THE DARK SIDE OF THE MOON

Dark Side Of The Moon, probably Pink Floyd's best known work, it sold millions of copies and was the band's first big hit. The album combines the 70's sound of Pink Floyd, which started with 1971 album Meddle, with their psychedelic roots. This album is a concept album, it's about things in modern society that can make or kill people, things as money, war and time.

The album opens with the one minute long "Speak To Me", which is just a compilation of sound effects that will reappear later on the album, like the cash machine sound and the paranoid laugh.

The first real song is "Breathe", the song features soft vocals and mellow slide guitar, it is pretty much in the style of their 1971 album Meddle, the lyrics of the song are pretty interesting. A good start of the album.

The next song is "On The Run", a synth based song with a very fast riff, on the background crazy laughs can be heard. The song is not always a pleasant one, it can make you quite nervous...

On The Run ends with the ticking of a clock, it segues into the intro of "Time", a song that starts of with low guitar notes and high keyboard notes, the drums have an important role in the intro, it almost sounds like a drum solo. After the intro heavy chords are played and David sings the powerful verses and mellow choruses, in the middle of all this is a great fuzzed and delayed guitar solo, one of David's finest solo's. The song ends with a reprise of "Breathe".

"Great Gig In The Sky" is up next, it starts out with beautiful guitar playing and is soon joined by haunting singing without words, yes, no words are used, but the feeling the song is supposed to express is driven by the singing. The song might be a little hard to get into, but is definitely a great artistic piece.

Next comes "Money". One of the band's biggest hits, Roger himself hated fans screaming to the band they've got to play money at live performances. The song is very accesible and kind of funky. Aside of the vocals the song contains a saxophone solo which segues into three guitar solo's in a row, the first one being jazzy, the second more quiet, and the third one really powerful with very high notes being played. A bit of an overrated song I think, though it's very nice.

The next song is "Us & Them", a song about warfare. It's the softest track on the album, but also the most beautiful I think. The song contains smooth guitar playing in the verses and overdriven guitar playing in the pretty epic choruses. Also, the song has a couple of great saxophone solo's. A very good song.

The next song is very different from Us & Them, it is "Any Colour You Like". The song is lead by delayed synth and segues into a very funky guitar solo. It might be a bit though to notice, but the song is sometimes seen as the second reprise of "Breathe", it just is much more funky.

"Brain Damage" is the next song, it is about lunacy. The song is lead by soft guitar playing with smooth fills on the background. Just as "Us & Them", the chorus is much more powerful as the soft verses. Because of a line which refers to the title of the album people who are not very familiar with Pink Floyd often think this song is called Dark Side Of The Moon.

The ending of the album is "Eclipse". "Brain Damage" segues beautiful into this one, as if they are one song together. "Eclipse" is menth as a powerful outro of the album, it is not a very special song, but an epic ending.

Dark Side Of The Moon is a pretty overrated album, thanks to the hits as "Money" and "Time" but is a very good album. Many people see this as the best album of Pink Floyd, but I think many albums from the band are superior to this one.