Whaaat? A post??

I've been listening to (and analysing) Pink Floyd's Dark Side of the Moon. It's a surprisingly good album, and it's given me a renewed respect for Roger Waters (and Alan Parsons).

It's an interesting piece of work, mostly because of the depth of the themes it explores. It's pretty dark, when you look at it, living up to the title. The ideas it presents strike me as rather existentialist, though: Time seems to be an angst-ridden piece lashing out against the inevitability of old age and death. Breathe (Breathe in the Air) is less dismal, but carries a very existential message:

Long you live, and high you fly

Smiles you give and tears you cry

All you touch and all you see

Is all your life will ever be

I think this is a pretty nice summary of the concept of non-duality, one of the most central concepts to existentialism. Other themes in the album include the absurdity of money and a general lack of anything special in the world.

Of course, maybe I'm looking into it too deeply. It's not often that you see an album that's worth this sort of analysis, though.

From an auditory perspective, Dark Side of the Moon is absolutely brilliant. It's one of the first works to use sounds from real life in a musical context, and the juxtaposition against electronic sounds is intriguing. Time uses a flurry of chiming clocks in its intro, while Money uses the sounds of old-style manual cash registers to provide its beat. It's really heavy on instrumental parts, too, with most of the tracks going for over two minutes without any lyrics. The balance between the instruments and the singing is expertly done, giving it a similar feel to 2001: A Space Odyssey, with its notable deficit of dialogue.

Also neat is a recurring heartbeat motif, giving the album a sort of driving pulse of its own. You need something with good bass response to really notice it, though.

So, it's one of my favorite albums now. It's a classic, so you can get it on iTunes Plus for $10. Better yet, go down to your local swap meet and keep an eye out for the LP - since that's what it was originally mastered for, it has a different sort of character from the digital version. It was pretty popular in its time, so you can probably find it for just a buck.