An excellent review of DSoTM

An excellent review of ‘The Dark Side of the Moon’. :full_moon_with_face:

From the US Library of Congress:

Almost makes me want to listen to it again.

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In my humble opinion, it’s just about the most complete modern album out there still!

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I’ve listened to DSotM about 50 times over the last 50 years but that short essay just made me realise lots of things I didn’t understand previously about it.

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What a great review.

The album’s not bad either… :crazy_face: :smiley: :grimacing:

Interesting rather than great review for me.

Not hard to check that a certain Kraftwerk song absolutely pre-dates the Floyd one and definitely did not involve at least one of the mentioned instruments.

Equally the reason Torry received a credit was simply because she sued them.

Which one is that, out of curiosity?

Kraftwerk’s album Autobahn was released in Nov’ 74 -

PF’s DSOTM was released Nov’73 (so, one year earlier) -

The instruments used were not similar… :expressionless:

Now read up about when each song was written.

I’m not clear what point you’re trying to make but if you’re talking about “Autobahn”, the first known performance of it live was in Leverkusen, West Germany in April 1974, seven months prior to the release of the Autobahn album. I’ve got a tape of it and while it’s not quite the glorious 22-minute tone poem we all know and love, it’s pretty much there. It’s the textures and tone that need finessing.

Ralf, Florian and Emil Schult probably wrote it at the end of 1973 or early 1974, and recording commenced once the group had bought a Minimoog in February 1974, which they incorporated into their pre-existing gear and the equipment Konny Plank had.

Pink Floyd’s “On The Run”, meanwhile, was written at the very end of 1971 and was originally a funky guitar-based jam given the title “The Travel Sequence”. The Floyd didn’t think it went anywhere and sometime in the summer of 1972, while experimenting in the studio, Gilmour and/or Waters had the idea of using the synths they had laying around and the track we are all familiar with, based on an eight-note sequence was born (probably sometime between June 20 and 25). You can see Rog faffing about with the track in a staged sequence recorded by Adrian Maben at Abbey Road in January '73(?). By November 1972, “On The Run” was complete but the voices and some effects are missing (these were added in January 1973). However, the group had no way of playing it live so on stage they persisted with the guitar/keys jam through most of 1972.

While Ralf and Florian knew and were influenced by the music of Pink Floyd (especially early on), it is very unlikely that Pink Floyd knew Kraftwerk’s music, partly because they operated in a bubble and were primarily concerned with their own music; and partly because they all had pretty mainstream (dull?) tastes apart from Nick Mason. Waters famously didn’t listen to pop music at all at this time, unless it was his own, John Lennon, Neil Young or Bob Dylan’s, preferring the classics like Berlioz and Brahms.

Indeed, when the Floyd started recording Dark Side of the Moon, Kraftwerk had two albums out, Kraftwerk and Kraftwerk 2, which are nothing like the Kraftwerk we know from the mid 1970s onward (indeed, Ralf refuses to include the first three Kraftwerk albums in the canon – which is a great pity).

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@TheKevster - Excellent & very detailed musical research, on these 2 pieces… :slightly_smiling_face:

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