assault the well defended: Pink Floyd's "The Dark Side of the Moon"

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Everyone knows Syd Barrett Floyd is the only Floyd that matters.

― Adam Bruneau (oliver8bit), Thursday, 16 June 2005 18:16 (7 years ago) Permalink

At first, Syd was in the band, and they were great.

Then, Syd left the band, and they were still great. Only in a different way.

― Geir Hongro (GeirHong), Thursday, 16 June 2005 18:25 (7 years ago) Permalink

Some people need to realize there is a world outside the dancefloor

Gier, today is the day that I write in my calendar that we agree.

(It's how this philosophy gets applied after the fact that we don't agree on...)

But Dark Side of the Moon is beyond my scope.

(Dad Rock)

― PappaWheelie (PappaWheelie), Thursday, 16 June 2005 18:28 (7 years ago) Permalink

slurry of shapeless, yawnsome dreck

Wow. that's a bit harsh, no?

In any case, I don't think I can be objective about this album anymore. I used to be a huge Pink Floyd fan, and this was the first of theirs I'd layed ears on. Prior to the `Floyd, rock began and ended with Kiss for me, so Dark Side of the Moon was a real....er....ear-opener. I'd be lying if I said I played it a lot, and my freshman year of college, there was a jackass down the hall from me who literally played it EVERY DAY and soul-denting volumes, so I went out of my way not to hear it for a long time after. That said, I still think there are some truly sublime moments on it (largely thanks to Dave Gilmour's guitar).

But, I'd take Animals over it any day.

― Alex in NYC (vassifer), Thursday, 16 June 2005 19:36 (7 years ago) Permalink

Also, not for nothing, but citing the Cocteau Twins as "atmospheric" is just as much of a cliche as calling Dark Side.. "atmospheric".

― Alex in NYC (vassifer), Thursday, 16 June 2005 19:43 (7 years ago) Permalink

This was the first compact disc I ever owned. I still have it.

A group of us once got suckered by this guy into watching Wizard of Oz with Dark Side playing underneath it. After we made him stop the movie, a friend of mine told me that he had never heard this album before. I was surprised, but asked him what he thought of it.

He said he liked it all right, but had no idea that there was all that ambient conversation. First time he heard the laughter at the beginning, he thought that it was one of us.

― Pleasant Plains /// (Pleasant Plains ///), Thursday, 16 June 2005 20:26 (7 years ago) Permalink

I was at this, why was I ever there, football camp thing the summer that damn thing came out, somewhere in the sticks, every morning I'd drink some orange juice, go fuck around in 90-degree weather, throw up the orange juice and powdered eggs I'd eaten three hours earlier, get yelled at, and then we'd all hunker down and listen to that stupid album on 8-track. So that memory alone (I decided to join band the next year) makes it a horrible experience for me. I associate it with insurance salesmen for Jesus with those elasta-band stretch white socks who were going to make Football Playin' Men of us--these coaches. Very "Dazed and Confused," only I hadn't smoked pot by then. But I kinda like those wailing chick vocals, who was that, why do I remember this since I don't own the album--Liza Strike? She was good but not as good as Merrie Clayton on the Stones tune of a few years earlier. And it freaks me out that this was considered "progress" from 1969, too, those cash registers.

Anyway, that's my story. The only Floyd I ever really liked is, of course, the first album, "Apples and Oranges" and "See Emily Play" and "Arnold Layne," and I used to enjoy those people who'd learned "Wish You Were Here" and played the song on their acoustic guitars at parties to impress people. A simpler time, and Geir, *no one* was dancing!!

― edd s hurt (ddduncan), Thursday, 16 June 2005 23:36 (7 years ago) Permalink

Elvis T, you don't happen to have that DSOTM live set on slsk, do you?

It's on backup... I'll fish it out here in a couple of days - keep checking my folder.

― Elvis Telecom (Chris Barrus), Thursday, 16 June 2005 23:42 (7 years ago) Permalink

(I didn't mean to suggest that there's something inherently superior about odd time signatures, just to be clear. Just that sometimes I think Pink Floyd can start to feel a little bit predictable and plodding with too much straight slow 4/4 stuff so a change is nice.)

― Sundar (sundar), Thursday, 16 June 2005 23:46 (7 years ago) Permalink

http://www.mr-agreeable.net/stubbs/default.asp?nc=1158&id=72

― sixteenblue (sixteenblue19), Thursday, 16 June 2005 23:53 (7 years ago) Permalink

Wow. that's a bit harsh, no?
No, it isn't too harsh at all. I was never able to listen to it without yawning or getting frustrated. So the "yawnsome" part is justified. The "shapeless" part fits, but I'll have to ponder why its so "shapeless"...maybe because the songs are so similar (only the cash register/clock/bad Stax vocals make one song noticeably different from the next.)
Also, If you've had three different incidents where someone made you a mix tape and then wasted an entire side with "selections from the most boring parts of DSOTM", you'd feel cheated and used as well as tired of this albums undeserved accolades.
It's akin to the Dave Matthews fans who insist that if you "reallly listen to it" I'll become a fan. And I keep explaining that, yes, I already have "reallly listened to it" and was deeply dissappointed.
Three times.
I've fallen for it THREE TIMES!
I bought it on tape....listened to it twice...and hocked it.
I bought it on CD...forced myself to re-listen to it two more times...and angrily hocked it again.
And a year ago, I copied a friends copy (onto a CDRW), forced myself to listen to it again, and felt absolutely no shame about wiping the CDRW after I had dozed off somewhere around "Any Colour You Like".
It felt like a baptism to finally exorcise this album and disown it completely.
Come, ILM, let's denounce this Great Shaitan together. Send it back to the Pit where it belongs.

Also, not for nothing, but citing the Cocteau Twins as "atmospheric" is just as much of a cliche as calling Dark Side.. "atmospheric".
Welll...actually the cliché is to use "Cocteau Twins" and "Ethereal" in the same sentence.

xxpost

― Lord Custos Omicron (Lord Custos Omicron), Friday, 17 June 2005 00:00 (7 years ago) Permalink

John Cale's Music for a New Society really is what The Dark Side of the Moon could have been.

― Ian Riese-Moraine: exposing ambitious careerists as charlatans since 1986. (East, Friday, 17 June 2005 00:05 (7 years ago) Permalink

How do you mean?

― Tim Ellison (Tim Ellison), Friday, 17 June 2005 00:05 (7 years ago) Permalink

From Mister Agreeable...
Their debt in this respect to Floyd is acknowledged. Dark Side... remains, however, what it always was - an immaculately honed, strenuously produced, consistently textured, fastidiously polished turd.
A-HA! There's a perfect summation of the "Shapelessness" that I spoke of earlier! Like Pale Greyish Blue Maltomeal that just sits congealing in your ears. Exactly. Exactly!
Danke, Mr Stubbs.

As for the comment I made in my first post, maybe I was a bit harsh about the "Floyd == Classic" crowd when I called them "Tin-Eared".
I meant cloth-eared.
Sorry. My Bad.

― Lord Custos Omicron (Lord Custos Omicron), Friday, 17 June 2005 00:07 (7 years ago) Permalink

The only problem with it is that screaming backup gospel shit at the end of the first side!

― Mr. Snrub (Mr. Snrub), Friday, 17 June 2005 02:48 (7 years ago) Permalink

It's on backup... I'll fish it out here in a couple of days - keep checking my folder.

much obliged.

― Lingbertt, Friday, 17 June 2005 03:28 (7 years ago) Permalink

"The people here seem to be so into rhythm, but really interesting rhythmic stuff, such as odd time signatures, they aren't into at all. Some people need to realize there is a world outside the dancefloor."

This is why Geir likes Captain Beefheart so much.

― Stewart Osborne (Stewart Osborne), Friday, 17 June 2005 07:39 (7 years ago) Permalink

The people here seem to be so into rhythm, but really interesting rhythmic stuff, such as odd time signatures, they aren't into at all.
I've never understood why you aren't so into rhythm. Without rhythm, melodies devolve into a series of random notes without a structure to hold it together. Being "into" melody without being "into" rhythm is the same thing as saying "I like, in theory, the notion of being inside of a spacetime continuum...except for the time part...and the space part, if dancing is involved."
Oh, wait...
I'm talking to Geir.
Never mind. Please, Carry on with what you were all doing before I interrupted.

― Lord Custos Omicron (Lord Custos Omicron), Friday, 17 June 2005 10:42 (7 years ago) Permalink

The psuedo-jazz affectations of the saxophone. Being another mainstream band that thought adding black female vocalists makes things more soulful (I'm not sure of who sings on record, but I know they were guilty of this later). AOR affectations that clip off meandering songs before they develop and make possible singles weaker because they only really fit in the scope of the album. Songs about time and money that make amazing observations.

so ridiculously OTM.

Wish you were here should be on that album just so i could hate it even more.

Animals is far superior and actually the only floyd i can even think about listening to right now.

― AaronK (AaronK), Friday, 17 June 2005 11:24 (7 years ago) Permalink

I prefer "Wish You Were Here" - the less I gotta listen to their portentious prattle, the better.

― Alfred Soto (Alfred Soto), Friday, 17 June 2005 12:11 (7 years ago) Permalink

The people here seem to be so into rhythm, but really interesting rhythmic stuff, such as odd time signatures, they aren't into at all. Some people need to realize there is a world outside the dancefloor.
-- Geir Hongro (geirhon...), June 16th, 2005.

and then there's those OTHER people here who seem to be so into melody, but really interesting melodic stuff, such as odd or dissonant melodies, they aren't into at all. Some people need to realize there is a world outside straight melody.

― Am0n, Friday, 17 June 2005 13:22 (7 years ago) Permalink

The only problem with it is that screaming backup gospel shit at the end of the first side!

b-b-b-but they had to have some screaming gosepl shit there. That was the tornado scene!

― PappaWheelie (PappaWheelie), Friday, 17 June 2005 13:49 (7 years ago) Permalink

The "shapeless" part fits, but I'll have to ponder why its so "shapeless"...maybe because the songs are so similar

It's either all in the pretty much the same tempo or all in the same key, I can't remember which. Didn't one of the band members admit later that they realized this after the fact and should have varied it a bit? Anyway, I think the shapeless description is dead on although another word that would fit is monotonous.

― walter kranz (walterkranz), Friday, 17 June 2005 15:05 (7 years ago) Permalink

(aren't you glad this thread doesn't have the word "grime" in it?)

― Lord Custos Omicron (Lord Custos Omicron), Saturday, 18 June 2005 01:13 (7 years ago) Permalink

The Grimey Side of the Moon

― Alex in NYC (vassifer), Saturday, 18 June 2005 01:22 (7 years ago) Permalink

already been said, but fuck it:

animals > wish you were here >>> dark side of the moon

― Amon (eman), Saturday, 18 June 2005 01:35 (7 years ago) Permalink

John Cale's Music for a New Society really is what The Dark Side of the Moon could have been.
-- Ian Riese-Moraine: exposing ambitious careerists as charlatans since 1986. (eastern_mantr...), June 17th, 2005 9:05 PM.

How do you mean?

The former sounds a lot like a skewered cousin of the latter to my ears. It's hard to explain but it makes sense to me. If Pink Floyd weren't so dreary I could see them making something like it.

Speaking of dreary, it amazes me how lifeless Dark Side sounds in comparison with Robert Wyatt's Rock Bottom, which was recorded the following year and produced by Nick Mason.

― Ian Riese-Moraine: exposing ambitious careerists as charlatans since 1986. (East, Saturday, 18 June 2005 02:02 (7 years ago) Permalink

Update: I've just had another incident of crossing swords with a Pink Floyd devotee. This self-same devotee pushed the idea that there was something "abnormal" about me because I owned an Eagles CD. I hated reminding him that -- according to the RIAA -- The Eagles have shifted more units than DSOTM, and that owning the compilation is actually not "abnormal" at all, but bog-standard in its common-ness. Then I stopped, because the only thing more distasteful than being forced to defend the Eagles, is being forced to defend the Eagles through Argumentum ad Populum.

Y'know, I'm almost pining for the days when I had to fend off an ICP fan. It was much more fun to bitch about the Incredible Shiteness of ICP instead of the Incredible Shiteness of Floyd. "ICP" merely sounds like the name of an evil corporation; whereas "Pink Floyd" sounds like the name of the flounciest redneck at the truckstop diner.

― Lord Custos Omicron (Lord Custos Omicron), Tuesday, 21 June 2005 01:24 (7 years ago) Permalink

That's an interesting parallel Ian. I would say that Rock Bottom is similarly monochrome and dirge-like but there is a real feeling of pain and catharsis that makes it captivating. There's a definite energy to the album, even if it's a negative, mournful energy. DSOTM feels like more of an aimless depression -- the sound of a disaffected whiner just giving up. I think there's a similar parallel between Nick Drake (who I like musically but never listen to because it's such an energy drain) and early Leonard Cohen who is equally if not more depressed but brings a sort of cynical energy to the doom and gloom.

― walter kranz (walterkranz), Tuesday, 21 June 2005 01:51 (7 years ago) Permalink

Okay, one last jab and I'll drop the subject...
The Cure's "Disintegration" >>> Pink Floyd's "Dark Side of the Moon"
I defy anyone to try to prove this wrong.

― Lord Custos Omicron (Lord Custos Omicron), Tuesday, 21 June 2005 01:57 (7 years ago) Permalink

an acquaintance thought that the lyrics to 'prayers for rain' were actually 'president reagan' (which he highly approved of). thus, dud.

― mookieproof (mookieproof), Tuesday, 21 June 2005 02:06 (7 years ago) Permalink

this is SO right. rock bottom is also laced with wyatt's sense of humour, which makes it an immensely more appealing album.

― el sabor de gene (yournullfame), Tuesday, 21 June 2005 02:27 (7 years ago) Permalink

Yes, the humor gives a solution to the despair (or in the case of DSOTM, not quite despair but lethargy) doesn't it? It also helps that Rock Bottom is a bit more rough around the edges. It has a human element that is lost from DSOTM with all of it's cool slickness. That's cool in the original sense of the word: a shiny, distancing veneer.

― walter kranz (walterkranz), Tuesday, 21 June 2005 02:40 (7 years ago) Permalink

i listened to this today for the first time in many years and skipped most of it. but breath through time is still excellent, and us and them and brain damage are pretty untouchable. Still I think this album has the first appearance of Roger Waters annoying "madman cackling in the background" which goes on to sully "Dogs" and, well, all of the Wall. It sounds so stupid. I can image the rest of the band sighing as he insists on tracking different laughs.

― kyle (akmonday), Tuesday, 21 June 2005 02:43 (7 years ago) Permalink

It sounds so stupid. I can image the rest of the band sighing as he insists on tracking different laughs.

Also see Axl Rose going "Yow!" all over the good parts of the Use Your Illusion albums. I would've been right behind ya, Izzy.

― Pleasant Plains /// (Pleasant Plains ///), Tuesday, 21 June 2005 03:57 (7 years ago) Permalink

1 year passes...

downloaded and listened to and loved TIME again today.
couple of years ago i saw it featured as background music on (and somehow perfectly suited to) that FASHION TV channel on SKY.

you can say what you like about the self-indulgence, the would-be jazz affectations, the 'suburban loner' isms referenced up top and tie yrself in endless knots about why it sold so many who to and such...but you really can't beat TIME.

the major flaw i think if there is one on this album is gilmour's vocals but no one's mentioned that so maybe it's just me.

― pisces (piscesx), Tuesday, 4 July 2006 11:06 (6 years ago) Permalink

Being another mainstream band that thought adding black female vocalists makes things more soulful

B-b-b-b-but she's white!

― Doctor Casino (Doctor Casino), Tuesday, 4 July 2006 14:20 (6 years ago) Permalink

The horrible blues lifts are but an inch from clapton-esque hardware shop blues by numbers. Intro to Time is great tho...

― gekoppel (Gekoppel), Tuesday, 4 July 2006 14:28 (6 years ago) Permalink

i recently got a CD rip of the "quadraphonic mix" of DSOTM, so I've been listening to this for the first time in probably 5 or 6 years. Sounds great! Sure, it's got some clunkers (actually, just "Money"), but "Time" and "Us and Them" are still really wonderful tracks, despite the over-exposure. I fondly recall going to the Griffith Park Observatory as a teen many many years ago for the DSOTM laser show. It was totally wild. (by the way, the quad mix doesn't sound super different, at least to me. do i need a quad set up? probably.)

― Tyler W (tylerw), Tuesday, 4 July 2006 15:04 (6 years ago) Permalink

Christ, I don't remember this thread existing at all, and I replied to it twice a year ago!

Anyways, the case against: It's too slow. "On The Run" is the only track with any real energy - not that NRG was ever Floyd's specialty. And it's mostly useless as audio accompaniment to "The Wizard Of Oz", unless you've got much better drugs than me.

[If this were a "Defend the indefensible" thread, I'd say that a cerebral soulless part of me will always retain a certain fascination/satisfaction with the sheer lushness of this sort of state-of-the-art pre-'80s recording. That'll never change. But there are so many other Floyd LPs I'd sooner listen to when I'm in the mood for Floyd, which is rare.]

― M. Agony Von Bontee (M. Agony Von Bontee), Tuesday, 4 July 2006 17:34 (6 years ago) Permalink

Isn't a large part of this albums legendary run on the charts due to it being used as a hi-fi demonstration LP? Some good proportion of it's sales were to Classical buffs who wanted to test the dynamic range of their stereo set ups.

― bendy (bendy), Tuesday, 4 July 2006 17:38 (6 years ago) Permalink

Can we do Abbey Road next? Now that's what I call overrated shite.

― dr lulu (dr lulu), Tuesday, 4 July 2006 18:11 (6 years ago) Permalink

HEAR HEAR GOOD CHAP

― sleeve (sleeve), Tuesday, 4 July 2006 18:19 (6 years ago) Permalink

2 years pass...

― mike h. (mike h.), Thursday, June 16, 2005 4:47 AM (3 years ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

I don't think it matters, but wasn't the female singer actually white? Your point still stands though

― iago g., Sunday, 2 November 2008 01:43 (4 years ago) Permalink

Whatever happened to Custos?

― Naive Teen Idol, Sunday, 2 November 2008 01:49 (4 years ago) Permalink

Custos = Dom

― № 1 (libcrypt), Sunday, 2 November 2008 01:53 (4 years ago) Permalink

people who go out of their way to attack records like Dark Side are pathetic to me. I mean, it's not one of my favorites, but it isn't offensive or anything. Like it or don't, jesus.

― Kevin Keller, Sunday, 2 November 2008 02:00 (4 years ago) Permalink

Hey, I like it! I think Christgau's comment about it being kitsch says more about him than it

― iago g., Sunday, 2 November 2008 02:09 (4 years ago) Permalink

Doris Troy

― energizing the base (briania), Sunday, 2 November 2008 02:12 (4 years ago) Permalink

They were actually playing that Dub Side of the Moon thing in the bar I was in last night. Pretty good, and bot just in that "Well, it's better than the reggae tribute to the Police" way.

― If Timi Yuro would be still alive, most other singers could shut up, Sunday, 2 November 2008 02:13 (4 years ago) Permalink

Skipping 19 messages at this point... Click here if you want to load them all.

by which I mean, it rules

― Euler, Friday, 17 February 2012 23:29 (1 year ago) Permalink

no idea what i was on about 6 years ago re Gilmour's vocals. i love those vocals!

― piscesx, Saturday, 18 February 2012 04:34 (1 year ago) Permalink

So I guess I'm the only one whose ever turned up the volume really loud after the "Eclipse" fadeout. I was like 13 when this happened, so forgive me.

― billstevejim, Saturday, 18 February 2012 04:36 (1 year ago) Permalink

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