THE DARK SIDE OF THE MOON

Those are not star ratings, tho they may be a guide. They're the number of vinyl copies of these albums I own and have worn out. Although new to these archives, I'm hardly new to the music. I've read every word of about 200 reviews below this, so a review of this seminal work is totally superfluous. The thought of a random visitor stumbling upon this album unheard is inconceivable. You own it, you've heard it (lots) and you have your own opinion. Didn't stop me wanting to add to the tome though.

As part of the baby boomer generation who originally propelled it into Billboard history - actually not, I'm English - I wondered how a 13yo as I was when I first succumbed to the overkill shop displays at the time would approach it. It was a different era, Vietnam, protests, hippy youth culture, Watergate. At the time I was too young too fully appreciate the times I lived in, but nevertheless I was a part of them, in a holistic, osmotic way.

The album runs a mainline into the angst and uncertainty which floods the veins of any teenage boy. On a single hearing I clasped it to my metaphorical bosom and it remains there to this day. Forty years later I'm ticking away the hours which make up this dull day by writing this piece. It's all so true, all of it.

What remains most with me most vividly is an empathy with Clare Torry, whose experience is a vignette of most peoples lives. This poor woman, a friend of a friend of an aquaintance of Alan Parsons gets called in for a little jam on a new album by a band which already well-known, tho not yet a 'supergroup'. For a token sum she belts out, in a single take, one of the most sensual, orgasmic, wonderful vocal artworks ever committed to tape. It was her time in the tide, which taken at its peak would lead on to greatness. It didn't. A couple of non-commital grunts from a disinterested studio and she wandered off into obscurity. One way or another we have all had a Clare Torry moment, it's the human experience. But at least someone remembered her name for the sleeve...

Unlike the other 'feature' muso, Dick Parry, who was and still is a friend of Gilmours, Clare has never recorded the work again, save for a famous Neurofen advert, where she reportedly made 1000's of times the original fee. On Pulse three girls valiantly fail to come even close to the original rendition. Much too late it took a bitter court action to wring a writers credit from Wright and Gilmour with ensuing, hopefully punitive financial settlement. May they hang their heads in shame, well Dave at least, Rick being a little too post-mortem to hang anything these days. I doubt if she has forgiven them tho, having had her single eureka moment crully denied. I will send flowers to her funeral. The saga as a whole has coloured my opinion of the band. Never mind the later heart-on-sleeve Crazy Diamond they will always be elitist bullies to me.

I never really liked Money. It didn't fit into the flow of the album and I think was reprised better as Have a Cigar. The Pulse version is a great improvement, except that that Pratt on bass is no substitute for the real thing. As for the rest, it's all subsumed into music folklore now so there is no way of an objective appraisal. All I can say is that it still works for me.

It can only rate 5 stars. It is THE essential prog album after all.

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