THE DARK SIDE OF THE MOON

(just kidding)

I'm a Wish You Were Here person, but I'm not about to dismiss Dark Side in any way. What is amazing to me is that the band really did not know what it had when they laid it down. Of course they thought it was solid, but there were just no inklings of the commercial success that would await this piece. This is a band that just laid down a minor sound track in Obscured by Clouds.

You couldn't have seen Close to the Edge, Thick as a Brick, or Court of the Crimson King coming, and the same applied to Dark Side.

Dark Side features some of the best--and by best, I mean effective relative to the piece, and not simply the most complicated or difficult to produce--sound samples, some of the best controlled improv vocal wailing, and some exemplary guitar work (Time, Money) and berry sax (Money). And of course there's the epic finale, which is one of the better of its kind out there.

And that's all without mentioning the synching with Wizard of Oz, which there is enough coincidence to justify conclusions that more is at play than meets the ear.

It's gateway prog, and it's not terribly complicated. It's just captivating, compelling, iconic and generalizable for reasons that we are still figuring out. Close to the Edge may be the quintessential prog album, but Dark Side is in my top 10 contenders.

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