The Dark Side of the Moon review

The Dark Side of the Moon is the most famous and acclaimed album by the popular English progressive rock band Pink Floyd. Well, whatever the album's like it's certainly a contender for the best album cover of all time. The album resembles a 2 long continuous tracks rather than 10 different songs and is a concept album. It's all thematically deep and complex and it can be interpreted in multiple different ways. Personally I see it as a journey through the many problems and corruptions of modern society.

Tracks:

1. Speak To Me/Breathe: 8/10 these were separate songs on the original release but they're joined together and it's fairer on Speak To Me just to review them together. Mundane yet affecting and brilliantly played, this is a strong opening with plenty of the jaw dropping and beautiful electronic sounds the band is known for. The fact that it starts with silence before a series of sound effects let's you know in advance this album will be a special one.

2. On the Run: 9/10 a brilliant, fast paced and futuristic sounding instrumental that could have come straight out of a science fiction movie chase scene.

3. Time: 10/10 that clock opening. That emotive guitar solo. Those brilliant lyrics. All that soul. All that power. This song is about how many things can make time waste away but one cannot realize until it is too late. This song is certainly not one of those things. A masterpiece.

4. The Great Gig in the Sky: 9/10 this has the best title on the album. The rest of the song, with its brilliant vocalising and soaring instrumental, isn't bad either.

5. Money: 6/10 every album has its weak links. While the other songs have more mature and subtle commentary on their issues, this shoves its message down your throat and some of those instrumentals go overboard and screech like a toddler. Still, it's Pink Floyd so it's certainly not bad and is still an entertaining listen.

6. Us and Them: 10/10 with the marvellous saxophone solos, the quiet yet hugely powerful verses and the utterly overwhelmingly brilliant choruses, this haunting war song has more power than an armoured machine gun helicopter shooting up an explosives factory. Just brilliant.

7. Any Colour You Like: 8/10 another excellent instrumental, although I'd say On the Run is better.

8. Brain Damage: 9/10 a song of insanity with slightly random but still excellent lyrics which takes off to stratospheric heights during the chorus.

9. Eclipse: 9/10 an enigmatic finale but an incredibly enjoyable enigma at that. The final line is a particular highlight.

Best song: Us and Them
Worst song: Money

Summary: Truly one of the best albums ever recorded. It's emotionally powerful, philosophical, soaring, hypnotic, thrilling and genuinely breath taking. The music is so weird yet it's always great to listen to and the songs all resemble true musical art. It's meaning is obscure so I get something else out of the album every time I hear it. Not so much an album as a colossal spaceship hurtling through a kaleidoscopic galaxy at full speed, this is a trip across the stars you'll never forget. The moon has never been cooler.

Final rating: 10/10