Customer Reviews

The Dark Side of the Moon: The Making of the Pink Floyd Masterpiece

5 star:		(3)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(3)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

Like most kids of the latter 1960s and early 1970s I grew up listening to Pink Floyd, Led Zeppelin, Deep Purple, Black Sabbath, and others when I wanted to be "cool." That was more often than I like to admit now, however; and I also went to the concerts, got stoned there (if only from the second-hand smoke wafting through the halls), and tried to act like I understood what the bands were trying to communicate. On the other hand, I was never as much of a fan of these groups and their style of music as some of my friends, but I had all of their albums and listened to them regularly, including "The Dark Side of the Moon." This book tells about the making of this extraordinary album and a little about its significance since its release more than three decades ago.

Of course, the remarkable thing about "The Dark Side of the Moon" is its popularity over such a long time, since it is a complex concept album dealing with greed and insanity and very much anchored to its time and place. I haven't listened to it in years, but had to do so after reading this book. That may be the greatest compliment I can pay to this book, for John Harris's work, unfortunately, is very much once over lightly and both Pink Floyd as a band and their classic album deserve better. There are some fascinating interviews that interlace the book, a good biographical appendix of what happened to the people associated with the album, and a set of photos that are interesting, but as a whole this is a book for fans of the album. As such it is worthwhile. For those seeking a serious consideration of the place of "The Dark Side of the Moon" in American culture they will want to read "Speak To Me: The Legacy Of Pink Floyd's The Dark Side Of The Moon," edited by Russell Reising, released in March 2006 from Ashgate Publishing.

Taken from the premise that this book will likely just be picked up by fans who already know much of the Floyd story, I'm puzzled about what the author was trying to achieve. There's no real revelations here, nothing that hasn't been said or published before. In fact, looking at the sources he draws from, it's primarily a collection of previously published works and even a few DVD's! My - what strenuous research Mr. Harris must have done.

Unless you're completely new to the material, this book will do very little to help further your knowledge of the subject. It appears the author just cobbled together a bunch of already known facts and anicdotes in an attempt to make a few bucks off a great creative work that has stood the test of time. Save your money.

I'm very baffled by the negative reviews below. One fellow seems irritated that Harris doesn't like certain albums as much as he does, and another mistakedly states that there's nothing new in this book, which couldn't be further from the truth. John Harris' "Dark Side.." is bursting with previously unpublished photos, and the bulk of the quotes from the band are exclusive to the book, from interviews conducted in 2003. Further, it's the most clear and succinct account of the creation of this album I've ever read, and I've read every book about Floyd. Harris places the album in context with the band's orgins expertly, and I left with an even clearer understanding of how it all fits together. Any Floydian will dig this.

I've always been a little ambivalent regarding Pink Floyd--loved the Syd Barrett years, found Roger Water's increasing megalomania stifling post 1975, and was rather in between about everything in between. Left on my own, I've always liked "The Dark Side of the Moon," but found myself tuning out when harangued on its merits by the true believers.

So John Harris's book was a minor revelation to me. In my estimation, Harris strikes the right balance, providing just enough of the band's earlier history to give meaning to his discussion of the making of the album without reinventing the wall, as it were. His discussions of the dynamics of all the personalities involved--band members, engineers, management, record industry suits, even their audience--is acute and well-observed. Particularly insightful was his comparison of the album to "John Lennon/Plastic Ono Band," a connection I never would have made.

Harris demonstrates an unparalleled understanding of the band, their work, and their world; more important, he's able to convey that understanding to his readers. It's simply a fine piece of writing and reportage.

I never write reviews, but the current ones for this book as of this writing are so insulting to me that I feel compeled.

One reviewer gives one star because it relates nothing new. But, as another review stated, this book contains exlusive interviews from '03 as well as unpublished photos. In any case, if you know the story so well why are you reading a book about it?

Another review has felt it necessary to write an huge tome of words describing his feelings. Like anyone will read it after taking a glance at its towering size. Paragraphs anyone?

And then there is Mr. Carlberg. I suspect a man who reviewed the book Crimes Against Logic would have more sense (but then again he did also give The Wall a 1 star rating). He scoffes "Yeah, right" at the statement that DSoM is "one of the most beloved albums of all time," even though it spent 741 weeks on Billboard.

Carlberg seems to refute the book for the author's opinion by claiming his own is more correct. There is no doubt the difference between objective analysis and subjective personal views is a mystery to him, but when you are busy writing nearly 400 reviews who has time for that nonsense?

Less a review and more a rant, I hope this compels you read the book and make your own judgements.

This is the story behind one of the great albums of all time and certainly one of my favourites.

Harris takes us from the origins of the band and the influence of Syd Barrett through to the production of the classic album that was almost called Eclipse. It is worthy but does read a little like a thesis, about the influences that drove the eventual album and it's contents, but then also one could also argue that any band of that age were evolving and Dark Side was when it first all came together.

It has some interesting moments and facts but is a little dry and clinical. Perhaps such a classic as DSOTM deserved a little better, but then it is quite hard to write a book on just one album I suppose.

John Harris' THE DARK SIDE OF THE MOON: THE MAKING OF THE PINK FLOYD MASTERPIECE is a must for any Pink Floyd fan; even those already well aware of the power of the album. The album remained on the Billboard charts for over seven hundred weeks and has sold some thirty million copies around the world - and continues to sell thousands yearly. Here journalist John Harris reveals the album's underlying foundations, the band's stormy history, and uses original interviews with band bassist and lyricist Roger Waters, guitarist Nick Mason and more to add authoritative insights. Just as you wouldn't be without DARK SIDE OF THE MOON - you shouldn't be without this survey of the making of the masterpiece itself.

This book is a rush-job, slacker book, written by a clever, sometimes funny guy with an above average I.Q., who relies on a too few sources, gives us too much of his own worthless opinions, and really didn't ask any of the right questions when he interviewed Roger Waters or David G. First of all, if you're going to write a book about the Dark Side of the Moon, he should have specifically asked Roger Waters, what inspired him to write the lyrics for each song. (Where was Roger? What was he thinking about, reading about, looking at--when the song lyrics occurred to him. What movies was he watching?) This author doesn't. He should have had a list of the songs with the lyrics in front of him, when he interviewed Roger, and made Roger talk for at least twenty minutes on the original genisis of the lyrics for each song. You get it for one sentence or two in "Echoes," where Roger Waters tells us how inspiration hit him--but the book doesn't include much info that the proper follow up questions could have provided about some of the gorgeous lyrics in the song ("Coral caves..."). In the book you get stories about how the songs themselves evolved after they were written--basically the author gives you a bunch of useless descriptive verbiage of bootleg tapes he's heard--and you get a whole bunch of useless drivel about what 60ish Roger presently thinks they mean now, but you don't get the actual genesis of the song. Let me give you an example. I know that John Lennon wrote the first line of I am the Walrus on an acid trip. The second line one week later on another acid trip. I know that he had also watched Alice in Wonderland and thought of the Walrus as this big industrialist, etc... I know Paul wrote "Here There and Everywhere" while sitting poolside, on a warm sunny day, while John was smoking one, next to him, and Paul was feeling wonderful. I have no idea where the lyrics "Home, Home again..." comes from. What did Roger Waters do that day? What was he coming home from? What had made him tired? Was there an actual favorite couch and a fire and a cozy house and a churchbell in the neighborhood? I'd love to know. I don't. In this book, which is supposed to be about the Dark Side Album, and only sort of kind of is--it's actually a biography of the Floyd, the joker who wrote it tells me all kinds of theoretical crap about the songs on the album, that involve Marxism, socialism, everything else--stuff I don't care about. (I'm grateful he tells us a little--very little--about what Waters was thinking about when he wrote Time.) I want to know about the moment lightning struck. I don't want to know about what a 60 year old Roger Waters or Dave Gilmore think about a song--whether it's held up or not, whether they like it or not. I want to know what was in their twenty something year old heads when they wrote it. Gawd there is so much crap in this book. The author puts down songs by Richard Wright, like "It would be so nice"--he likens it to a Hollies piece of fluff and dismisses it with some brief, arrogant writing. He's friggen out of his mind. "It would be so nice!" is a fantastic song. I can't think of anyone I knew in my music listening heyday (who all had tons of floyd albums) that didn't LOVE that song. It's perfect to listen to when you are having some kind of peak experience. It's magic, it's ecstasy. It'll cheer you up if you feel blah. So what if it wasn't a hit? Hemingway's books often didn't make the top ten lists, and everyone is still reading them. There are going to be nineteen year olds listening to that song in a century from now, enjoying it. The author of this silly little book also does things like dismiss "Several Species grooving on a pict" as nothing but a failed little attempt at humor by Roger. The author is out of his mind. It IS funny and more importantly it's also an interesting journey into something very primeval. Something very dark and subconscious. I'd love to hear Roger tell us about the cave. Tell us the genesis of that song. Wouldn't it be great to hear Roger tell you about the "pict." To dismiss it as casually as the author does, makes me think he's got the MTV attention span of a gnat, and the depth of Brittany Spears. There are so many fun, early songs dismissed in this book, like "Point me at the sky" that you really learn nothing about. I don't know why the author feels the need to ultimately put down such good music. I don't understand why he thinks he knows something we don't? I'm not sure why he puts such weight on his own musical opinions. Who cares what he thinks? I'd love to know where David Gilmore was and what he was thinking about when he wrote Grantchester Meadows. Was he sitting in a meadow with an acoustic guitar, when the muse came to him? The author actually wasted time in this book on verbiage by the Floyd where they express why they think the album is so successful. What a waste of time! I can come up with better explanations than they do. I'd much rather the author had asked Nick Mason where he got the inspiration for the beautiful flutes in the "Grand Viziers Garden Party"--what the story behind the song is (which the author puts down in this book). Much of this book is another retelling of the Floyd story, and as with every other book on the floyd, it is completely devoid of detail. I can't tell you how many times I've read about the fabled UFO club. But I still don't know was it in an old building, a new building, did it seat 400 people? Did 1000 dance there? Who actually came and went there. Were there gargoyles on the outside of the building. Was it a warehouse? What did the people look like who went there? I can describe the Beatles Cavern club, the smell of it, down to the last detail--I've seen architectural drawings. Lordallmighty I'm really sick of these piddly little Floyd books. (This one gives you about two sentences of Beatle Paul McCartney unespectedly coming to see the Floyd. It tells you that Paul and Roger shared a joint. OK, so was Paul a Pink Floyd fan? Did he like Syd Barrett? Did Roger defecate in his pants when Paul walked up? Did they talk about songs? Did they pick up an acoustic guitar and sing together? What the heck happened?) Pink Floyd is one of the top five selling bands of all time and all we, the fans get, are these mini-slacker books, by authors who can't write their way out of a paper bag, judge songs by how much they sold, don't have any of the musical sensibilities to write about pre-1973 art-rock or progressive rock, and couldn't write a descriptive paragraph using concrete detail if you paid them one hundred dollars a word. Elvis gets book(s) that go well over 600 dense, single-spaced pages. So do the Beatles. With the Beatles you get a veritable hundred course gourmet feast of reading materials that you can heap on your plate. We Floyd fans get these plastic containers of ramen noodles.

John Harris is not shy about his feelings for DSotM. The back cover of this book states "Pink Floyd's 'Dark Side of the Moon' (1973) is one of the most beloved albums of all time. A sonically stunning exploration into dark themes... Besides being perhaps the most fully realized and elegant concept album ever recorded, 'The Dark Side of the Moon' [sic] was also one of the most technologically advanced LPs of its day."

Yeah, right.

Questionable hyperbole aside, Harris starts the book with the by-now familiar story of The Pink Floyd Sound, Syd Barrett, early psychedelia, quick success, Syd's decline and the band's decision to carry on without him. It's an interesting story, and many books and articles have mined it for dramatic appeal.

For me, what happened next is the most interesting part -- the band throws out the pop song format and begins turning music inside out, experimenting with long drones, alternate playing techniques, and new music structures never before seen on this planet. Their incredible inventiveness creates a whole new style of music, with a ripple effect on everything that follows. Unfortunately, Harris is less enamored of "Saucerful," "More," "Ummagumma," "Atom Heart," "Meddle" and "Obscured" than I am, dismissing them rather cavalierly as "poorly realized, loose-ended stuff" that "sought, in their own ill-advised way, to test both their audience's expectations and the limits of musical orthodoxy."

Apparently musical orthodoxy is very important to author Harris, because he gets all gushy when he gets to Chapter 3 and starts relating stories of the creation of DSotM. For those of us who LOVED the unorthodoxy and limits-testing, DSotM was a huge disappointment from day one, the episode where Pink Floyd "jumped the shark" (to use a TV metaphor), sold out and started playing to the lowest common denominator. It was also the undeniable beginning of the end, where PF got so famous that they became prisoners of their own success. Instead of musicians, they became commodities. They all went off and bought mansions and were miserable.

To Harris this is all fine. DSotM is his favorite album in the whole world and he gathers all available material about the creation of this album. It's a fine story as far as it goes; and Harris does a credible job of telling it; and Floyd fans will enjoy the retelling.

I just wish John Harris knew the Pink Floyd I knew and loved.