Photograph Illustration by Kelly Caminero / The Every day Beast / Alamy
“There’s all these assholes who, for years, have been going, ‘Oh, , Darkish Facet of the Moon completely syncs up with The Wizard of Oz.’ And what? No, it fucking doesn’t!”
True to kind, Roger Waters, the bassist and first lyricist of Pink Floyd till the mid-Eighties, has a deeply held opinion on that specific city legend. Nonetheless, very like the “Paul is lifeless” rumors The Beatles needed to cope with within the late ’60s, Waters as soon as admitted to me—at a Manhattan recording studio a couple of years again, after our dialog turned to Darkish Facet of the Moon—that it’s a badge of honor for his former band’s landmark album to carry such an exalted place in popular culture that it’s birthed such a wild conspiracy concept.
Nonetheless, Waters hates to offer even an inch: “Even when it does,” he says pointedly, “it’s nothing to do with the music.”
Pink Floyd’s The Darkish Facet of the Moon, which turns 50 this month, is the granddaddy of all traditional rock albums. It’s the best-selling British album ever, and the third best-selling album of all time—behind Michael Jackson’s Thriller and AC/DC’s Again In Black—with gross sales approaching 60 million copies worldwide, and streaming numbers, throughout all discernible demographics, to match. It’s additionally the album that catapulted Pink Floyd—a band that had by no means bought greater than 250,000 copies of any of its earlier, psychedelic/prog-tinged albums—into the rock ’n’ roll stratosphere, without end altering the lives of Waters, guitarist David Gilmour, keyboardist Richard Wright, and drummer Nick Mason.
Jill Furmanovsky
“Nowadays, it's a must to get into the precise temper to hearken to an entire album, I assume,” Gilmour mused after we final spoke, a couple of years again, of Darkish Facet’s legacy as most likely the most effective and truest idea album. “However there are nonetheless heaps of people that like to hearken to music that approach. Take heed to an entire factor, an entire piece, all over, and get actually into the temper of the entire thing, reasonably than hearken to shorter items. Darkish Facet is for them, actually.”
With that in thoughts, Sony Legacy launched a attractive new field set this week commemorating the album’s fiftieth birthday. And whereas it doesn’t embody something actually new, the album—as soon as the go-to LP in high-end HiFi shops to exhibit what an ideal stereo system may supply—has by no means sounded higher. Highlights do, nevertheless, embody an Atmos combine that surpasses any of the earlier encompass mixes of Darkish Facet throughout the years—from the ’74 Quad combine to the ’03 SACD encompass combine and more moderen 5.1 combine from the wonderfulImmersion version launched in 2011—in addition to a reside efficiency of Darkish Facet from London’s Wembley Enviornment in the course of the band’s 1974 tour.
“I feel that for any band, however particularly for a band our age, the idea of our stuff interesting to a youthful viewers is the most effective suggestions which you can get,” Mason mentioned after I identified the wholesome streaming numbers Pink Floyd enjoys to today. “It’s at all times essential to have some relevance to a youthful viewers. However in the end you are feeling a way of duty, such as you don’t need to spoil your repute by placing one thing out which you can’t stand by.”
Once I requested in regards to the wealthy, full sound of the encompass mixes of Darkish Facet, Mason defined, “We have been definitely college students of studying to get the precise sounds throughout our early days at Abbey Street.” He additionally gave credit score to engineer Alan Parsons in addition to Chris Thomas, who, like Parsons, had labored with The Beatles and helped within the remaining levels of manufacturing and mixing to get Darkish Facet throughout the end line.
“We labored laborious on these,” Andy Jackson, Pink Floyd’s longtime in-house engineer, added. “Ardent followers have heard the 1974 Wembley present. We used a unique supply and it’s by no means sounded this good earlier than. We spent ages on it.”
“The sounds they put down have been glorious,” he continued. “However one thing that will get misplaced a bit, and that I hope the Wembley live performance will present, is that Pink Floyd have been an ideal [live] band.”
However maybe what stands out about Darkish Facet essentially the most after half a century within the public consciousness is how a lot soulfulness the band packed into 43 minutes. After years on the album-tour-album treadmill, Mason recalled that it was with “Echoes,” the 23-minute piece on the second facet of 1971’s Meddle, the place the band lastly discovered a approach ahead and out of its early psychedelic musings. With out that monitor, Darkish Facet would possibly by no means have occurred.
“Within the early days, Syd was the frontman and driving pressure,” Mason recalled of Syd Barrett, who left the band in 1968, a casualty of drug use and untreated psychological well being points. “We struggled after that. However with ‘Echoes,’ we discovered a sound that felt like one thing new. The entire kind of Darkish Facet, the structural approach it was put collectively, was fully totally different to the sooner stuff, with the alternatives to improvise and so forth.”
“With out the Beatles, we wouldn’t be right here at the moment, as a result of Sgt. Pepper turned the primary album to outsell singles,” Gilmour added. “From that, it gave a springboard for all these artists from our era who made albums reasonably than consistently attempting to make hit singles.”
“And, after all, with Darkish Facet, Roger actually stepped up,” Mason mentioned of the person so usually seen today because the villain within the Pink Floyd story—regardless of him being the one who largely conceptualized the album. “It began with the idea of the pressures of recent life, like journey and time and money and demise. Finally, Roger tied all of it collectively as a meditation on madness.”
“The concepts have been mine. The lyrics have been mine,” Waters, true to kind, instructed me flatly.
Jill Furmanovsky
Whereas technically true, maybe, Darkish Facet was additionally Pink Floyd’s most collaborative time.
“There was no chief,” Alan Parsons instructed me. “Roger and David labored facet by facet, egging one another on. And Rick and Nick have been essential; vastly instrumental. There was no ego past the occasional disagreement about the best way to make a specific piece or sound the most effective that it could possibly be.”
“It’s simply one thing that we did,” Mason concurred. “That magic kind of occurred. None of us may fairly perceive it. And we couldn’t recreate it with totally different individuals. After we performed collectively, we created one thing that we don’t actually perceive however that works extremely effectively.”
Gilmour’s spouse, Polly Samson, the writer (and someday Floyd lyricist), had a extra bittersweet tackle the band’s collaborative spirit.
“I keep in mind considering at [the 2005 benefit concert] Stay 8 that there’s nothing extra excruciating than being in a room with David, Rick, Nick, and Roger,” she recalled. “It’s awkward. You’re with these 4 males, they don't converse, there are awkward silences, and the subsequent factor they’re up on stage and talking so eloquently by way of their devices. There’s this actual divide between this unimaginable articulacy they've with music that they completely don’t have of their relationships. That evening at Stay 8 it actually struck me, that horrible awkwardness.”
Because the easygoing go-between within the usually chilly (although at present scorching) battle between Waters and Gilmour—which has been raging ever because the mid-Eighties cut up of the traditional Pink Floyd lineup—Mason has a extra prosaic view of issues.
“I look again and more often than not spent was enjoyable, pleasant,” Mason recalled. “Sure, after all there have been moments the place we’ve been in the midst of some kind of punch-up between band members, or issues weren't going so effectively. However typically, in comparison with having a correct job, it was improbable!”
It was additionally Darkish Facet—and its large, earthshaking reputation—that made the demise of that traditional lineup of 4 very totally different males nearly inevitable.
“We actually solely broke by way of in America in ’72, after Darkish Facet of the Moon,” Gilmour added. “Inside three months or so we’d reworked from being a theater band to being an area band. Even now, I feel numerous People see Pink Floyd as one thing that kicked off with Darkish Facet as a result of the transition was huge.”
Nonetheless, Gilmour says, he’s happy with Darkish Facet and loves enjoying the songs even 50 years later.
“I by no means tire of enjoying these songs,” Gilmour mentioned with a smile. “I suppose I ought to. However I don’t.”
As for Waters?
“Because the clock ticks down, I've no real interest in revisiting any of the outdated stuff actually, with the attainable exception of The Darkish Facet of the Moon,” he admitted. “I've no real interest in touring it, however [director] Sean Evans and I've began to make a movie referred to as Swaddle, based mostly across the music from the Darkish Facet tour from about 10 years in the past, and it’s truly actually, actually good. It’s black and white. We made it very a lot with black and white in thoughts.”
And naturally, a newly recorded solo model of Darkish Facet is reportedly coming from Waters in Could.
Jill Furmanovsky
Mason, once more, is extra circumspect.
“There’s at all times been a sense that rock music is supposed to be ephemeral, and strikes on, and will get misplaced, and so forth,” he instructed me. “I come from a era the place that’s precisely what it was regarded as: pretty short-lived. And we’re now residing in a world the place that’s nearly like the way in which we used to go and discover all these early R&B artists. However persons are discovering Pink Floyd’s music, and there’s nonetheless one thing to be realized from it.”
“I actually need extra individuals to find our early music, and admire how distinctive and particular it was,” Mason continued, admitting it was the driving pressure behind his intensive work on the video that accompanied the outstanding 2016 Pink Floyd field setThe Early Years: 1965-1972, in addition to the impetus behind his present band, Saucerful of Secrets and techniques. “Nevertheless it’s at all times about Darkish Facet and Want You Had been Right here and The Wall: the tyranny of the massive three, as I wish to say. Nonetheless, rightly so.”
As for the opportunity of a Pink Floyd reunion—which appears far-fetched, given the present state of relations between Waters and Gilmour—Mason says he stays eternally hopeful.
“If a miracle occurred and Roger and David instantly mentioned, ‘Are you aware what? We actually have to go and do that tour,’ for some worthwhile trigger or different, I’d fortunately do it,” he says. “However I’m definitely not holding my breath.”