Pink Floyd’s The Dark Side of The Moon has successfully gone down in history as one of the greatest albums of all time. It celebrates its 45th birthday on March 1 and its psychedelic influence has gone on to definitively change the face of Rock & Roll, saturating pop culture for decades. Pink Floyd’s revolutionary album invites listeners on a crazed journey of synthetic sounds, beautifully melodic guitar solos, perfectly timed dynamics and a musical journey that defined a generation.
Released on March 1973, this album is considered to be a turning point in musical history, much like The Beatles’ Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band. Aside from becoming a staple of modern pop culture, the music Pink Floyd released to the world forever changed the face of rock and what shape it could take. The album also became somewhat famous for being an album to experience an LSD or ‘Acid’ trip to. It was a emblematic of a period when musical expression and drug use went hand-in-hand. The echoed and repetitive voices, synth and noises served as a mental rollercoaster to those under the influence.
With The Dark Side of The Moon, the British band smashed records by remaining in the Top 100 Album Chart in the US for 741 weeks, from 1973 to 1988. Their seminal piece of music takes listeners through lyrical themes including: conflict, greed, the passage of time, death, and insanity. Each side of the album features five tracks which lead into each other, creating a continuous flow of music that grows and develops throughout the album, with the final two tracks – ‘Brain Damage’ and ‘Eclipse’ – building up to the perfect crescendo of music, lyrics and passion.
Conor Capplis – Music Writer
