THE DARK SIDE OF THE MOON

I am currently listening to Dark Side of the Moon for the first time in ages. I feel that I have somehow insulted this album. I remember that immediately after playing it for the first time, I restarted it and listened again. That is about the highest compliment I can pay an album when I first get it. Unfortunately, as I moved on to other PF albums, I seemed to disregard it somewhat. It is the most publicized Floyd album, and I think that might have been part of the reason why it fell out of my favor. It got watered down for me by hearing it on the radio and seeing that prism on everyone's t-shirts. I liked various other Floyd albums more that it, and DSOTM seemed more a shell in my past than anything else.

It is still not one of my favorite PF albums (though that is far from an insult), but, listening to it again, I think I see a great deal of what originally made me so entranced with it. Water was truly in rare form (perhaps it's not so rare for him). In the lyrics, the exploration of social themes is truly thorough and brilliant. Breathe relates the story of the working man's life: work, sleep, do it again. Time is a near-perfect description of the mortality of mankind and the tragedy of the way time moves more quickly as we age. The Great Gig In The Sky is an instrumental lament for death and the fear of it. Money, of course, is everything we hate about the greedy, materialistic world we live in. Us And Them is a view of the balance of power in different social classes. Then, Brain Damage finishes the album by delving into a mind that has lost its sanity (as we might feel inclined to do after hearing the sadness and reality inherent in this album).

But what about the music? It is diverse, ranging from the trippiness of Brain Damage to the soft saxes of Us And Them. Money provides a heavier, more mainstream rock theme, while Time is a wailing symphony. There is enough variety here for any prog fan and enough quality for any music lover. Gilmour has a more mellow sound here than on the later albums, and from the style perspective, it could be considered one of his best performances.

It still seems somewhat of a forgotten album for me, despite its popularity. Perhaps its that popularity that has made me forget it. It dulled me to it excellence. Regardless of the strange view of it I have, DSOTM is still a cornerstone of prog rock. It still isn't one of my very favorites in the Pink Floyd catalog, but, as I said earlier, that is far from an insult.