35 million copies of the album have been sold worldwide, thus making DSOTM one of the highest selling Rock Albums in history. DSOTM, primarily the brainchild of Roger Waters is a seamless concept album. I’m not going to bother with a write up on each song as there are many over here who’ve done a great job. Thought I’d just list out some trivia on the album.
The album is listed in the Guinness book of World Records for being on the charts longer than any other in history. It spent 591 consecutive weeks in the Billboard top 200! And a total of 741 weeks (14 years) in and out of the Billboard top 200!
DSOTM is the 4th best selling album so far after MJ’ s ‘Thriller’, Soundtrack of Saturday Night Fever and Fleetwood Mac’s ‘Rumours’!
The premier of DSOTM was actually held on Feb 17, 1972, over a year before the albums release at the first of four sold-out concerts at London’s Rainbow Theatre.
A band called Medicine Head released an album called Dark Side of the Moon just a few months before. Only when it proved to be a commercial dud, did The Floyd reclaim the title.
The original title of the album was “Eclipse” and then D.S.O.T.M.(A piece for Assorted Lunatics)
The album was repackaged for the 20th and 30th anniversary editions. The latter is available in the Hybrid Super Audio CD (SACD) format-which gives you true surround because of multiple layers. (Sounds the same if you don’t have an SACD player)
For audiophiles, the album was way ahead of its time with state-of-the-art 16 track equipment, quadraphonic mix and of course Alan Parsons (their sound engineer) genius. Way back in 1973, there were no computers as we have today. Editing involved physically measuring and cutting tape lengths with rulers, and then sticking them!
Alan Parson’s achievement was ratified with a Grammy for the Best-Engineered album of 1973.
“The Dark side of Oz” is one freaky feature of the album. Get hold of the original 1939 “Wizard of Oz” movie with Judy Garland. Mute the movie and play your DSOTM CD the moment you see the third roar of the MGM lion. Listen to the lyrics and you’ll find about 3-5 striking connections between the movie and the lyrics! I’ve tried it a couple of times…It’s pretty cool. The band denies any connection-maybe it’s just a freaky coincidence.
The inspiration for “Breathe” was from a song Roger Waters had written and recorded in 1970 as a part of a soundtrack for a film called “The Body”
For “Time”, Alan Parsons actually visited an antique clock shop, synchronized the clocks and recorded the chimes heard at the start of the song.
“The great gig in the sky” was originally known as the Mortality Sequence sung by gospel singer Clare Tory.
For any album to succeed in the US, a hit single was required. Bhasker Menon, who then headed Capitol Records (He was a graduate of Oxford and Doon School in India), successfully promoted “Money” as the hit single
“Us and Then” was originally written by Rick Wright in 1969 as an instrumental piano solo intended for use in Michaelangelo Antonioni’s film-“Zabriskie Point”.
Storm Thorgerson of Hipgnosis was responsible for the distinctive (and easily recognizable) sleeve design-The prism with the Vibgyor. Storm’s fascination for authenticity made him travel halfway round the world to Egypt to actually photograph the pyramids in moonlight for the inner sleeves.
Also available is “The Making of The Dark Side of the Moon” DVD. It has a few clippings of the band playing at Rainbow Theatre in 1972, and a lot of present day interviews with the band…..not quite what I’d expected. Get the “Live in Pompeii” DVD instead…has coverage of the band in the 70’s.
Don’t think twice about picking up the DSOTM CD. Sure, “PULSE” too, has a live DSOTM version on the 2nd CD, but it’s not as good as the original released 20 years earlier!