THE DARK SIDE OF THE MOON

What hasn't been said about this album? It is probably one of the most notorious albums of all time. The album cover, also probably the most famous ever. How could I possibly add to the glowing praise that has been lavished on this? I'm not too sure how I could do this, but I shall try.

This is one of the first albums I can remember. It is in my Dad's collection of old vinyls, and is by far, the most battered, well- worn album in the collection. It was one of the first songs our family got on CD (I think it was a birthday gift to my mother), and when I started to get into music, I found it in our CD collection. At the time, I was into some of the most god-awful ear-tripe I could contemplate (not even able to be deemed music), and here I saw what I though looked like an odd album cover. I just passed it by again, though it kept popping up.

One day, while looking through the collection I finally decided to pop it in (my taste in music had gotten marginally better) and I waited. And waited. And waited. "Where's the music", I thought to myself. Little did I know, that it was only a minute and a half, but that seemed like an eternity as opposed to "conventional" music which kicks in in a matter of seconds. Then, things started to become audible. It got louder, and louder and louder, until what feels like the loudest thing I'll ever listen to, comes in. It is reminiscient of an explosion, which explodes into the guitar part. The opening guitar has a surreal, dream-like quality to it and seemed anticlimactic at the time. The next 40 minutes seem like a haze to me, to this very day, and I'm not entirely sure what happened. "Eclipse" ended, and I realized that I had been listening to nothing but the whirring of my CD player for almost 5 minuites. I tried to remember the album, and I remember it sounded amazingly weird. All those sound effects, the chiming clocks, the rhythmic cash registers, it was hard to remember when a song began or ended, but then I remembered one song. The guy was talking about money and it was hard-rocking enough for me to go back and play it again. I checked the back of the album and surmized I was thinking about the song "Money". I went back and loved the song so much, I listened to it 5 times in a row. In time, I grew to appreciate each song on the album, and so it began...

Each song on the album is stellar, and segue into the next flawlessly. It is hard to rate each song, though favorites of mine are "Time", "Us and Them", and still "Money". My least favorite song on the album is "The Great Gig in the Sky", though it is still a very good song.

I still bought myself a copy of the album, though I could've just burned a copy of it from the CD, but it just wouldn't have felt right. I went out and bought it at the A&P grocery store along with Wish You Were Here for $10 a piece. "Money" was also one of the first songs I learned on the bass when I got it, and I felt very proud of myself when I first was able to sync up my playing with Water's on the album. This album has had a monsterous impact on me, and my musical taste. As it had on everyone's music taste. Not only is the album essential for a progressive music fan, it is essential for everyone. This album could get a five star rating on either cultural impact or just overall skill and talent alone, but it has both. Shame on you if you don't have it.

There is no dark side of the moon really. Matter of fact, it's all dark.