The Dark Side Of The Moon (1973) - Album Review

I discovered The Dark Side Of The Moon last Christmas, and it's easily become one of my favorite albums of all time.

It was created in 1973, yet the sound and music quality still feel like it was made in the modern age. The sound design surrounds you, especially with a good set of headphones. And the main theme about the album still rings true today: the troubles of life, which OK Computer would also cover (albeit in a technological way) 20 years later, after this album.

Something unique about this album is that every track blends into the other seamlessly, best exemplified in the two-track opening of Speak to Me and Breathe (In The Air). It continues until the halfway point, The Great Gig In The Sky, where it finally fades off completely. Money then kicks us right back into it. So the best way to listen to these songs is through the album, from start to finish, because if the tracks are played on their own, you're going to find weird bits and pieces at the endpoints.

Whether that's a positive or negative for this album is up to you, but I consider it a positive. The experience is so much better when you listen to the album as a whole rather than listening to the individual tracks. While I’m disappointed I can’t listen to Breathe (In The Air) as its track, starting with Speak to Me and listening to it build up to that song makes it so much better in my opinion. There’s a hype factor to it? Is that the right word?

But let’s get to the tracks themselves: they sound amazing. Speak to Me starts with snippets of sounds you’ll hear later in the album, as it builds up to the first actual track, Breathe (In The Air). It has such a unique, almost calming sound to it, as the lyrics describe the monotony of life. On The Run sounds a bit outdated, but Time, with its guitar solo, is phenomenal, and has near-silent bookends, so you can add this to your shuffle playlist if you want to. And then you get to The Great Gig In The Sky, with the amazing wailing performance which can simultaneously calm you and disturb you with the places you go through that wailing alone.

Money has its sax solo mixed with the guitar solo, which sounds so fresh to this day, before transitioning into the calming yet melancholic Us And Them. It continues into the end with the strange electronic sounds of Any Colour You Like, the fresh guitar melody of Brain Damage, and finally ending with Eclipse. In case you can’t tell, the music sounds like it was made more recently than freaking 1973.

There aren’t a lot of negatives I can give this. If I had to pick one, it’s that I can’t listen to Breathe (In The Air) as its own thing: the very start is jarring to me, so it’s better that I just start with Speak to Me. And then once I start, I can’t stop until the end of The Great Gig In The Sky. Or maybe that On The Run sounds outdated.

Who am I kidding? I consider this album as a whole to be a masterpiece. A fresh, unique sound, still relatable lyrics, amazing sound design that holds up almost perfectly with a good set of earphones, this album was ahead of its time.

I rate this album a 10/10, and I can’t choose a favorite track from here. Screw it, Breathe (In The Air) it is.