THE DARK SIDE OF THE MOON

For about thirty years, I thought this was a really great sounding album. Then this past summer, I bought the DVD which used snippets of interviews and re-collections by the band members and other integral personel (mostly Alan Parsons) involved in the album's creation to give an insight into how this concept album came to be. It was cool to watch some of the Floyd perfom pieces and explain the techniques used and how the songs evolved from demo to finished work. Nick was the only one who did not perform for the DVD although he did give some of his thoughts about the project. The DVD even included the famous story about how Clare Torry went in to do the vocal for Great Gig and was so apologetic after her "awful" performance when everyone else in the studio was actually in awe of what she had just done. I too often thought Us and Them was a little too slow until Rick explained how the chord work originated and later evolved in the studio. After listening a few times again, there is a new appreciation for this segment.

The mastering of the album must have been a performance to see with everyone running around on hand signals to cue the tracks. With all the multi-track computers and noise generators used in today's "music", the art of mastering has almost faded away. I haven't heard the re-mastered Dark Side but some of it must have been used in the DVD since some of the instrumentation on the DVD was cleaner than what I remembered hearing on the original. Or maybe my hearing has just gone bad from listening to the roto- toms on Time at a high volume on the headphones a hundred thousand times.

After viewing the Dark Side DVD, now I think this album is a really, REALLY, great sounding album. Long live the Floyd.