Money! It’s a shame

Pink Floyd: Dark Side of the Moon

I first heard Dark Side of the Moon when I was nine years old. I kinda dug it, then, since rock and roll to me at that point was Bryan Adams and Meat Loaf. It had a bit more substance to it. I cannot deny that Dark Side is a substantial album. It has all these themes and ideas and the band has lots of talent and ability. That it’s pompous bullshit I could probably live with, if it weren’t also so boring and obnoxious. Over the years, I’ve heard Dark Side of the Moon frequently, it being one of those albums that is just unavoidable. In the kitchen at McDonald’s, people would play it. On the stereo system at Future Shop, people would play it. On the portable stereo in the cloning laboratory, this one douchebag would play it every single day. The more I’ve heard it, the more obnoxious it has come to feel to me (especially that month of hearing it at six in the morning every day). “Money” in particular irks me. What a scathing indictment of capitalism, biggest selling album of all time.

All that lugubrious seventies guitar, and all the lugubrious opinions that I must be dim for not enjoying it, that my only possible reason for disliking it is that I don’t appreciate the finer things or that I’m just saying it to be hip, as if that makes any sense. No, no, no, I’m sorry, but when I put this on it’s just forty-two minutes of boredom and frustration with only that one fine moment near the end of “Brain Damage” when it all swoons and they sing ‘I’ll see you on the dark side of the moon.’

But they won’t, no, I’m afraid not. Maybe another fifteen years of hearing this album incessantly will change my views on it, but it seems unlikely at this point.

As for the Wizard of Oz thing, I remember in grade two or three putting a New Kids on the Block tape on while watching Saved by the Bell or something and it BLEW MY MIND.

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~ by jshopa on November 18, 2008.