Why The Dark Side of the Moon is the Greatest Rock Album of All Time

by Henry Percival

In late September, early October, Pink Floyd’s The Dark Side of the Moon was voted the greatest rock album of all time. And personally I can’t help but agree. This vote was conducted by readers of the magazine Classic Rock and the final results saw the Floyd finish above incredible bands such as Led Zeppelin and Guns n Roses.

First released in March 1973, The Dark Side of the Moon is Pink Floyd most well known album. But what makes this album so incredible? It arguably has (one of) the most recognizable album covers. The cover, designed by Storm Thorgerson, depicts white light passing through a prism to form the bright colors of the spectrum against a stunning black field, invited listeners to explore the music inside — and still does today. The mystery began after you heard the mind-blowing music on the album coupled with bassist Roger Waters deeply personal lyrics exploring themes of alienation, loss, and materialism. In context of intense songs like “Time” and “Us and Them,” what did the album cover mean, exactly? The mystery deepened when you studied the poster and stickers of pyramid shapes found inside the album sleeve. None of the band members offered an explanation, leaving it up to fans to add their own meanings, a process that required repeated album listens and discussion with other fans. It’s no wonder that the album turned Pink Floyd into major stars, sold 50 million copies and remained on the Billboard charts 741 weeks.

Then there is the music on the album itself. The whole album is a continuation, with one song leading into the next. For this reason, you can’t really listen to it on shuffle mode on whatever device you listen to (you can but it wouldn’t make as much sense or sound half as good). The single Money has one of the most recognizable and best bass lines of all time. It is up there with bass lines from The Chain by Fleetwood Mac or even Billie Jean by Michael Jackson. The 7/4 time frame of Money is peculiar as well, and it may be the only single with this timeframe to have graced the top 20. On top of this, the instrumental throughout the whole album is just amazing. Songs like Great Gig in the Sky may have no proper lyrics to them (you hear Clare Torry just singing notes) but that doesn’t take away from the instrumentals you hear.

The final reason why I love this album is due to the final two songs. Brain Damage and Eclipse are for me the centre piece of this album. Roger Waters has stated that the insanity-themed lyrics are based on former Floyd frontman Syd Barrett's mental instability, with the line "I'll see you on the dark side of the moon" indicating that he felt related to him in terms of mental idiosyncrasies. The line "And if the band you're in starts playing different tunes..." references Barrett's behaviour near the end of his tenure with the band; because of his mental problems, there were more than a few occasions where Barrett would play a different song than the rest of the band in the middle of a concert. The song has a rather famous opening line, "The lunatic is on the grass...", whereby Waters is referring to areas of turf which display signs saying "Please keep off the grass" with the exaggerated implication that disobeying such signs might indicate insanity. Like many other songs in the album, Brain Damage flows directly into Eclipse. As the climax of the album, Eclipse highlights simply that the summation of everything you are, as much as it matters to you, as hard as it is to get it all “in tune”, eventually it’s “eclipsed by the moon” – i.e. not really important at all.

I won’t lie, the album is of a particular taste but I would definitely encourage readers to go and listen to it.