Dark Side of the Moon

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Those look like great suggestions Q, and W, thanks alot. I think I'll try Pro's and Con's of Hitchhiking, and either Lather (if I can find the dough) or The Yellow Shark, I'm definitely into orchestral rock. Godspeed You Black Emperor is awesome stuff, excellent orchestral rock.


Laj
 
laj35,

Pros and Cons can be difficult to listen to and is very demanding. KAOS is more rockin'. Both are concept albums. Amused To Death is a masterpiece. If it had the name Pink Floyd on it, it would be a top seller and compared to The Wall and Dark Side. The sound quality is very good. The sound effects are excellent.

But, his voice is in the best shape on Pros and Cons. It degrades with KAOS and can be even worse on Amused To Death. The loose concept in Amused To Death is that we are entertaining ourselves too much and in some ways losing humanity as a result. War and news as entertainment. The questioning of the global spread of capitolism around the world, "They got Pepsi in the Andes, they got MacDonalds in Tibet". The global influence of market forces (touched upon in KAOS) on people and their thought patterns. It also questions the idea that VCRs (now maybe DVDs) and bigger TVs will bring happiness. That the west has civilized the world through consumerism. Many adult themes here. Highly recommended. BTW, the monkey in the album is a metaphor for mankind. That appears as an obvious and easy way out but originally Waters was gonna use sound effects and dialog from 2001, A Space Oddessy to tie in with the monkey which would have worked well. At the last minute, Stanley Kubrick denied permission. Kubrick remembered Pink Floyd's comments that 2001 should have been soundtracked by them. I don't agree with that although the stargate sequence could have been Floydized nicely.
 
SBax man thanks for the hints, oh and funny you should meniton that Jupiter and the Infinite Beyond(I assume that's what you're talking aout) should have been done by floyd--because it might as well have been. Maybe none of you guys have heard this before but Echoes syncs perfectly with that sequence. Blows the doors off of Wizard of Oz in my opinion. In regards to how it's done: You need the third "ping" at the start of echoes to sound just as the words Jupiter:The Infinite Beyond flash OFF of the screen. So obviously you'll need to start the track while the previous stuff is going on (Dave is shuting HAL down). I've found it's best to push play right when the Dr., oh what the hell is his name, anyways the first "main" character, pauses. He says: "It's purpose and origin...this is the pause, push play...still a total mystery." and then the screen fades. It's not clear cut in sync until the real trippy stuff starts going on, I guess it's a time contiuim or something, and even gets better once he starts seeing himself age. Don't know if you puff, but you may want to make an exception here. Respond if you have any questions about the syncing, and make sure it's pretty much perfect.



Laj
 
No question DSOTM is one of the landmark popular recordings of all time. Still an incedible experiance every time I listen to it. One of the 60's rock gods, I think it was Pete Townsend (Sjoko2 might know this), was quoted as saying:
"Sergant Peppers was THE album of the 60's. In the 70"s everyone was trying to do THE album, but if anyone succeeded, it was Pink Floyd with Dark Side of The Moon".

Funny story, when The Wall came out, I was in college at the time. I heard that a local radio station had got an "advance copy" and were going to play the whole thing. I called up 3-4 friends who were huge Floyd heads, we listened to the whole album broadcast. At the end my friend the biggest Floyd fan was almost in tears, we all thought it was the biggest piece of shit we could imagine (we sent weeks doing little kids voices mimicing "hey leave us kids alone"). And of course it goes on and becomes their biggest seller.
Now with some distance of years I actually like The Wall, but still think DSOTM is a vastly superior work. Meddle would be my #2 album.

Always enjoyed Zappa too, especially Hot Rats, but not as much as Floyd.
 
Which makes you wonder.......... what happened to innovation and musicianship?
 
Yeah, and whatever happened to record companies allowing new artists to develop? Giving them 3 or 4 albums to work up to their full potential. Imagine the loss if EMI had said to Pink Floyd, (Sorry Boys, Atom Heart Mother isn't selling that much more than Ummagumma. Contract cancelled!"

Also, why is every highly talented child pushed into classical music? They usually burnout quickly anyway. Obviously, that method of education and guidance has problems. But they still continue the same way. Why? Why can't these special children be taught rock? I would really love to see some young potential Beethoven turn popular music around to a new era before I die. (Not that I'm close to dying, but time flies!)

I've been thinking about this for a few years now after reading a book by Edward Macan called Rocking the Classics:English Progressive Rock and the Counterculture. It is the best book on music I've ever read. He examines the music (Pink Floyd, Genesis, Yes, ELP) in detail and verifies the value and high musicianship in those bands. He questions the snobbery of the "classical music world". He gives historical examples and data on how the "high art" attitude with classical started only in the early 1900's. That classical is the only high art is still present in music education. In the 1700 and 1800's people would often jump up and shout their approval while a piece was playing. Now it's all serious with stiff people in the audience. He says that attitude was invented and the classical perpetuators are missing the importance of the strong and ultra importance of the link of the culture of the people at that time and the music of that time. AND, conversely, the link of the music and culture in the 70's. The author explains it much better than me of course but argues that the Progessive Rock era (late 60's to mid 70's) is just as valid as classical. Macan goes into great detail picking apart the key changes, lyrics, and modality of several rock pieces. Very good historic, cultural, and technical reading. (And he explains what Close To The Edge is about! I've been wondering for years!)

BTW, Macan has a Ph.D. in music and is not an ex-writer for Rolling Stone or Spin.

<Rant mode off>
 
innovation and musicianship doesn't seem to sell as many CDs....

so we have the Manufactured groups...

Queue
 
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