The Dark Side of the Moon

September 26, 2005
Harris (Britpop!
) provides a meticulous if rather circumscribed account of the talented people behind an enigmatic album that has sold so many copies (30 million) that, Harris notes, one British magazine speculated it was "virtually impossible that a moment went by without it being played somewhere on the planet." The author triumphs at using research and interviews with the Pink Floyd members to bring to life the dilemmas they faced while making the 1973 album, including the incapacitating mental illness of original leader Syd Barrett and the arrival of new member David Gilmour. Given Pink Floyd's dramatic, often challenging music and its undeniable air of mystery, the book also excels in humanizing the musicians through candid portrayals of their everyday highs and lows while The Dark Side of the Moon
evolved. But for all the wealth of perspective from those in and around the band regarding the album's creation, the book doesn't explain why Dark Side
has endured. With the album's poignant exploration of themes like insanity, human divisiveness and greed set to innovative sounds, Dark Side
's staggering (and continuing) sales are fascinating. As it stands, the book is richly detailed but hardly revelatory. 50 b&w photos.

November 1, 2005
Pink Floyd's 1973 signature album, " Dark Side of the Moon," receives book-length appreciation in Harris' retrospective. He newly interviewed the quartet who delivered the goods--Roger Waters, David Gilmour, Rick Wright, and Nick Mason--but starts with a chapter about long-lost lead Floyd and purported acid casualty Syd Barrett. No longer in the band when " Dark" " Side" was made, Barrett is widely rumored to have partaken in the composition and performance, corporeally or not. " Dark Side" is an evergreen album, and much of the book's appeal stems from having so much about the album in one convenient place, glazed with the patina of comprehensiveness conferred by Harris' new interviews. Hardware details, niceties of song structure, and obscure personal tidbits (Waters: "Syd's mother blamed me entirely for his illness") abound. Effective as a band history linked firmly to the times in which Pink Floyd flourished and as an appreciation of a classic record, Harris' book seems to be thorough. It probably won't be the last word on " Dark Side" , though. (Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2005, American Library Association.)