the Dark Side of the Moon

The Dark Side of the Moon is the sixth studio album by English progressive rock group Pink Floyd. Released in March 1973, the concept built on the ideas that the band had explored in their live shows and previous recordings, but it lacks the extended instrumental excursions that characterised their work following the departure in 1968 of founding member, principal composer and lyricist, Syd Barrett. The album's themes include conflict, greed, aging, and mental illness, the latter partly inspired by Barrett's deteriorating mental state.

The album was developed as part of a forthcoming tour of live performances, and premièred several months before studio recording began. The new material was further refined during the tour, and was recorded in two sessions in 1972 and 1973 at Abbey Road Studios in London. Pink Floyd used some of the most advanced recording techniques of the time, including multitrack recording and tape loops. Analogue synthesisers were given prominence in several tracks, and a series of recorded interviews with staff and band personnel provided the source material for a range of philosophical quotations used throughout. Engineer Alan Parsons was directly responsible for some of the most notable sonic aspects of the album, including the non-lexical performance of Clare Torry.

The Dark Side of the Moon was an immediate success, topping the Billboard 200 for one week. It subsequently remained on the charts for 741 weeks (fourteen years), the longest duration of any album in history. With an estimated 45 million units 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 by several other acts. It spawned two singles, "Money" and "Us and Them". 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.

Pink Floyd were an English rock band who earned recognition for their psychedelic music in the late 1960s and, as they evolved in the 1970s, for their progressive rock music. Pink Floyd's work is marked by the use of philosophical lyrics, sonic experimentation, innovative album cover art, and elaborate live shows. One of rock music's most critically acclaimed and commercially successful acts, the group has sold over 200 million albums worldwide, including 74.5 million certified units in the United States.

Pink Floyd were formed in 1965, and originally consisted of university students Roger Waters, Nick Mason, Richard Wright, Syd Barrett, and briefly, Bob Klose. The group were a popular fixture on London's underground music scene, and under Barrett's leadership released two charting singles, "Arnold Layne" and "See Emily Play", and a commercially and critically successful album, The Piper at the Gates of Dawn. In 1968, guitarist and singer David Gilmour joined the line-up, and Barrett was removed due to his increasingly erratic behaviour. Following Barrett's departure, bass player and singer Roger Waters became the lyricist and dominant figure in the band, which thereafter achieved worldwide critical and commercial success with the concept albums The Dark Side of the Moon, Wish You Were Here, Animals, and rock opera The Wall.

Wright left the band in 1979, and Waters in 1985, but Gilmour and Mason (joined by Wright) continued recording and touring under the name Pink Floyd. Waters used legal means to try to keep them from using the name, declaring Pink Floyd a spent force, but the parties reached an out-of-court settlement allowing Gilmour, Mason and Wright to continue as Pink Floyd. The band again enjoyed worldwide success with A Momentary Lapse of Reason (1987) and The Division Bell (1994), and Waters continued as a solo musician, releasing three studio albums. Although for some years relations between Waters and the remaining three members were sour, the band reformed in 2005 for what would be a final one-off performance at Live 8.

Syd Barrett (6 January 1946 ? 7 July 2006), born Roger Keith Barrett, was an English singer, songwriter, guitarist and artist. He is most remembered as a founding member of psychedelic rock band Pink Floyd, providing major musical and stylistic direction in their early work, although he left the group in 1968 amidst speculations of mental illness as a consequence of, or exacerbated by, heavy drug use.

He was active as a rock musician for about seven years, recording two albums with Pink Floyd and two solo albums before going into self-imposed seclusion lasting more than thirty years. His post-rock band life was as an artist and a keen gardener, ending with his death in 2006. During his withdrawal from public life there were numerous works about him, most notably his former band Pink Floyd's 1975 album Wish You Were Here. A number of biographies have been written about him since the 1980s.

George Roger Waters (born 6 September 1943 in Great Bookham, Surrey) is an English rock musician. He is best known as the bass player, co-lead singer, principal lyricist, founding member, and one of the main songwriters in the rock band Pink Floyd. Waters became the primary lyrical contributor in Pink Floyd after the departure of fellow founding member Syd Barrett in January 1968, and sang lead vocals on at least one half of all Pink Floyd tracks during his tenure with the band.

Following his split with Pink Floyd, Waters began a solo career, releasing three studio albums, The Pros and Cons of Hitchhiking (1984), Radio K.A.O.S. (1987), and 1992's Amused to Death. In 1990, Waters staged one of the largest rock concerts ever, The Wall Concert in Berlin, on the vacant terrain between Potsdamer Platz and the Brandenburg Gate.

In 2005 he released the critically acclaimed opera, Ça Ira, which would go on to top the classical charts in America and Britain, as well as joining Nick Mason, Richard Wright and David Gilmour for a performance at the 2 July 2005 Live 8 concert in London's Hyde Park, Pink Floyd's first public performance with Waters in 24 years.

Waters has toured extensively as a solo act since 1999.

Richard William "Rick" Wright (28 July 1943 ? 15 September 2008) was an English pianist, keyboardist, vocalist and songwriter, best known for his career with Pink Floyd. Wright's richly textured keyboard layers were a vital ingredient and a distinctive characteristic of Pink Floyd's sound. Wright frequently sang background and occasionally lead vocals on stage and in the studio with Pink Floyd (most notably on the songs "Time", "Echoes", , on the Syd Barrett composition "Astronomy Domine" and on "Remember a Day").

Though not as prolific a songwriter as his bandmates Roger Waters and David Gilmour, he wrote significant parts of the music for classic albums such as Meddle, The Dark Side of the Moon and Wish You Were Here, as well as for Pink Floyd's final studio album The Division Bell.

Nicholas Berkeley "Nick" Mason (born 27 January 1944 in Edgbaston, Birmingham, England) is the drummer for Pink Floyd. He has been the only constant member of the band since its formation in 1964. He also competes in auto racing events, such as the 24 Hours of Le Mans. Despite the band's association with psychedelic drugs and the excesses of the sixties and seventies, Mason asserts that he remained largely drug and alcohol free, stating, "It would have been great to have been struck with drugs or drink or something really groovy, but I got stuck on cars."Discovery Channel Documentary, "World's Most Expensive Cars"

The son of the documentary film maker Bill Mason, he was born in Birmingham but brought up in Hampstead, London (many online biographies mistakenly cite the street address Downshire Hill ? sometimes as "the Downshire Hills" ? as a district of Birmingham) and attended Frensham Heights School, Surrey. He later studied at the Regent Street Polytechnic (now the University of Westminster), where he teamed up with Roger Waters, Bob Klose and Richard Wright in 1964 to form Pink Floyd's predecessor, Sigma 6.

David Jon Gilmour CBE (born 6 March 1946) is an English musician, best known as the guitarist, lead singer, and one of the main songwriters in the rock band Pink Floyd. In addition to his work with Pink Floyd, Gilmour has worked as a record producer for a variety of artists, and has enjoyed a successful career as a solo artist. Gilmour has been actively involved with many charity organisations over the course of his career. In 2003, he was appointed CBE for services to music and philanthropy and was awarded with Outstanding Contribution title at the 2008 Q Awards.Q Awards 2008 Outstanding Contribution