2021-04-28

Dark Site of the Moon Number 1 on Billboard in 1973

Pink Floyd Dark Side of the Moon album cover



    
Back when I was a sprout just graduating from high school thinking I was a man, the album Dark Side of the Moon was on the air waves in pre release.

    Telefunken Stereo
Now, I was not a fan of rock, alternative or otherwise at that time having been cultivated on the AM crap and recently graduated to the FM 'no static at all' world with the presence of daddy's excellent Telefunken stereo he brought back with him from a Med cruise on the Enterprise.

I tell you, I did not have any inkling as to the sound of quality before that time and I was a FM radio afficinado from then on.

It was a wonderful time musically in my life.

Anyway, the album by Pink Floyd is called "The Dark Side of the Moon" and I always dropped the 'The' for some reason. Despite this it was the origin of several of my most favorite musical pieces from that era, in particular 'Us and Them' which likely stemmed from my confrontational existence as the fat new kid with acne. Somehow navy parents fail to recognize that navy brats persecute and torture each other for any passing reason and it turns you hostile for the remainder of your life.

Such it was and is with me ... but yet again I digress.

The album was recorded at Abbey Road Studios and went to number one on the Billboard charts on this day in 1973. I would graduate high school a scant 33 days later.

The Dark Side of the Moon by Pink Floyd enjoyed a record-breaking 741-week chart run at a time when I followed Billboard, Casey Kasem, and the whole top 40 bullcrap popular to that era in my life.

Critically acclaimed, the album was one I never tired of hearing and to this day I maintain several copies of it; some audio some audiovisual. Declared "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant by the Library of Congress it appears in the United States National Recording Registry.

Suffice it to say that if I had a theme song it would likely come from that album. It has stood the test of a long time during my life.