Forty years ago today, on March 1st, 1973, progressive rock supergroup Pink Floyd released their album 'The Dark Side Of The Moon' in the USA. Its British release followed a few weeks later, on March 24th.
Pink Floyd during the first live performance of 'Dark Side Of The Moon'
at Earls Court, London, in 1973 (image courtesy of Wikipedia)
The album has become one of the most successful recordings of all time. It remained in the charts
for an incredible 741 weeks, from 1973 until 1988, and has sold at least 50 million copies. It's twice been remastered and re-released, most recently in 2011.
Here's a long (50-minute) documentary about the making of 'Dark Side Of The Moon', recorded in 2003.
And here's a full recording of the 2011 re-released version.
Classic indeed! I can remember when it first came out, and the stir it made. It makes me feel terribly old to realize that was forty years ago . . .
Peter
8 comments:
Sigh.. I ran Nautilus half speed master albums of this album on exorbitantly expensive equipment back in the mid eighties. I of course was trying to sell the equipment as I could not afford it.
An amazing album to this day. And yes... sigh. 40 years.
25 years since I went through a period of wearing out a tape and replacing it. :)
Look at it from a different perspective Peter. You've had 40 years of fabulous music. The music kids listen to these days.... :P
I'm a little too young to have seen Floyd live, but I've seen Roger Waters do the Wall and Darkside live in concert. Well worth it.
I'll second that sigh. Thank you.
I remember buying the LP way back in early 1973. I ran out of my work place at lunch hour to buy it at a local record shop. Yes, there were plenty of "record shops" then
That same original album is sitting right in front of me now and is in good shape. Both the jacket and the record itself.
Other than the famous prism logo on both sides of the album cover the only other thing on the cover (rear) is in small print:
"Manufactured, Marketed & Dristributed by Capital Records Inc. A Subsidiary of Capitol Industries Inc. Hollywood & Vine Streets Hollywood, CALIF factories, Los Angeles, CCALIF. Jacksonville, ILL. Winchester, VA
1973 The Gramaphone Company, Limited
I'm responsible for quite a few of those album sales, with the changes in format over the years, from vinyl in the house to 8 track in the car, then cassette, and now CDs. Also, it seems that women not only keep the bed, they also keep the Pink Floyd albums.
Several years ago I was teaching US History at Flat State University. One morning I used part of "The Wall" as the opening music. Not only had the students never heard of "The Wall," but none of them would admit to having heard of Pink Floyd!
LittleRed1
I wore out 2 vinyl copies of Dark Side.
The first CD I bought was a Mobile Fidelity Sound Lab half speed mastered, gold plated version of Dark Side.
While I do love hearing any cut at any time I firmly believe it is best listened to after midnight, with headphones.
The music is stunning.
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