Stonies

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No one was ready for Dark Side of the Moon. Released in 1973, the album signaled that the '60s were over for good, and that rock's search for mind expansion was moribund in the face of ever more intellectualized progressive rock ({|Emerson, Lake and Palmer|}), ever more arch art rock ({|Roxy Music|}), and ever more sensitive singer-songwriters ({|Jackson Browne|}). Into this breach stepped a veteran '60s band, whose one-time leader, {|Syd Barrett|}, had disappeared into a psychedelic haze some years before. DSOTM was Pink Floyd redux, largely under the decisive ascension of {|Roger Waters|} as the group's leading creative force. While the record was more of a team effort than later Floyd works, it put into play many of Waters's cognitive concerns: personal anomie, social frigidity, and facelessness. But unlike those later albums, Dark Side burns with hope and the sound of humanity. Maybe it's the spaciousness of the production (few groups have ever achieved the Floyd's reverberating vivacity) or the grounding touches (those massive Hammond swells, that saxophone). But there's also a hint of optimism in the band's everyman vocals, from the outraged consumer in "Money" to the beatific promise inherent in the closing suite of "Brain Damage" and "Eclipse."