The Article
Pink Floyd’s Dark Side Of The Moon
23rd August 2015
Label: Harvest
Year: 1973
It’s a phenomenon, it’s a landmark album, it’s lasted over 1500 weeks in the charts…and counting. Dark Side Of The Moon (DSOTM) is one of the most well known albums in existence. Which is why I’m not going to talk about it – they are…
Nick Mason: “The concept was originally about the pressures of modern life – travel, money and so on. But then Roger turned it into a meditation on insanity.”
Roger Waters: “When the record was finished I took a reel-to-reel copy home with me and I remember playing it for my wife then, and I remember her bursting into tears when it was finished. And I thought, ‘This has obviously struck a chord somewhere,’ and I was kinda pleased by that.”
Rick Wright: “We approached that album, I would say, in exactly the same way as any other album we’ve done. Except that this album was a concept album. It was about madness, it was about one’s fear, it was about the business – whereas none of the other albums had been like that.”
David Gilmour: “[After DSOTM] all your childhood dreams of pop-star success…suddenly you’ve got them all and it’s done and so you’re sort of left wondering, well… ‘What do I do now?’.”
Perusing the familial background of DSOTM on record is almost like swotting for a BA in world recording history as you are taken from the heady heights of SACD, to CD (standard and gold) and vinyl (standard and audiophile) and the flawed quadraphonic experiments of yore. One almost expects to find the DSOTM, Edison Gold Cylinder edition with added sequins to rear its magnificent head.
Before recommending particular editions, however, it is well to first list those formats to avoid – such as the standard CD edition. This was transferred, not from the master tape, but from a standard 15ips Dolby copy.
The usual retort when discussing most album re-issues is to fall back on the original vinyl edition. This album has been repressed so many times, in vinyl, that the best version is the original UK EMI/Harvest vinyl pressing, the one with the solid blue pyramid on label and an early stamper code. However, this will cost you around £350 from specialist dealers. Later repressings don’t cut the mustard. Mobile Fidelity’s famed Japanese-pressed half-speed LP did have the benefit of being very quiet. However, its EQ remaster was a little too hot in the upper extremes. Unfortunately, the same can be said of the gold edition CD from the same company which, being CD, is emphasised even more.
The best digital version of DSTOM that I’ve heard is the SACD release from EMI. Whether you listen to the SACD stereo version or the surround version. The best CD version I’ve heard is the CD layer on the self same disk. There has been talk that this layer has suffered a little from compression but, compared to the other CD versions out there, that CD layer on the SACD tops the lot.
As for vinyl? The 30th anniversary vinyl edition is the best I have heard – it even compares well to the original pressing. This edition was mastered, at AcousTech, in the USA by Doug Sax, overseen by James Gutherie (both experienced Floyd men) with assistance from Alan Parsons – the album’s original engineer. This quashes the criticism, which has raged on the Internet, that declared that Parsons had been snubbed on this project. Doug Sax commented that, for the vinyl remaster, “…we got early LP test pressings and they were mandatory since the master tape is Dolby and there are no (original) tones. By hunting and pecking we derived that the master tape has a NAB high end and an IEC low end.”
NAB is the American standard for tape equalization and IEC, also called CCIR, is the standard for Europe and most of the world. Some machines have switchable EQ. Very few machines allow switchable top-end and bottom-end EQ. Doug’s custom machine had this capability which improved the final vinyl sound reproduction.
“After playing the tape correctly,” continued Sax, “we then EQd the album to sound more open and punchy than the original release ever did.”
So, now you have no excuse to, once more, turn off the lights, lie on the floor and, like, freak out…man.
There’s no dark side of Paul Rigby’s pen…because it glows.
Paul, my late uncle left me a 6000 album collection, and pink floyd dsotm with the solid blue prism on the label is one of them, poster and sticker included. He used to collect vinyl, but very really did he play them. He is how I found bands like “country joe and the fish”.
Ooo, very nice David – sounds like you’ve got a lot of fun times stored up in that collection 🙂
Hi Paul. I just got lucky to get a hold of a AU quadraphonic vinyl copy of DSoTM. Do you think this version would hold up to the 30th anniversary mix? Also, will my copy sound bad if played on a regular player/system or worse if not played in SQ/quadraphonic? Thx in advance.
Hi Ariel – I have yet to hear this one but colleagues tell me that it’s well worth the effort. Some say its better than the SACD version on the right analogue system. I also hear that there’s changes to the mix in some areas. Some parts have more reverb, there may even be a tweak here and there in terms of instrumentation.
I assume, when you say AU, they you’re referring to the Australian version? You might want to dig a bit on this one because I hear that many of these pressings are UK pressings in disguise because they were based upon UK stampers. Apparently, you can tell from the font on the label. You’d need to do a bit of research on that one.
I think a regular 2 channel playback is well worth it. The extra midrange insight/detail from a modern system will/should overcome any issues from not using a proper quad set up. Saying that, it surely would be a lovely thing to hear the quad mix over a quad set up from the time. A project for you for the future then? 🙂
Sorry BUT THIS IS VERY DIFFERCULT TO TYPE AS WORDS ON MY SCREEN VERY SMALL THIS IS NOT A VERY GOOD PLACE TO TYPE MESSAGES OR SEND EMAILS. What is the second best selling pink floyd album.I have a very different taste to music to the average PERSON IN THE STREET are viynal records better then cds. Just thinking how many people have seen pink floyd in totally over THE years as far as live concerts are concerned.The closest I’ve ever got to listen TO THE HIGH END AS FAR AS STEREO SOUND IS CONCERNED IS LISTENING to Dark Side Of The Moon. I was at a hi fi Exhibition somewhere in London back in the 1980s I had the chance of listening to Dark side of The Moon on a open reel tape deck God never heard aything like in my life listening to the track called MONEY BLEW MY MIND I CURSE MY SELF I NEVER DID FIND OUT WHAT SOUND EQUIPMENT J WAS LISTENING TO.IF I EVER GET THE CHANCE AGAIN IWOULD LIKE TO YO TO A HI FI EXIBITION
PREFERBLY IN LONDON.
When I was in the Coast Guard in mid-late 1972, we had on our ship a reel-to-reel tape player bolted down in the berthing area. One of the few tapes we had, other than King Crimson, was Dark Side of the Moon. Impossible? Yet I personally played and listened to it. How would a possibly bootleg or demo tape of DSOTM be available before the general album release? It belonged to someone else in the crew but I never inquired about it.
I’m going to be honest and say that from a pure quality point of view Dark Side of the Moon doesn’t sound that great by modern standards. To me it sounds good only in the context of when it was recorded.
Musically its wonderful and that wont change.