Rock Reviews

The Dark Side of the Moon

Review

I have an odd "relationship" with Dark Side of the Moon. After my Who phase died down some and I was starting to try new artists other than them and my other favorites (Zeppelin, Hendrix, Beatles) a co-worker had asked me about Pink Floyd. After reading quite a bit I came to the conclusion that I should definitely like them.

Problem is that's not how it went. Being referred to DSOTM I found it boring - time was good, money was too and the rest before that I couldn't stand to listen to, it was boring and kind of sucked. Listening to the wall I found better, but still "okay" with a few good parts. Time passed (ha!) and I decided to just stop putting it off and tried King Crimson which I found awesome (Court of the Crimson King album) and ended up trying a song or two from Dark Side of the Moon and liked it. Long story short I listened to it from beginning to end and liked it and now after more listens have it as my #2 album.

With that said though, this is an album of flow and it flows extremely well. You can listen to one song here and there, but the best experience no doubt is a listen from beginning to end. It starts with "Speak to Me" with a heartbeat sound and mid-way through you can hear bits of whats upcoming such as cash registers. Then that famous laugh transforming to screams at the beginning of "Breathe", a song with just a nice beat and good drumming leading into the first of two instrumentals, "On the Run".

After that the middle of the album kicks it into high gear with the famous "Time", a lower key "Great Gig in the Sky" and Pink Floyd's most well known - Money. After that however, is my favourite song of theirs "Us and Them", a very underrated song which makes me like the saxophone - and I don't really like jazz!

The ending of the album starts with the 2nd instrumental "Any Colour you Like" which gets kicked back up a few notches with another well known one, "Brain Damage" (fantastic!) and seamlessly connects to "Eclipse" to finish what, so far I've heard, is the best ending to an album.

Overall there really is no weakness in this album. The Instrumentals are very good, "Speak to Me" is just a short intro and does what it's supposed to, very well. "The Great Gig in the Sky" is probably the weakest traditional song of the album and it is still a good song. But what makes this album so good is the flow and the variety and the whole experience of listening to the whole thing in one sitting. Excellent album.

9.6

Songs