The Dark Side Of The Moo
The Dark Side Of The Moo
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| Dimensions: | 31.7 x 31.19 x 1.4 cm; 466.07 Grams |
| Manufacture: | Pink Floyd Music |
| Dimensions: | 31.7 x 31.19 x 1.4 cm; 466.07 Grams |
| Origin: | Italy |
| Reference: | 029876 |
A masterpiece. This is an album you listen from start to finish, preferably with headphones so can hear the full sonic tapestry Pink Floyd offers. When I first listened to the album as a teen, I liked it, but didn’t love it. Now I’m in my early-twenties, I’ve grown a lot closer to this album.
This must be the fifth time I have bought this album. Over the years I have lost, damaged, had the album ‘borrowed’ and then the last copy damaged in a flood. Now I have a 180g vinyl, fresh sounding clean copy. Still awesome after all these years and still enjoying it. Possibly Pink Floyd’s best album.
The first copy I bought had some crackles at the start plus crackles during a few quite passages and a lot after the last track on side 2.
I returned the record and replacement was a lot better. No noticeable crackles at all.
A superb sounding classic album. I would be curious to compare it to an original pressing in terms of how it has been remastered.
No need to review to album itself, but the quality of this pressing and, indeed, the sleeve and contents are exceptional. No scratches or warping, and the depth of sound beats CDs hands down. The best quality vinyl I have bought; and I have bought rather a lot over the last 50 years (quality certainly dipped in the 70-80’s).
In this record, you get all the extras as available with the original pressing: two pretty darn large posters (one of the band at that time, and one of the purple pyramids) and two little cubist stickers. The vinyl sleeve is also presented in a luxurious matte material which – whilst highlighting fingerprints, so be careful! – feels and looks far better than something glossier, like there is with the current The Wall vinyl pressing. The front and back covers, as well as the inner gatefold, is also faithful to the original, and looks amazing. This vinyl sounds phenomenal, as an album like this deserves. A true classic, something that’ll never go out of fashion.
First of all the record itself is pressed on heavier vinyl than my ancient copy and is dead silent, no surface noise at all. The remastering is not a radical change but the effects are clearer with crystal clear voices and definitely more texture to the instruments, the bass is sharper edged with a more ‘plucked strings’ quality adding a fresher sound than I’ve heard before.
The nicest surprise is the shear quality of the printing, the cover is, of course, identical but the colours are brighter and finally the cover has a beautiful matt varnish finish, the original posters and stickers are there but now printed on higher quality paper, thankfully a fine quality inner sleeve – black kraft paper with polly lining rounds off a very nice release. AND only 20, which allowing for inflation is cheaper than the 70’s price…
I don’t think you can really go much wrong with any copy of DSOTM. But bang-for-your-buck, this is the best mass-market copy out there. You’d really be nit-picking if you had any criticisms of this pressing – it sounds fantastic.
Bought a brand new copy as my newly-interested in vinyl daughter was eyeing my old copy. Still sounds brilliant, unlike some other new copies of old albums I have bought eg Tapestry. Everything is as it should be and hopefully she’ll be enjoying hers in 40 years time.
If you can’t afford the original on eBay then this is the best option the hippies favourite floyed lp . Now valued at 700 . A must buy for those who wasn’t there . Top selling lp. When I was 17 years old brilliant.
My order was supplied by Chalkys UK and unfortunately went missing in the post. There response however was outstanding they replied promptly and were very polite and apologetic. They gave me the choice of a instant refund or a replacement cd being sent, I went for the replacement and it arrived next day. Their original despatch was the same day. You never realy know how good a company is till a problem arises, Chalkys were excellent.
So, what is it specifically that makes this vinyl record so outstanding? Well, two things; firstly, the pressing is superb – it sounds lively, with perfect stereo separation and without any distortion. My copy is dead flat, too (which is rare these days, even with 180g vinyl). But, most of all it’s the amazingly low floor noise and almost total absence of any pops, clicks or even ticks!
This is, by quite some way, the best presented slab of vinyl to (figuratively) drop through my letterbox in the 8 years that I have been buying re-issued vinyl (nearly all from Amazon). My belief is that it is the (very sensible) use of an inner sleeve that is lined with polythene(?) by the manufacturer, which has allowed this platter to be unpacked and played for the first time in pristine condition. It is such a massive bonus to start off with a record that is in this condition, rather than getting one in a newly-cut paper sleeve that is covered in ‘paper dandruff’ and then trying every cleaning product and device to get it clean again (often scratching it in the process). Other vinyl-producing companies take note!
As I write this, I am near the end of the second side of the album and there has only been one audible ‘tick’ so far (in the middle of Side 1). I can’t stress enough how unusual that is (in my experience at least) and I find myself constantly looking over at my turntable to make sure that I am not actually listening to my CD player by mistake 😉 .
The icing on the cake is the price. “The Dark Side of The Moon” may well be (in polls) THE most loved and bought vinyl LP of all-time. The fact that I was able to sell my (very badly worn) 1990’s re-issue of it for more than I paid for this brand new, sonically awesome version of it is testimony to that.
Personally, I would rather have this new version (the 2011 re-master, on the Pink Fold Records label, complete with all of the posters and postcards that the original release came with) than a first pressing on the Harvest label (assuming that it was only to listen to and not to sell on for a small fortune 😉 ).
A ‘must buy’ purchase for anyone who is rebuilding their record collection and has a scratchy old copy of it 😉 .
I discovered this album when my dad disparagingly compared what Radiohead were up to on OK Computer as ‘a load of moaning, listen to this instead’. I can still picture the biro on the tracklist of the Sony C90 in my walkman and it remains as bewitching as it did twenty years ago.
That said, I am not going into this from a musical perspective, (enough has been written by others over 40 years). Safe to say it’s an Important Work and Floyd’s best overall.
The remaster is three dimensional and rich. This is the best I’ve heard this album. The remaster is the same from 2011 that was used for both an extended box set and a double disc with a live set from the period. Both are out of print…
…which leads me to the star I had to knock off. I’m currently hoovering up the Zeppelin reissues which not only come with extras but are packaged beautifully in gatefold sleeves with replica artwork, new photos, comprehensive booklets and a basic sense that they are something you are proud to own.
This EMI ‘Discovery’ reissue looks like it came free with a newspaper. Low grade card sleeve, the glossy surface of both sleeve and booklet are fingerprint magnets, and the fit for the single CD itself is tighter than a local authority budget under austerity rules.
5 stars for the album and the ‘new’ sonics, a tawdry 1 star for the packaging. That’s actually an average of 3 stars, but I can’t rightly give ‘Dark Side’ that rating, so a begrudging four it is.
Anyway, onto to the review of the album. Over the years I’ve had various copies (haven’t we ALL Floydian lovers) of this spellbinding album. This 2011 Discovery Edition is far and away the best sounding edition I’ve ever heard, it’s crisp, clear, bass and treble levels are to my ears anyway pretty damn perfect. I think James Guthrie & Joe Plante have done an utterly brilliant remastering job on not only this album, but on all of the 2011 reissued Pink Floyd albums.
On the digipak it comes in, I can see where the criticism comes in. I personally love digipak CD’s, that said if you don’t pick up the digipak CD’s yourself at a Record Store you can get some pretty creased and ripped digipaks from this site (sorry Amazon UK) lol and my second favourite website for online records buying which is HMV. So I can see where the criticism comes in, in relation to packaging. Unless you’ll picking-up the digipak CD yourself in store, you are taking a risk in relation to what quality the digipak arrives to you by the post method, unfortunately. Jewel cases are a little bit more hard wearing are they not. But not as aesthetically pleasing to ones eye it has to be said.
Whilst The Dark Side Of The Moon is my favourite Floyd album, I would also like to clearly state that Floyd’s – Wish You Wer Here, Animals and lastly The Wall are also exquisitely sublime to. Well worth collecting them to.
But for my money anyway, Pink Floyd have never bettered this album.
When this was released in 1973, it turned Pink Floyd into rock stars. After their original frontman Syd Barett left some years earlier due to taking large amounts of LSD and continual eratic behaviour, as well as schizophrenia, the band went through some strange musical times. With out Syd they experimented, perhaps going off into weird pastures, not knowing why or how. But it was a phase they had to go through. Because it led to this…quite simply one of the most important albums of all time. Up there with what The Beatles wrote. Perhaps more relevant than what Led Zeppelin, Black Sabbath or The Who was releasing around this era.
It is layered and produced so well. Like an orchestra. You take one part away, it all goes down hill. This isn’t one of those albums where you can say it relies heavily on guitarist David Gilmour, or bass player Roger Waters, or keyboard player Richard Wright. It all comes together to create this astonishing body of work. The amount of moods and themes this album go through is quite breath taking. Some of the songs have a bitter feel to them under the catchy instrumentation like “Money”. I could also mention “Time” in that respect as well, and as a guitar player I have to mention the guitar solo on that song. It sounds huge, as if it were carved out of granite. I have always loved David Gilmour, and although I own many guitars, he was the reason I bought a Strat ten years ago.
“Us and them” has a sad but dreamy vibe to it, one might say it could conjure up feelings of hopelessness or longing for a time that never really existed. Nice piano work by Richard Wright may I add. Nothing technical, but it doesn’t have to be. There is no denying how “On the run” influenced electronic music in a huge way. You never hear people go on about that side of it. “The great gig in the sky” with it’s extremely dramatic piano intro, reminiscent of Elton John, working with the gorgeous pedal steel parts played by Gilmour. Then those amazing female vocals come in. One of those absolute astonishing and memorable moments.
For new listeners, I really hope you get out of this, what I have all these years. I kind of envy the younger ones, exploring and experiencing all this great rock music for the first time.
Disc 1 : is the original disc,remastered by James Guthrie again,his ’94 remaster was perfect as far as i could tell and truth be told i cant really detect any noticeable difference,sometimes with these ‘new’ remasters i think you will convince yourself to hear something different.initially on first play i thought possibly a little clearer,the background voices slightly more audible,after a couple of listens with the headphones and comparing to the prev disc im not too sure.Whats not in dispute is this is a fantastic piece of music that has stood the test of time,beautifully arranged.played and recorded nearly 40 years ago,its hard to believe there will be a first time buyer,so i guess most will know already what their buying.
Disc 2 : now i’ve never heard any live 70’s recordings of ‘dark side…’ so this was my principle reason for buying and its well worth it,clocking in at around 12 mins more than its studio counterpart there a couple of moments were the band add in a little extra,nothing too much to change the overall feeling and what a performance,all four members on fire and a sound quality that frankly stunned me,i thought a recording 37 years old may suffer but this is absolute quality and worth the purchase price alone.
The sound quality on the remaster is excellent so no worries there,the packaging ,well that a different story.the 2 discs are housed in a tri fold digi pak which the seams are already tearing,the housing for the discs quite tight,so beware when taking in/out,the booklet is very average,no improvement on the ’94 remaster, just the lyrics and photos already available previously,all housed in a flimsy slipcase,if it wasnt such a superb musical release i would have been tempted to dock a star.
Yet another remastered review of a 10 year post i wrote. Sounds like the packaging on this is very poor considering it was one of the best packaged vinyl ever – gatefold cover, lyrics, posters. The only thing it lacked as a vinyl was a well designed inner sleeve (dust jacket) which was just plain black. Anyway here is my original 2001 review:
A Spectrumful Of Soundscapes, 11 Dec 2001
Released in March, 1973 DSOTM has since become a classic. It has already sold in excess of 30 million. It’s appeal is impossible to define. David Gilmour has said of it that it sounds very complicated but the more you listen to it the more basic it becomes, cross that with the timeless sound of the tunes/lyrics/mixes and there you have it. I tend to agree with the Floyd guitarist on that.
I first heard this album back in 1982 and was awestruck. It was on a tape backed with Wish You Were Here and although Wish became my all time favourite album (Floyd’s 1975 follow up release) as soon as one side finished it would be turned over. Both albums are compulsive listening.
Many articles have been written about DSOTM explaining how it was recorded using sound effects (cash tills, clocks etc); interviews (questions on flashcards requiring one sentence answers) and the use of a new type of synthesiser: VCS3. This devise was used widely on the album and unlike a lot of current releases its sound has not aged the album.
The albums theme basically deal with things that drive a person insane. Money, war, power, time, death and constant worrying help make this most depressing of albums an absolute gem. Roger Waters wrote all the lyrics and as he was only 22 at the time he must have been inspired. The words hold true today. Indeed, on The Division Bell tour 1995, DSOTM was played live in it’s entirety by a Waters-less Floyd. Refer to Pulse album/video. For me the live version was OK but ‘Money’ was still as awful as it was on Delicate Sound Of Thunder.
If your introduction to Floyd was with the Echoes compilation then you will already have 4 of the 10 titles. You will know what sound to expect and the style of lyrics. So why should you want to buy this 40 minute album. Well admittedly the 2 standout tracks on the album are Time and Money but the record is a concept album and as such should be listened to as a continuous piece. For me what Echoes doesn’t contain really should be owned. Brain Damage, Eclipse and Breathe have brilliant lyrics and Speak To Me (Written by Waters but credited to Mason for a birthday present) and On The Run are great sound montages. The overall sound fuses rock/soul/space rock and stereophonic confusion.
The album was mixed back in ’73 in stereo and quadraphonic, today it sounds awesome through surround sound as well as on headphones. The digitally remastered version really does sound far superior to the first CD releases. You can tell the difference between CDs as the original followed the original vinyl cover with its’ hollow prism and painted spectrum as opposed to the real photo with the intruding laser. For me the original vinyl package with its gatefold sleeve, posters and stickers was only bettered by Wish You Were Here (Floyd’s ’75 release) in the history of album sleeves. I’m showing my age here. The reason to make a fuss of the cover is that it has been described as “‘The World’s second most famous record sleeve”. Presumably The Beatles ‘Sgt Pepper…’ is the first.
The album is a superb Floyd juxtaposition with melancholy lyrics set to great bouncy or big (as in colossal sounding) tunes. I guess if I had to say that the Floyd had a trademark then that would be it. Anyway 30 million (2011 update: 45 million* approx) depressed customers can’t be wrong! If you like DSOTM then checkout Floyd’s Obscured By Clouds (1972) which was recorded and released between DSOTM sessions and Wish You Were Here.
Thanx for reading.
*How many times have we bought this LP? vinyl, tape, 8 track (that will throw some youngsters), analog cd, digital cd (20th anniversary), SACD (30th anniversary), vinyl (30th anniversary), 2011 remasters 1cd, 2cd, Immersion, vinyl again… bet I missed some format out to ! So that 45 million could work out to about 10 million. Am I being sceptical?… no it is still a 5 star lp but I can only give it 4 stars when placed along side other Floyd LPs.
Receiving this album through the door really did recreate that long-lost thrill of receiving a brand new vinyl LP. Compared to my old edition, the rainbow colours really stand out on the beautiful black sleeve. Inside, all the components of the original package are present and correct. The pyramid poster looks slightly more purple than my original which was more blue while some of the pictures on the group sleeve have been flipped to show that Dave and Roger are actually not left-handed guitarists, something that always bugged me about the original poster! In addition, there is a stunning new poster (by Storm Thorgerson?) which reproduces the sleeve design in swirly, psychedelic paints. A couple of clues on the sleeve tell you that this a new edition though. The sleeve was printed in the EU (rather than GB) while a sticker on the back refers to (takes a sharp intake of breath) a digital remaster. I know there will be lots of people who will take umbrage at this idea but the information on the sleeve that the album is also available in 8-track cartridge format may prove to be a red herring for analogue lovers.
So how does the all-important 180g slab of plastic sound on the wheel of steel? Pretty good actually. The vinyl itself is solid with little flex and there is no noticeable surface noise, clicks or pops. The album doesn’t sound too different from previous vinyl and CD versions I’ve heard but the one thing I have found is that it is noticeably easier to track the bass line while some of the keyboard sounds seem to emerge more from the mix. All the special effects (especially the clocks) still sound amazing and I couldn’t hear evidence of this being a digital transfer. I can’t really give a more considered assessment than that though not having heard a ‘holy grail’ pressing on a top end system but in the end it’s the music which counts. I leave others to quibble over the relative merits of all the different editions of this album but I am very happy with this purchase. The MP3 download code included with the album is a nice touch but does not include any of the extra material included in the expanded CD sets which is a shame. I would have at least liked the Empire Pool show without having to pay separately for it.