The Dark Side of the Moon

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The Dark Side of the Moon

**"The Dark Side of the Moon"** is the eighth album released by the English psychedelic rock band Pink Floyd, on March 1, 1973 by Harvest Records. The album is regarded as the best album ever recorded in the history of music. It went on to win several awards in the following years and was praised for it's heavy use of experimentation. This album has sold 45 million copies and stayed in the Billboard 200 for over 917 weeks from 1973 to 1988.

The album cover, being one if not the most famous cover of all time, created by a longtime partner of Pink Floyd, Hypnosis, is a image of a triangular prism, with a beam of light passing through from the left side, resulting on a rainbow beam shooting out of the right side. Set to a black background, the prism was also mirrored on the back cover giving the effect of a consistent beam of light that never ends. At a length of fourty-three minutes, it contains the following ten tracks:

1. ***Speak to Me* (1:05)**
2. ***Breath (In the Air)* (2:49)**
3. ***On the Run* (3:45)**
4. ***Time* (6:53)**
5. ***The Great Gig in the Sky* (4:43)**
6. ***Money* (6:22)**
7. ***Us and Them* (7:49)**
8. ***Any Colour You Like* (3:26)**
9. ***Brain Damage* (3:46)**
10. ***Eclipse* (2:12)**

## Personnel

##### Pink Floyd

* David Gilmour – vocals, guitars, Synthi AKS
* Nick Mason – drums, percussion, tape effects
* Richard Wright – organ (Hammond and Farfisa), piano, electric piano (Wurlitzer, Rhodes), EMS VCS 3, Synthi AKS, vocals
* Roger Waters – bass guitar, vocals, VCS 3, tape effects

##### Additional musicians

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

## Info

* Originally, Pink Floyd was going to name the album The Dark Side of the Moon, but the band Medicine Head had recently released an album with the same title. Pink Floyd then reverted to calling their album Eclipse: A Piece For Assorted Lunatics. However, since Medicine Head's album did poorly, Pink Floyd changed it back to the original title that they wanted.
* Along with the famous album cover, Hypnosis put in inserts including stickers and an infered photograph of the Great Pyramids of Giza. The inside was a continuous line of a heart moniter graph, which is in reference to Speak to Me, and the ending of Eclipse.
* The album, when still in production and year before it was released, it was played live in concert a few times.
* Some recent editions (including Shine On and initial pressings of P\*U\*L\*S\*E) have slightly different credits: they add Waters' name to "Speak to Me" and "The Great Gig in the Sky", and Wright's to "*On The Run*". These reverted to their original form by the time of the 2003 SACD release. Post-2005 editions includes Torry's name next to Wright's, in recognition of her contributions to "The Great Gig In The Sky", the aftermath of a court settlement.
* Now that there's computers, "On the Run" can now be feasibly played by only a single person or a touch of the play button, but in the 70's though, it required the whole band adjusting specific knobs at specific times.
* Because there's two sides on the album, there's a break between "The Great Gig In The Sky" and "Money", that didn't exist live. Alan Parsons added a crossfade for the remastering. Before the official release, the band was playing a more traditional version of "On the Run", which was called "The Travel Section". A short clip was played on the DVD "Classic Albums: The Making Of The Dark Side Of The Moon" and can be found on all downloadable versions of Pink Floyd playing The Dark Side Of The Moon live in 1972.
* People have suggested on most CD pressings, a barely-audible orchestral version of The Beatles' "Ticket to Ride" is audible after "Eclipse", playing very faintly in the left channel over the closing heartbeats. It was probably a consequence of a mastering error. A Tree Full Of Secrets has an amplified, re-processed version of this, which allows it to be heard clearly.
* In 2003, VH1 named the prism for The Dark Side of the Moon the 4th greatest album cover of all time. The network's "Classic Albums" series presented an in-depth program on The Dark Side of the Moon; it was released on DVD and had interviews with Waters, Wright, Gilmour, Mason, Parsons, Thorgerson, and Thomas about the making of the album.
* This was the first Pink Floyd album to have a custom picture label depicting a blue prism with a black background with the credits in grey lettering but the US edition's lettering was in white.
* Many artists have performed individual covers of songs on The Dark Side of the Moon, but several have chosen to pay tribute by performing it in its entirety. On November 2, 1998, legendary jam-band Phish covered the entire album at one of their smaller concerts before a very pleased crowd of 4,000 in Utah. Likewise, jam-band moe. covered the entire album in 2000 at their Halloween show in Philadelphia. Dream Theater has covered The Dark Side of the Moon in concert twice.
* In 2000, The Squirrels released their cover, The Not So Bright Side of the Moon. New York reggae label Easy Star All-Stars commissioned a reggae version, titled Dub Side of the Moon, which closely copied the original but added additional material.
* Dream Theater went so far to release a DVD containing their cover; though it wasn't released officially, it's available through the web site YtseJam Records. They performed the show at the Hammersmith Apollo in London during 2005. Guest musicians appearing with the band for this performance included Norbert Satchel from Roger Waters' band and Theresa Thomason on vocals. A previous performance took place in Amsterdam, Holland, but like before, it wasn't released officially.
* Humorous tributes to Pink Floyd's work are common. In 2006, Richard Cheese released his greatest hits album, The Sunny Side of the Moon, which contained a cover of Another Brick In The Wall. In the Nickolodeon TV-show, the Fairly OddParents, Timmy Turner goes to his hippie teacher's yard sale, where he finds an album called The Dark Side of the Smoof.
* In 2006, Alan Parsons' original quadrophonic mix of The Dark Side of the Moon appeared online. Despite his misgivings about it, which was made in less time than the stereo mix and without band input, it's proved popular with fans.
* At the end of The Great Gig in the Sky, with 13 seconds left, the track speeds up to save time. When this is done it puts the music slightly out of tune.

## References

1. ↑ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pink\_Floyd\_discography
2. ↑ 2.0 2.1 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The\_Dark\_Side\_of\_the\_Moon
3. ↑ https://www.thesound.co.nz/home/music/2018/07/Dark-Side-of-The-Moon-album-cover-art-explained.html
4. ↑ https://open.spotify.com/album/4LH4d3cOWNNsVw41Gqt2kv
5. ↑ https://www.discogs.com/master/10362-Pink-Floyd-The-Dark-Side-Of-The-Moon
6. ↑ 6.0 6.1 6.2 https://www.rollingstone.com/feature/pink-floyds-dark-side-of-the-moon-10-things-you-didnt-know-201743/
7. ↑ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fp4ttQ8WB7A&t
8. ↑ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pink\_Floyd\_bootleg\_recordings
9. ↑ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The\_Great\_Gig\_in\_the\_Sky