Gallery: Dark Side of the Moon Initiates Pink Floyd Immersion
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Pink Floyd ambitiously pioneered multimedia music in the 1960s and '70s, especially on its prismatic concept-album classic, *Dark Side of the Moon*, reissued Monday in dual archival box sets. Want your own? Enter below to win a Pink Floyd prize pack, featuring a signed box set from drummer Nick Mason. *Image courtesy Storm Thorgerson*
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The philosophical *Dark Side of the Moon* found Pink Floyd, seen above goofing around in the '70s, at the peak of its creative power and personal amicability. But by the end of the decade, increasing creative and business conflict would find its members forever separated after being unable to share a collective vision. *Image courtesy Hipgnosis*
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In the '70s, Pink Floyd dug deep to deliver brainy sonic and thematic explorations in *Dark Side of the Moon*, and subsequently immersive concept albums like *Wish You Were Here*, *Animals* and *The Wall*. *Image courtesy Jill Furmanovsky*
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Pink Floyd drummer Nick Mason, seen here punishing skins in the '70s, told Wired.com that EMI's exhaustive reissue campaign "seems like an exercise that is worthwhile." *Image courtesy Jill Furmanovsky*
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Included in the *Dark Side of the Moon*'s six-disc Immersion box set, released Monday: The remastered original, a previously unreleased 1974 live performance of the entire album at London's Empire Pool, an audio DVD including three mixes of the album, over 100 minutes of audiovisual material, including live versions of several classic tracks ("Careful With That Axe, Eugene," "Set the Controls for the Heart of the Sun"), a 2003 documentary on the album's creation, short films -- directed by Peter Medak (*The Ruling Class*) -- used for Pink Floyd's mind-wiping 1974 and 1975 tours, previously unreleased audio including early 1972 mixes supervised by producer Alan Parsons, and "The Hard Way" -- a found-object instrumental from the Floyd's notorious "Household Objects" phase. Other geek-friendly content offered in the Immersion box includes a 36-page booklet, scarf and print designed by longtime Floyd artist and friend Storm Thorgerson, a photo book edited by Jill Furmanovsky, tour ticket and backstage pass replicas, as well as passable ephemera like marbles and coasters. (What, no kitchen sink?)
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*Dark Side of the Moon*'s two-disc Experience edition, also released Monday, slims the Immersion package down to the remastered original and the previously unreleased 1974 live performance of the entire album at London's Empire Pool.
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EMI's Discovery box set, released Monday, features Pink Floyd's 14 studio albums digitally remastered by *The Wall* co-producer James Guthrie, including the great (*Dark Side of the Moon*, *Wish You Were Here*, *The Wall*, *Piper at the Gates of Dawn*), the good (*Animals*, *Meddle*, *A Saucerful of Secrets*, *Momentary Lapse of Reason*), and the not-great (*Ummagumma*, *The Division Bell*, *The Final Cut*). All now sport new packaging and corresponding booklets designed by the band’s longtime artist Storm Thorgerson, who also cranked out a 60-page art book as a chaser.
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N00bs buying *The Best of Pink Floyd* (above), out Nov. 8, might be better served by songs other than *The Final Cut*'s "The Fletcher Memorial Home" and *The Wall*'s "The Happiest Days of Our Lives." Floyd scholars might wonder why more worthy tunes like "Interstellar Overdrive," "Lucifer Sam," "Run Like Hell" or "One of These Days" got stuck on the cutting-room floor.
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EMI's "Why Pink Floyd" promotional video offers 18 minutes of evidently much-needed informative backstory on one of rock's towering influential bands. It's an easy sell for the band's considerable legacy, but could be a harder one for the label's exhaustive reissue campaign.
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Under the early leadership of tragic visionary Syd Barrett -- here pounding out the trip-pop epic "Interstellar Overdrive" with Waters (above), Mason and Wright in Peter Whitehead's cult 1967 documentary *Tonite Lets All Make Love in London* -- Pink Floyd helped transform the '60s into a surreal sensorium. Whitehead's cinematic capture features one of the band's most hypnotic performances of the influential tune, one of the first psychedelic rock improvisations in history, currently available in the public record. It laid down the viral foundation for everything from psychedelia, prog and post-rock to goth-rock, trip-hop and ambient, and has since been covered by bands like the Mars Volta, Pearl Jam, the Melvins and many more. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3LvkjqkAgsE
