A Piece for Assorted Lunatics
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A Piece for Assorted Lunatics was the working title for perhaps the greatest album ever made in the history of Rock and Roll. Snippets of voices between and over the music are another notable feature of the album.
Roger “The Hat” Manifold talked about a violent encounter he had with another motorist, and Manifold replied “… give ’em a quick, short, sharp shock …” When asked about death he responded “live for today, gone tomorrow, that’s me …” Another roadie, Chris Adamson, who was on tour with Pink Floyd, recorded the explicit diatribe which opens the album: “I’ve been mad for fucking years—absolutely years”.
The band’s road manager Peter Watts (father of actress Naomi Watts)contributed the repeated laughter on the album. His second wife, Patricia ‘Puddie’ Watts (now Patricia Gleason), was responsible for the line about the “geezer” who was “cruisin’ for a bruisin'” and the words “I never said I was frightened of dying” heard near the end of side “A”. Perhaps the most notable responses “I am not frightened of dying. Any time will do: I don’t mind. Why should I be frightened of dying? There’s no reason for it — you’ve got to go sometime” and closing words “there is no dark side in the moon, really. As a matter of fact it’s all dark” came from the studios’ Irish doorman, Gerry O’Driscoll.
By now you must have guessed, “Dark Side of the Moon” by Pink Floyd.
The Dark Side of the Moon was an immediate success, topping the Billboard Top LPs & Tapes chart for one week. It subsequently remained in the charts for 741 weeks from 1973 to 1988, longer than any other album in history. With an estimated 50 million copies sold, it is Pink Floyd’s most commercially successful album and one of the best-selling albums worldwide. It has twice been remastered and re-released, and has been covered in its entirety by several other acts. It spawned two singles, “Money” and “Time”. In addition to its commercial success, The Dark Side of the Moon is one of Pink Floyd’s most popular albums among fans and critics, and is frequently ranked as one of the greatest rock albums of all time.
Released in March 1973. It built on ideas explored in the band’s earlier recordings and live shows, but lacks the extended instrumental excursions that characterized their work following the departure in 1968 of founder member, principal composer and lyricist, Syd Barrett. The Dark Side of the Moon‘s themes include conflict, greed, the passage of time and mental illness, the latter partly inspired by Barrett’s deteriorating mental state.
The Dark Side of the Moon became an instant chart success in Britain and throughout Western Europe; by the following month, it had gained a gold certification in the UK and US.Throughout March 1973 the band played the album as part of their US tour, including a midnight performance at Radio City Music Hall in New York on 17 March, watched by an audience of 6,000. Highlights included an aircraft launched from the back of the hall at the end of “On the Run”, which ‘crashed’ into the stage in a cloud of orange smoke. The album reached the Billboard Top LPs & Tapes chart’s number one spot on 28 April 1973, and was so successful that the band returned two months later for another tour.
The Dark Side of the Moon has become one of the best-selling albums of all time, (not counting compilations and various artists soundtracks), and is in the top 25 of a list of best-selling albums in the United States.Although it held the number one spot in the US for only a week, it remained in the Billboard album chart for 741 weeks. The album re-appeared on the Billboard charts with the introduction of the Top Pop Catalog Albums chart in May 1991, and has been a perennial feature since then. In the UK it is the sixth-best-selling album of all time.
On 4 June 1998 the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) certified the album 15× platinum, denoting sales of fifteen million in the United States—making it their biggest-selling work there (The Wall is 23× platinum, but as a double album this signifies sales of 11.5 million). “Money” has sold well as a single, and as with “Time”, remains a radio favourite; in the US, for the year ending 20 April 2005, “Time” was played on 13,723 occasions, and “Money” on 13,731 occasions. Industry sources suggest that worldwide sales of the album total about 50 million. “On a slow week” between 8,000 and 9,000 copies are sold, and a total of 400,000 were sold in 2002, making it the 200th-best-selling album of that year—nearly three decades after its initial release. According to a 2 August 2006 Wall Street Journal article, although the album was released in 1973, it has sold 7.7 million copies since 1991 in the US alone. To this day, it occupies a prominent spot on Billboard‘s Pop Catalogue Chart. It reached number one when the 2003 hybrid CD/SACD edition was released and sold 800,000 copies in the US. On the week of 5 May 2006 The Dark Side of the Moon achieved a combined total of 1,500 weeks on the Billboard 200 and Pop Catalogue charts. One in every fourteen people in the US under the age of 50 is estimated to own, or to have owned, a copy. To date, it is the most successful album in New Zealand, as a total, it had stayed in the charts for a total of 289 weeks, becoming RIANZ’s best-selling album of all time.
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Someone once asked me if I could have only one Pink Floyd album, which one it would be. Without hesitating, I said, “Meddle”.
I consider Dark Side of the Moon to be the beginning of Pink Floyd’s Pretentious Phase.