The Pink Floyd album by album Thread part II

What can be said about DotM that hasn't been said already? It's one of the most revered and well known albums in classic rock. It's been played countless times at light shows around the world and there's the famous deal of sequencing it with "The Wizard of Oz" (which I've never tried -- never even seen "The Wizard of Oz" in fact). Most of the songs have been WAY overplayed on FM radio to the point I never want to hear them again ("Time" & "Money" especially), but I still love a lot of the other material.

Terrific job of production by Alan Parsons that would boost his career with his own "project" as well as shoot PF into the stratosphere in terms of popularity. Probably one of the most important rock albums ever recorded, IMO.

 

Time/Childhood's End also share the metronomic count-in (sounds like muted toms on CE). The chords of Childhood's End (verses) are actually closer to Breathe, ACYL and the whole "play Em and A for half an hour, see what happens" vein of songs. The pre-verse organ hook sounds like it must be lifted from some 60's R&B/Motown record. One of my favourite bits.
Mudmen is actually the chords to Burning Bridges played at half speed (and different time signature). And the Wright parts in Time are very close to his parts in Breathe, and so on. (Sorry if these have already been mentioned)

I've loved the whole Obscured By Clouds album since I first heard. I was about 11 or 12, and had developed a Floyd addiction, not only rummaging through my aunts and uncles' record collections, but having my parents asking their friends to borrow albums we didn't have. I remember my mother bringing OBC back from a friend's house one night, and playing it immediately. I like every track, though I confess to skipping Absolutely Curtains sometimes. Great "vibe", concise, hummable songs and a great balance of moods. It's sometimes described as "underrated", but I don't know. Seems like most people love it, so "minor classic" feels about right to me.

Sorry, we're on Dark Side now, right? I've been meaning to check it out, and will get to it these one of these days

 

Interesting that the radio did not kill Time and Money for me... I think because they always sounded so lousy when I'd hear them that way. Hearing them on CD and vinyl was a totally new experience for me, and one that I fortunately still enjoy.

I'm taking this album (along with WYWH and Animals) on a road trip with me this weekend!

 

If I'm not mistaken, I read somewhere that Meddle was recorded at George Martin's Air studios because it had a 16 track console, then they went back to Abbey Road after it's upgrade to 16 track.

 

My personal story about DSOTM.

I was more or less lukewarm on Floyd until about 5 years ago. That's when I bought my current car. I fell in love with her instantly... a sexy, menacing old coupe the likes of which we'll never see again. She had a new paint job too.

I met with the owner who gave me the repair/maintenance log. While mechanically the car was in great shape, the interior was pretty rough and very little worked in terms of convenience features. Power seats didn't work, power mirrors didn't work either, neither of the power windows worked, the tach was intermittent and the gas gauge was dead. The seating position was fine though, the mirrors could be adjusted by hand, and at least I could crank the sunroof (yes, the window motors were both dead but the sunroof motor worked... go figure). And she had an aftermarket CD played that the owner was willing to leg go of together with the car.

Long story short, I fell for the car big time and the prospect of fixing stuff was something that I looked forward to. As we parted, the previous owner informed me that the car loves Pink Floyd. I was like, "huh?" - to which she said she was joking of course, but that there is nothing like playing some Floyd while highway cruising in an old coupe.

I was a modern rock/alternative (plus some classic metal) kid but decided to give it a shot (why the heck not) a week later on an approximately 120 mile highway drive that I needed to do. It was my first real drive with my car... the first of by now, well, I've lost count how many actually. At the time I had no idea that I'd still have the car 5 years later and that she'd be with me through a lot of turbulent life stuff, including some really awesome road trips. But it all began that night and it was textbook perfect - a stormy night, lightning flashing all around, a thick rain with little visibility, a real fun first drive. As the rain subsided I put on DSOTM to play in its entirety (at the time, these being pre-SHTV days, I had it on a CD-R made from an unknown source). It was magical, especially as the chimes at the start of Time filled the cabin. By the time I got to Money the rain stopped completely and I was able to crank the sunroof on a warm summer night as I blasted Us and Them real loud. A great memory, and that night was also the first time I really appreciated DSOTM in its entirety.

 

20 January 1972
What should have been the live debut of The Dark Side Of The Moon at Brighton's The Dome was cut short when technical problems led to the band abandoning the piece mid-way through the song Money. After a break, the group completed the gig with performances of: Atom Heart Mother; Careful With That Axe, Eugene; One Of These Days; Echoes. The encore was A Saucerful Of Secrets.
21 January 1972
Pink Floyd played 16 UK dates, featuring full performances of a work-in progress version of The Dark Side Of The Moon. The tour culminated with four nights at London's Rainbow Theatre.

 

The Mount Everest of rock.Even though time and radio play have diminished its appeal somewhat it can't take away the magnitude of its accomplishment.A true masterpiece of rock music that will always be in rotation here.

 

They started the demo for "Echoes" (initially called "Nothing Pt. 1–24") on 8-track at Abbey Road and later copied it to 16-track at AIR for overdubbing. The introductory Sonar "PING" was captured during the demo session by routing a grand piano through a Leslie speaker and the monitoring system in Studio 2.

 

Not much to add about such a monumental record...

but, seeing Floyd (yeah yeah, minus Roger...) perform this from beginning to end in 1994, from 20 rows back on the floor, tripping with my 2 best friends, will remain a high point (no pun intended) of my youth. Outstanding!


btw, we paid $75 for those floor tickets and actually thought it was a fortune at the time, but considering the price of tickets today, it was quite a bargain.

 

I think the concept Pink Floyd came up with for Dark Side is brilliant, the sources of everyday frustrations and worry for people. I tend to ration my listening of Dark Side these days in order to avoid getting tired of it. Having the quad mix courtesy of the immersion edition helps a lot because it can't really be listened to portably and it demands my full attention.

The classic albums documentary on the album is excellent except it's a shame they don't talk with Clare Torry. I did find this bit on Youtube where Clare goes into detail about her great contribution to Great Gig in the Sky.

 

One of my favorite albums of all time. One of the greatest albums of all time. For those of you who were to young to remember when ' Dark Side Of The Moon' came out it was like the biggest event ever in the music world. The hype on this album was unreal and every radio station was playing some song from it. Early 1973 I was a senior in high school and of course ran out and bought it. I remember my friends and me playing it all night and the perfect party album if you get my meaning. And you know all these years later I still get a charge every time I play this. I guess it reminds me of my youth and just how big this album was back in 1973.

 

Dark Side is an album that will never lose ranking with me, yet I probably never need to hear it again. I must have played it over a thousand times by now, which is tremendous considering how rapidly I get tired of some things.

Like many other fans, this was the album that got me into Pink Floyd--I loved it so much I recall going zero to sixty and buying the entire Shine On box set next. From that point forward, I probably listened to the band every single day for the next year and a half.

As opposed to almost every other Floyd effort, I strangely find Dark Side to hold the least surprises upon revisiting time and again. Aside from some subtleties between various mixes and pressings, there's not really a single note on this album that I don't have committed to memory, and as I said earlier, I've pretty much exhausted my desire to hear it. Nevertheless, it might be the album I've "experienced" more than any other work of art, period.

 

this is the album that got me into pink floyd...this was around the time when i discovered pot too. i very bad combination for keeping you off life's track.
anyway i was so hooked i couldnt believe it. it was like a dream. it all ended for me a few years later though. but i still love pink floyd. just look at my username.

 

My introduction to Pink Floyd and still one of my favourite albums ever by anyone. Everything works great on its own, but it also gains a lot when heard from start to finish and all the bits fall into place.

 

It was a drum machine.

 

It's a production masterpiece, with great lyrics and moments of serious beauty... some highlights, for me:

Time - Wright's turns on lead vocal and Gilmour's guitar solo
The Great Gig in the Sky - Wright's piano work, Gilmour's slide guitar, and Clare Torry's vocal
Us and Them - Dick Parry's saxophone contributions

I think it was released in the US first, as they were touring North America at that time.

 

Nope, that's Roger Waters' muted bass strings. Nick Mason used electronic drum pads on the "Obscured By Clouds" title track. First time PF used a programmable drum machine was on the A Collection of Great Dance Songs version of "Money" (but it was wiped and replaced by Gilmour playing acoustic drums).

 

If there are other worlds with intelligent life forms that compose music, each probably has an album or work of music similar to Dark Side of the Moon.

 

The Hard Way and The Travel Sequence from Dark Side of the Moon Immersion Edition

 

What can I say?! At the time off this album, and the next one, they must have been touched by something divine. I was just a teenager the first time I listen to Dark Side, my first Floyd experience. Thank you guys for that amazing journey.

 

Much as I am flattered by your confidence in my authority, I really haven't been promoted quite that far yet. Hang in there though, I am still working on it.

 

I first heard The Dark Side of the Moon in its entirety on my thirteenth birthday: a birthday present. I remember it very clearly: the slowly fading in sound effects, the atmosphere gradually getting more unsettling, and then that horriffic screaming as it crossfaded into the terrifically melancholy Breathe.

Later, I came to realize that the screaming was actually a lift; a snippet of Clare Tory’s vocals from The Great Gig In The Sky. Far from being horrific, it was actually ecstatic!

Coincidentally, about the same time, I received a great bit of advice from an English teacher: you can recognize a great work of art if it moves you differently when you are older. And at the time, this went right over my head. Because as a typical teenager, I didn’t give that much serious thought to what it would really be like to get older, beyond questions like ‘when do I get my drivers license’ and ‘who’s old enough to get the beer?’

But somehow, this advice stuck with me, and The Dark Side of the Moon is Exhibit A.

I mean, any kid with a brain can intellectually understand a line like:


And then one day you find

Ten years have got behind you

No one told you when to run

You missed the starting gun


But when you are are in your mid forties, that sucker hits you right between the eyes!

And that’s the beauty of it.

 

Yep, the emotional content of TGC album alone rivals the very best of anything Floyd have released, and is much more authentic and personal than much of their work for me. I'm astounded by it's power to move.

I shakes me head....

 

As peculiar as it sounds, this synchronization really works in unforeseen ways. For example, the lyric "got to keep the loonies on the path" plays right as the quartet steps off the yellow brick road.

 

My first exposure to the Floyd was DSoTM as well. The ringing bells of Money and the tick-tock, tick-tock of Time became very familiar to me while listening to my FM radio station in Cincinnati, WEBN, THE rock station that played deep cuts and all the leading edge music of the time. As with other music of the time, I listened to see if more than one or two songs were good before going out to buy the album. And, as we all know, this one went on to become the classic that it is. After buying it and loving it, I went back (as was my standard for music that I enjoyed very much) and bought the earlier catalog on vinyl.

DSoTM is one of those albums that does flow extremely well from song to song, and I've enjoyed it ever since. The radio versions burned me out on the two aforementioned songs, but I still break it out when the feeling hits me and enjoy it as much as ever.

And btw, when I first heard of the DSoTM and Wizard of Oz "connection", I HAD to try it for myself and, of course it's amazing how the music fits the various parts of WoO. If there's anyone who hasn't tried it, just Google it because its had it's own web pages for two decades now. I suspect the web sites are still up, but give it a go for fun someday if you haven't. What an amazing flowing group of songs.