THE DARK SIDE OF THE MOON

What exactly led to the almost unspeakable success of this album? There is probably no definite answer, but rather an indeterminate zeitgeist at the time of its release. The Apollo moon missions had just ended in 1972, Nixon had just been re-elected, the anti-war movement was at its peak, the "acid" culture was still thriving, and America was in the throes of a post-60s re-self-assessment and as "polarized" as it had been in quite some time. Most importantly, as was true immediately after the assassination of JFK - when the youth of America was looking for something "upbeat" to "fill the hole," and The Beatles materialized almost magically to fill that void - the youth of America in 1972 was looking for something to latch onto. Dark Side became that "thing," for reasons which may never be understood. Yet even bearing the burden of so powerful a "symbol," Dark Side stands on its own as a musical and production achievement with few equals, either then or since. For prog-rock to become not only cross-musical but cross-cultural was something none of us who were around at the time could ever have conceived of. Yet happen it did. Was it just the "commercial" quality of some of the "songs?" Personally, I doubt it. There was an "experience" in listening to Dark Side in toto that could not be gleaned, even minimally, from hearing "Money" or "Us and Them" on AOR radio. What made it so "special" was that it was a "shared" experience - like the first time we listened to Sgt. Pepper, Electric Ladyland or other "shared" musical experiences in the 60s and early 70s. Ultimately, Dark Side has both a "metaphysical" quality to it - vis-a-vis its place in time - and a broad-based compositional-musical quality that all but defined much of the music of its time. And although one can quibble over its internal flaws (assuming it has any, which I do not believe), or its place in Floyd's oeuvre - especially its alleged "commercial" qualities - it is the very impossibility of pinning down its brilliance that makes it a "masterpiece," and, along with Pepper and Court, one of the three absolutely quintessential albums of the genre.