] Critic Roy Hollingworth for Melody Maker described side one of the album as: "... so utterly confused with itself it was difficult to follow", but went on to praise side two, writing "The songs, the sounds, the rhythms were solid and sound, Saxophone hit the air, the band rocked and rolled, and then gushed and tripped away into the night."^[55] In his 1973 album review for Rolling Stone magazine, Lloyd Grossman wrote: "a fine album with a textural and conceptual richness that not only invites, but demands involvement".^[56] Aided by a tour of the USA, the album reached the Billboard album chart #1 spot on 28 April 1973.^[57] "Money" was released as a single, eventually reaching #13 on the Hot 100.^[58]

The Dark Side of the Moon became one of the best selling albums of all time,^[59] (not counting compilations and various artists soundtracks), and is in the top 25 of a list of best selling albums in the United States.^[40][60] Although it held the #1 spot in the USA for only a week, it remained in the Billboard 200 for 741 weeks.^[61] The album was removed from this list only when Billboard began to distinguish between current albums and catalogue releases in April 1988. When in May 1991 SoundScan began to provide weekly sales figures for albums and charts, the album re-appeared in the Billboard chart, and it has been a perennial feature since February 1992.^[62] In the UK it is the sixth best-selling album of all time.^[63]

... I think that when it was finished, everyone thought it was the best thing we'd ever done to date, and everyone was very pleased with it, but there's no way that anyone felt it was five times as good as Meddle, or eight times as good as Atom Heart Mother, or the sort of figures that it has in fact sold. It was something of a phenomena, and was not only about being a good album but also about being in the right place at the right time.

— Nick Mason, ^[54]

In the USA the LP was released before the introduction of platinum awards on 1 January 1976. It therefore held only a gold disc until 16 February 1990 when, following the release of the album on CD, it was certified 11x platinum. On 4 June 1998 the RIAA certified the album 15x platinum,^[40] denoting sales of fifteen million in the United States alone—making it their biggest-selling album there (The Wall is 23x platinum, but as a double album this signifies sales of 11.5 million).^[64] "Time", "Money" and "Us and Them" remain radio favourites, with "Money" having sold well as a single in its own right.^[58] Industry sources suggest that worldwide sales of the album total about 45 million.^[65] Between 8,000–9,000 copies are sold each week,^[59], and a total of 400,000  were sold in 2002, making it the 200th best-selling album of that year — nearly three decades after its initial release. According to an 2 August 2006 Wall Street Journal article, although the album was released in 1973, it has sold 7.7 million copies since 1991 in the USA alone and continues to log 9,600 sales per week domestically.^[66] To this day, it occupies a prominent spot on Billboard's Pop Catalogue Chart. It reached #1 when the 2003 hybrid CD/SACD edition was released and sold 800,000 copies in the USA alone.^[40] On the week of 5 May 2006 The Dark Side of the Moon achieved a combined total of 1,500 weeks on the Billboard 200 and Pop Catalogue charts.^[47] It is estimated that one in every fourteen people in the USA under the age of fifty owns or has owned a copy.^[40]

In 2006 the album was voted "My Favourite Album" by viewers and listeners to the Australian Broadcasting Corporation,^[67] and in 2003 Rolling Stone listed The Dark Side of the Moon 43rd on its list of the 500 greatest albums of all time.^[68] It is also #2 on the Definitive 200 Albums of All Time, a list of 200 albums made by the National Association of Recording Merchandisers "in celebration of the art form of the record album".^[69]

The success of the album brought previously unknown wealth to all four members of the band; both Richard Wright and Roger Waters bought large country houses, and Nick Mason became a collector of upmarket cars.^[70] Some of the profits were invested in the production of Monty Python and the Holy Grail. The members of Pink Floyd were reportedly fans of Monty Python, to the point of interrupting recording sessions to watch Monty Python's Flying Circus.^[71] On 8 February 1995 the opening sequence of "Time" was played as a wakeup call for the crew of space mission STS-63.^[72]

Reissues and remastering

In 1979 The Dark Side of the Moon was released as a remastered LP by Mobile Fidelity Sound Lab (MFSL). It has since been re-released several times on CD. MFSL remastered and re-released the album again in their "Ultradisc" gold CD format in April 1988.

The album was re-released as a remastered CD in the 1992 box set Shine On.^[40] This version was itself re-released as a 20th-anniversary box set edition with postcards. Some have suggested that on later CD pressings a faintly audible orchestral version of The Beatles's "Ticket to Ride" can be heard after "Eclipse", over the heartbeats that close the album. This may have been the consequence of a remastering error.^[40] This is not audible on the original vinyl.

The original quadrophonic mix (Q4SHVL-804) was commissioned by EMI but not endorsed by the band.^[26] It languished in obscurity for about 30 years until a DVD-Audio bootleg surfaced. The disc purports to be derived from the original studio masters, mixed by an anonymous individual who claimed to be a "professional sound engineer".^[73] To celebrate the 30th anniversary of the album's release, an updated surround version was released in 2003. Some surprise was expressed when the band elected not to use the older quadraphonic mix from Parsons (mixed shortly after the original release), and instead chose to have their current engineer James Guthrie create a new 5.1 channel surround sound mix on the SACD format.^[26][74] Guthrie has worked with the band since co-producing and engineering their 1979 release, The Wall, and had previously worked on surround versions of The Wall for DVD-video, and Waters's In the Flesh for SACD. Speaking in 2003, Alan Parsons expressed some disappointment with Guthrie's SACD mix:

I'm generally rather disappointed. It's not very discrete. There is some discrete information in there. But I found myself, about two-thirds of the way through, kind of forgetting that this was surround. James was possibly a little too true to the original mix. He could have taken some risks, as I did on the quad. One of the parameters I always work with when I'm mixing for surround is: Keep the Interest. If there's nothing going on, then stick something in the back.

— Alan Parsons, ^[26]

Speaking of the surround sound mix for "On the Run", Parsons said: "After hearing his mix for a while, I think I'm hearing stereo with a bit of surround." He went on to praise the mix for other songs, particularly for "The Great Gig in the Sky"—"I tip my hat to James for sorting out the correct bits of Clare's vocals. And he has improved on the stereo mix, which is a bit wishy-washy. The stereo is heavy on the Hammond organ, and Clare's a little too far down. In my quad mix, the Hammond is barely there, which shows you I really wasn't being faithful to the stereo mix. The quad sounds pretty good, but James still has the edge. His mix is definitely cleaner, and he's brought Clare out a bit more."^[75] This 30th-anniversary edition won four Surround Music Awards in 2003.^[76]

The Dark Side of the Moon was also re-released in 2003 on 180-gram virgin vinyl (mastered by Kevin Gray at AcousTech Mastering) and included slightly different versions of the original posters and stickers that came with the original vinyl release, along with a new 30th anniversary poster.^[77]

Cover versions

The album has been covered by several acts, both live and recorded. Progressive metal band Dream Theater have several times covered the album in their live shows.^[78] On 2 November 1998 the band Phish covered the album in its entirety, as part of the second set of their live show in West Valley City, Utah.^[79]

In 2000 The Squirrels released The Not So Bright Side of the Moon, which features a cover of the entire album.^[80] The New York dub collective Easy Star All Stars in 2003 released Dub Side of the Moon.^[81] From the Dark Side of the Moon is a song-by-song "re-imagining" of the album by former October Project vocalist Mary Fahl, but because of the V2 Records label's reorganisation, the recording has not been officially released. The group Voices on The Dark Side released the album Dark Side Of The Moon A Cappella, a complete a cappella version of the album.^[82] Jazz musicians Sam Yahel, Mike Moreno, Ari Hoenig and Seamus Blake released Jazz Side Of The Moon in 2008,^[83] and the bluegrass band Poor Man's Whiskey frequently play the album in bluegrass style, calling the suite Dark Side of the Moonshine^[84]. A string quartet version of the album was released in 2003.^[85]

Dark Side of the Rainbow

The Dark Side of the Rainbow, or The Dark Side of Oz, refers to rumours circulated on the internet since at least 1994, that the Dark Side of the Moon was written as a soundtrack to the 1939 film The Wizard of Oz. Observers playing the film and the album simultaneously have reported many apparent synchronicities, such as Dorothy beginning to jog as the band sings ""no one told you when to run".^[86]

David Gilmour and Nick Mason have both denied any connection between the two works, and Roger Waters has described the rumours as "amusing".^[87] Alan Parsons has stated that the film was not mentioned during production of the album.^[88]

Track listing

Personnel

Pink Floyd

• David Gilmour – lead vocals, pedal steel and electric guitar, VCS 3 synthesiser, production
• Nick Mason – drums, percussion, tape effects, production
• Roger Waters – bass guitar, vocals, VCS 3 synthesiser, tape effects, production
• Richard Wright – keyboards, vocals, VCS 3 synthesiser, production

Additional musicians

• Lesley Duncan – background vocals
• Dick Parry – saxophone on "Money" and "Us and Them"
• Barry St. John – background vocals
• Liza Strike – background vocals
• Clare Torry – vocals on "The Great Gig in the Sky"
• Doris Troy – background vocals

Production

• Jill Furmanovsky – photography
• James Guthrie – remastering supervisor on 20th- and 30th-anniversary editions, 5.1 mixing on 30th-anniversary edition
• George Hardie – illustrations, sleeve art
• Hipgnosis – design, photography
• Peter James – assistant engineering (incorrectly identified as "Peter Jones" on first US pressings of the LP)
• Alan Parsons – engineering
• Doug Sax – remastering on 20th- and 30th-anniversary editions
• David Sinclair – liner notes in CD re-release
• Chris Thomas – mixing consultant
• Storm Thorgerson – 20th- and 30th-anniversary edition designs
• Drew Vogel – art and photography in CD re-release

Singles

In some countries, notably the UK, Pink Floyd had not released a single since 1968's "Point Me at the Sky". "Money" was released in the USA on 12 May 1973, with "Any Colour You Like" on the B-side.^[89] Copies sent to radio stations had the word "bullshit" removed from the song, leaving "bull" in its place. An uncensored promo version was also sent out and subsequently withdrawn; the censored replacement was sent to radio stations with a note advising disc jockeys to dispose of the first copy.^[90] The single eventually reached #13 on the Billboard Hot 100 chart.^[91] "Time" was released on 4 February 1974, with "Us and Them" on the B-side^[92]

Sales chart performance

Albums

Singles

Album sales

References

Notes

Bibliography

Further reading

• "The Complete Guide to the Music of Pink Floyd", Andy Mabbett, Omnibus Press, (1995) ISBN 0-7119-4301-X

External links

• Official website