Harvest 11163
Producers: Pink Floyd
Track listing: Speak to Me / Breathe in the Air / On the Run Time / The Great Gig in the Sky / Money / Us and Them / Any Colour You Like / Brain Damage / Eclipse
April 28, 1973
1 week
Prior to 1973, Pink Floyd had established itself as the most innovative British psychedelic group both in the studio and on the stage. Their albums featured surrealistic soundscapes, highlighted by a bevy of aural effects, while their performances featured cutting-edge lighting and staging. However, the Floyd’s musical innovation only brought it moderate success in America, at least initially. Its highest-charting album prior to The Dark Side of the Moon was its sixth U.S. release, 1972’s Obscured by the Clouds, a soundtrack to the film The Valley, which reached number 46.
The title The Dark Side of the Moon first surfaced in 1971 when Floyd bassist/vocalist Roger Waters wrote a song with that title in 1971 for the Meddle album. Although the song did not make the LP, the idea didn’t die. At a meeting in drummer Nick Mason’s kitchen, the group, which also included guitarist David Gilmour and keyboardist Rick Wright, agreed to take the theme of lunacy, examined in the song, and expand it into a concept album that touched upon such pressures of modern life as work, aging, death, and money.
Alan Parsons, who had worked as an assistant engineer on chart-toppers like the Beatles’ Abbey Road and Let It Be, was tapped to engineer the album, which the group began recording on June 1, 1972. By the time Floyd entered Abbey Road Studios, the material was well-rehearsed.
“One of the interesting things about The Dark Side of the Moon is that it was toured before it was recorded, and it was toured while it was being recorded,” says Parsons. Pink Floyd first performed The Dark Side of The Moon material on January 20, 1972, at the Brighton Dome in England, land, more than a full year before the album was released.
Since “quadraphonic was all the rage” at the time, says Parsons, he and Floyd incorporated various sound effects to exploit the new technology. For example, the album opens with the sounds of a heartbeat (actually a heavily processed bass drum), clocks ticking, alarms and a cash register ringing, and several disembodied voices rambling. The various sound effects reappear several times on the album, most notably on “Money” and “Time.”
“The clock sounds I had lying around, as the result of a sound-effects recording I had done a few months before,” says Parsons. Adding to the effect was a “damped bass guitar trying to sound like a clock ticking,” he says.
To produce the various voices, Waters made a series of questions on flash cards and presented them to friends and acquaintances. Among those participating were Paul and Linda McCartney, but their voices didn’t make the album. However, Wings guitarist Henry McCulloch is heard on the album. “One of the questions was, ‘When did you last thump somebody?’ and he said, ‘It was New Year’s Eve.’ The next card said, ‘Do you think you were in the right?’ And he said, ‘I don’t know, I was really drunk at the time,’ which you hear on the album,” says Parsons. When McCulloch’s wife came in and was asked the first question, she also responded, “New Year’s Eve.”
By the time The Dark Side of the Moon was completed in January 1973, the members of Pink Floyd and Parsons were pleased with their work. “It was their best album to date,” says Parsons. “Everyone felt it was a winner, because it had such strength in its compositions, in its performance, and in its sounds.”
Yet the members of Pink Floyd and Parsons couldn’t possibly have anticipated the impact that The Dark Side of the Moon would have. It hit the top spot in its seventh week on the chart, and while it only managed to hold the top position for a week, its overall durability proved to be remarkable. It remained on the album chart for an incredible 741 weeks, beating the previous record of 490 weeks held by Johnny Mathis’s Johnny’s Greatest Hits, and it remains one of the best-selling albums of all time.
THE TOP FIVE
Week of April 28, 1973
1. The Dark Side of the Moon, Pink Floyd
2. Aloha From Hawaii Via Satellite, Elvis Presley
3. Billion Dollar Babies, Alice Cooper
4. The Best of Bread, Bread
5. Houses of the Holy, Led Zeppelin