The 50-year celebration of Dark Side of the Moon continues for Pink Floyd.
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Fans can experience 1973 hits like “Money” and “On the Run” in an entirely new — or old — way when Pink Floyd Records releases the new collector’s edition April 19 on crystal clear vinyl.
The limited edition 2-LP, 180g set of the classic album will feature UV artwork printed on the non-groove side. The famed rainbow prism spectrum will shine through the playable side of the vinyl, giving fans the picture disc ‘experience’ without sacrificing optimum sound quality.
The images are printed with a high-end UV printer. They use UV-Led light to dry the permanent ink on the sides without audio on which the image is printed. Fans can keep the record safe in a slip-cased gatefold sleeve, with an exclusive poster.
“Yeah baby! I was 15 when this album came out and I still own the original vinyl I bought back then,” one user wrote on X, formerly Twitter.
Re-Recording History
Ex-Pink Floyd member Roger Waters decided last year to strike out on his own. He recorded Dark Side of the Moon without his fellow bandmates; guitarist and vocalist David Gilmour and drummer Nick Mason.
“I wrote ‘The Dark Side of the Moon,’” Waters said in a February 2023 interview with The Telegraph. “Let’s get rid of all this ‘we’ crap.”
Waters is credited with writing all the lyrics to the 1973 album, in addition to composing three of its tracks on his own.
On his revised The Dark Side of the Moon, Waters recorded more spoken word poetry over some of the more instrumental tracks. His remixes of songs like “The Great Gig in the Sky,” “Speak To Me,” “On The Run,” “Money,” and “Any Colour You Like,” reflect the deeper message within the original collection of 10 songs.
Still Going Strong
The 10-track masterpiece enjoyed 14 straight years on the Billboard 200. The album regularly made appearances up to and in 2023, for a staggering total of 981 weeks on the charts.
A half-century after its release, Dark Side of the Moon has yet to fade from relevancy.
What’s more, Dark Side of the Moon has deftly skirted the much-maligned “dad rock” label. The Washington Post called it “a quintessential adolescent rite of passage,” passed down to generations “like a secret handshake… a heartbeat connecting one generation of kids struck dumb by doubt to the next.
(Photo by Michael Ochs Archives/Getty Images)
