Some edit needed for my essay

Instructor

Course

Date

The Dark Side of the Moon

Typically, music is used by the artists in helping them express their emotions to the audience. Every musician or band does their best to ensure that their audience gets this feeling, and they are also fully involved in the artist’s music. A corer album is especially very significant to most musicians and bands. This is especially true because the artists use them in telling the narrative behind their albums. One good example of this is “The dark side of the moon” by Pink Floyd. This was an album that was released in 1973 by Pink Floyd. In this paper, I will look at the aspects that made this band and the album very successful.

I was introduced to this band when I was very young by my parents. The band’s taste of music has played a very significant part in influencing my taste in music. My parents grew up in the era that was known as “the greatest decade of music”. Although I am a very big fan of classic rock, this band emerged as one f my favorites. My earliest memories o this band was when I was very young but I would still swing on my swing set and listen to this band’s music as I sang along word by word to most of the songs that the band had released.

The album was released when Alan Parson was the engineer of this band. The album focused on credibility and emotions to help the band tell their various stories effectively. In doing so, this album became the masterpiece of the band. For a long time, the cover became an icon making the album remain on the Billboard charts for a very long time (1973 – 1988) (O’Donnell 2).

Among the many things that made the album a success, was the album cover. The album cover was very visually arresting and the iconography that was used perfectly matched the music artistry. The cover created a buzz in the music industry that made it an essential marketing strategy. The cover’s power mostly rested on the rich visual appeal that made it very successful and ended creating inscrutability and intrigue for more than 4 decades. The cover of the album is a celebrated print even today.

The cover with the black setting and a line of light that goes throughout the prism establishes well with the album's title, which has one of its central theme being light vs darkness (Kress, 2017 p4). Similarly, the black background and the design were used in making the listeners think of something bigger than what they could see.

The cover is a black setting that has a white light hitting the triangle. There is a prism that converts light into six colour rainbow that comes out on the other side. This was a representation of the brand. The rainbow was not complete since there was no one of the typical rainbow colours of indigo.

The darkness was also used in this cover to portray people who are not ready to accept change. The light was also used to portray the spark, and the prism represented the transition while the colour strands showed the difference made. “The album helped greatly in turning the band into becoming one of the most massive bands globally which were characterized by their wealth, huge following in the mainstream and a huge critical acceptance” (Reising 3). In a very short time after the release of the album, the fans had started creating their visual interpretation of this cover

By using a variety of symbols in this iconography, it helped in showing artistry in music. In the iconography, there was no name inscribed. There was either no list of artists. This has been seen as one of the strategies used to ignite curiosity from the audience to help them want to know more regarding this album. This is simply because the audience would be tempted to look more closely into it and make it even more famous.

This band unconsciously designed their business breakthrough with this album “The Dark Side of the Moon.” This was through condensing the sonic exploration of pry to authentic songs and then adding up lush and flawless production to the song's trippiest section of the instruments part.

Waters wrote a series of songs on everyday life details that are not all that impressive; however, the mish mash of the sonic backdrop of the band’s slow atmospheric soundscapes and well-placed sound effects, the songs achieved an emotional resonance. Various things give the album its real power. However, the subtly texture of the mixture that evolve from hefty, neopsychedelic art rock-jazz combination and blues-rock and then turning to psychedelia makes the songs thrilling (Kärki 7). The album is dense with details, but it is paced leisurely which creates a dark, poignant word.

It is uncontested that this band has other superior albums than “The Dark Side of the Moon,” but none of these albums define this band as correctly as this album does. This album is the pinnacle of the 1970’s studio rock, and it became the band’s defining statement of the second incarnation.

In particular, this album expanded upon the sonic experimentation of meddles combining blues rock structures with rock’s and jazz progressive instrumentation, which created an atmospheric music blend (Komara 4). Therefore, it made this album to be among the unforgettable albums that required an individual to listen to it without interruption, hurling one into a timeless and surreal trip.

The album found the band at their musical talent climax. It was the time when David Gilmour without fail played some of the most impressive and most brilliant guitar solos in the history of rock music. On the other hand, Richard Writ’s keyboard built thick textures, and nick mason shone with a drum solo that was supported by the muted bass tick-tock of by Roger Walters. The instrumentation took protagonism, and the words were almost lost in the intense musical waves and landscapes of the effect of the studio.

Like this band used the prism in igniting the listeners' emotions, the songs in this album were mostly based on emotions in reached the audience. The album was based on various themes that are very significant even today. The multiple themes in this album include greed, mental illness, materialism stress, and human conflicts.

As the album begins, the initial thing that is appealing to the emotion of the audience is the opening song named “Speak to me”. It starts with a fading-in heartbeat that indicates human life. Little by little, the heartbeat gets louder. In the song's background, we hear laughter, and there is a faint sound of a person who talks about a mad individual.

We also get to listen to the cash register and people talking concerning their mental illness. The song illustrates that when a person expresses their pain, they are creating a cure for it. “The song builds up to a musical climax through sound effects, which is then used to open the second track dubbed Breath” (Gonin 6). Similarly, I think that the band expressed this issue of psychological illness in an angle that it has not been approached before. Despite the humor, people can still think of the issue and its effects to the people.

The song “Breath” discusses of life and how we can enjoy it to the fullest. It also illustrates the kind of air that we are breathing. It is not the natural beautiful fresh air but the dirty air of the city. The other song, “On the run,” primarily has the theme of running from fears. As the music begins, we hear flurrying of notes speeding past our ears, and there is also a helicopter sound that is suggesting the frantic rush to work and the annoying travel. This is an illustration of travel pressures.

In the other jab “Money”, we hear the recording of coins jiggling in a cash register. The three verses in this song portray the attitudes that people have towards money. The music then fades out as we hear people discussing having been in a fight. This makes us link capitalism and social alienation. This is primarily because it is not as it is not easy for people who worship money to be friends. This song, therefore, talks of the corrupt things that money can bring. This song, therefore, was a reflection of how money had ruined the entire society during this particular time.

There was moral decay in the society due to the love of money and this was running the lives of people. I, therefore, see that this was a song that was aimed at mirroring the society during this time. This is also similar to the lies where the money is the root of all evils in society. This verse says, “Money, it’s a crime. Share it fairly but don’t take a slice of my pie. Money, so they say Is the root of all evil today. But if you ask for a raise it’s no surprise that they’re giving none away.”

Another hit in this album that is very lovely is “Great In the Sky.” What makes this song very special is the strange vocal contribution from a singer that is unknown to many (Claire Torry). There was no a female vocalist in the other songs. The song talks of pressure of mortality on life. It starts with life and gradually descends into death. This is seen with the angrier and more intense first half of a person who refuses to die. The second half is gentler as the person gives into the inevitable and fades away.

This song “Time” is very thought-provoking. It is about young people who think that they have unlimited amounts of time and they keep adjourning their responsibilities in life. Before they know, they are too old to do the things that they could have done when they were young. The song, therefore, advises people to go out and lie while they are young because at their old age, they may not be able to enjoy their lives and they will end up regretting the opportunities that they lost.

In this song “time”, one verse says, “You are young and life is long and there is time to kill today. And then one day you find ten years have got behind you. No one told you when to run, you missed the starting gun.” This shows the youth the importance of being time conscious and to do what they have t do during their youthful age.

"Us and Them" is another song that is very important in this album. “The song looks at society from both sides, from the military and talking about society and how poor people continue dying of hunger, and the rich watch and do not seem to care” (Gatt 80). It is all about war and human conflict in general. This song comes after “money” hit, which is a suggestion that the worship of money is naturally leading to the imperialism of war. The connection has been made an easy to see.

This album also has various other songs. However, “brain damage” is a fascinating song. This is a song that talks about mental illness, and it was a tribute to Syd Barret. Syd Barret was diagnosed with manic depression and schizophrenia. In this song, this line states that “I will see you on the dark side of the moon.” It is Walter, talking to Barret. This is an illustration that everybody has one of their sides that is insane.

The last song “Eclipse” polishes the album. This is because the song gives a list of things that people usually do during their lifetime. In the last stanza, the song says that “everything under the sun is in tune. But the sun is eclipsed by the moon” The symbol of the heartbeat shows life. It is an illustration of how life flies. Therefore, it tells us that we ought to live life while we can as it will soon fly.

The more that I listen to this album, the more it amazes me. All the songs in this album start in a way that catches my attention. For instance, the song “time” begins with a whirlwind of clocks ticking in the listeners’ ears. The other song “money” starts with the sound of a cash register opening. Every song is unique in its way in terms of the theme, the instrumentation and the mood that the song gives to the viewer.

As I listen to the incredible guitar solo, it amps my anticipation for the chorus to begin. The songs take me away from my surroundings. Their lyrics are a portrayal of life which makes the band stands out from the rest of the other bands. Each of their albums talks about a different unique story and I react differently to every song. There is no other band that is capable of making me feel the way this band makes me feel.

CONCLUSION

I can give this band an A+. The world also seems to share my opinions as the album remained on the Billboard chart for more than 14 years. I invite everyone to listen to this incredible album

Work cited

Gatt, Isabelle. "The Dark Side of the Moon." Spinning Popular Culture as Public Pedagogy. SensePublishers, Rotterdam, 2017. 79-85.

Gonin, Philippe. Pink Floyd The Dark Side Of The Moon. Le Mot et le reste, 2018.

Kärki, K. (2017). 'Matter of fact it's all dark': audiovisual stadium rock aesthetics in Pink Floyd's The Dark Side of the Moon tour, 1973. In 'Speak to Me': The Legacy of Pink Floyd's The Dark Side of the Moon (pp. 27-42). Routledge.

Komara, E. (2019). Pink Floyd: Album by Album. ARSC Journal., 50(2), 275-283.

Kress, T. M. (2017). The Dark Side of the Prism. In Spinning Popular Culture as Public Pedagogy (pp. 63-77). Brill Sense.

O’Donnell, Shaugn. "'On the path': tracing tonal coherence in The Dark Side of the Moon." 'Speak to Me': The Legacy of Pink Floyd's The Dark Side of the Moon. Routledge, 2017. 87-103.

Reising, Russell. "Introduction: Life on the dark side of the moon." 'Speak to Me': The Legacy of Pink Floyd's The Dark Side of the Moon. Routledge, 2017. 1-11.