The argument at the heart of Pink Floyd album ‘Dark Side of the Moon’
It would take a minor miracle for any incarnation of Pink Floyd to succeed in the early 1970s. After becoming one of the most in-demand psychedelic acts in rock with their debut album, The Piper at the Gates of Dawn, Syd Barrett would lose his mind to a series of drug trips and mental health struggles, leaving the rest of the band to carry on without him. Although the group were willing to see where the music would take them, it wasn’t until Dark Side of the Moon that everything peaked.
Then again, the true incarnation of classic Pink Floyd usually stems from the previous album. Across the band’s epic, ‘Echoes’, each member brought the best out of themselves to make something stronger than any member could have, including massive sonar noises and Roger Waters coming into his own as a lyricist.
By the time they had begun work on Dark Side of the Moon, they had already road-tested most of the material. Putting bits and pieces of the track listing together during their live shows, songs such as ‘Breathe’ and ‘Time’ had gone through various incarnations before they finally got committed to tape.
With the help of engineer Alan Parsons, the band created one of the greatest meditations on modern society, looking to talk about both the light and the dark side of the human condition. While the album benefits from every member bringing their signature elements to the table, one major disagreement nearly drove a wedge between them before the album finished.
During the album’s production, David Gilmour and Waters would get into heated discussions about how the record was supposed to sound. Even though the group were progressing by leaps and bounds whenever they went into the studio, Gilmour would recall how Waters wanted to strip things back down to get a more blunt tone across.
When talking to Guitar World about the way the album was being mixed, Gilmour talked about how engineer Chris Thomas helped keep the peace at the sessions, saying, “Chris Thomas came in for the mixes, and his role was essentially to stop the arguments between me and Roger about how it should be mixed. I wanted Dark Side to be big and swampy and wet, with reverbs and things like that. And Roger was very keen on it being a very dry album. I think he was influenced a lot by John Lennon’s first solo album, Plastic Ono Band, which was very dry. We argued so much that it was suggested we get a third opinion.”
Even though the album has a spacious mix throughout every song, it’s easy to hear that balance. Going through the track ‘Money’ on its own, it’s easy to see both sides of the band’s creative spirit working alongside each other, with Gilmour playing one solo that’s full of rock and roll bravado before pairing everything down for his second solo which is bone-dry tone wise.
Then again, the choice to straddle both sides of the production may have been a blessing in disguise for the band. Dark Side of the Moon was never going to be an easy record for any of the members to make, but all those hours of hard work made for an album that could have been recorded today.
