'A Piece for Assorted Lunatics'

36 years ago this week, Pink Floyd released The Dark Side of the Moon. Often considered the group's defining work, and a regular on Greatest Album lists, Dark Side spent over fourteen years on Billboard's list of the Top-200 best selling albums and is the 3rd highest selling album of all time in the USA.

That the album was a commercial success is undeniable. That the success was unintentional, however, is often overlooked. Perhaps more than any other rock act of the late-1960s and early-1970s, Pink Floyd maintained a focus on musical experimentation, working to their own sense of artistic credibility rather than to what might 'appeal' to a mass audience.

Dark Side kept to that vision. Dealing with birth, greed, violence, insanity and death, the album is an entire human life in the space of 42 minutes and 59 seconds. Songs were interspersed with snippets of dialogue taken from impromptu interviews with the band's road crew, adding an ethereal but also human element. And on a technological front, the album was recorded using some of the most advanced techniques of the time. It is one of the first albums to use quadraphonic surround sound systems, and features the rhythmic sequencing of numerous sound effects, such as clocks, money drawers and even a human heartbeat.

At a time when the current chart contained the likes of the Partridge Family, Little Jimmy Osmond and Olivia Newton John, Dark Side was as far removed from commercial as you could get. And yet the album was adopted by millions and became a cultural phenomenon, even expanding into other spheres. There is a well-known coincidence that when played simultaneously alongside the original 1939 film version of The Wizard of Oz, the music perfectly intertwines with the images on screen (what the hell was the guy on who first noticed that?!). The album even topped a poll for 'The Best Album To Have Sex To' (I'm yet to personally confirm that one).

In an era when record execs sit around in plush offices discussing what Sound and what Look the public should like next ("Let's bring back the 80s, because it wasn't shit enough the first time!"), it's good to remember a purer time when musical acts were given the freedom to work on their art without interference. Long may the current Indie scene carry that torch forwards.