Dark Side of the Moon (Remastered)

Album Review

By condensing the sonic explorations of Meddle to actual songs and adding a lush, immaculate production to their trippiest instrumental sections, Pink Floyd inadvertently designed their commercial breakthrough with Dark Side of the Moon. The primary revelation of Dark Side of the Moon is what a little focus does for the band. Roger Waters wrote a series of songs about mundane, everyday details which aren't that impressive by themselves, but when given the sonic backdrop of Floyd's slow, atmospheric soundscapes and carefully placed sound effects, they achieve an emotional resonance. But what gives the album true power is the subtly textured music, which evolves from ponderous, neo-psychedelic art rock to jazz fusion and blues-rock before turning back to psychedelia. It's dense with detail, but leisurely paced, creating its own dark, haunting world. Pink Floyd may have better albums than Dark Side of the Moon, but no other record defines them quite as well as this one. The album was celebrating a total of 1,350 weeks on The Billboard 200 and Top Pop Catalog charts in Billboard magazine when Capitol Records released the 30th anniversary edition in 2003. The SACD version, as had previous digital remasterings, added space and definition to the elements of music, dialogue, and sound effects that made up the album, while the 5.1 remix expanded those improvements across multiple speakers. Original designer Storm Thorgerson contributed a new, subtly different album cover and a 20-page CD booklet that was a scrapbook of photographs and artwork associated with the album over the years.