This Sunday (3/10) at 4:20pm on Rock 102 hear the entire album tracked without interruption!

In 1972 Pink Floyd was still pushing the boundaries. They shot the film ‘Live at Pompei’ in a Roman amphitheatre, recorded another movie soundtrack for Schroder -Obscured by Clouds – and performed with the Ballet de Marseille. But more importantly, they began to work on an idea that would become their most popular album and with 45 million sold, the world’s third biggest.

Pink Floyd – ‘Brain Damage’ (from Live At Pompeii)

Provisionally entitled ‘Eclipse’ and honed through an extensive world tour, The Dark Side of the Moon was released in March 1973, and defies a potted critique here. Demonstrating Waters’ talents as both lyricist and conceptualist, it was also a musical tour de force by Gilmour. But Waters was becoming de facto leader of the band – which in public at least was becoming less about the individuals than the pinkfloyd.com experience.

That was (as Barrett had always intended) increasingly visual. The intriguing sleeve artwork commissioned from the ex-Cambridge outfit Hipgnosis was complemented by stage shows featuring crashing aeroplanes, circular projection screens and flaming gongs.

There were backing singers on-stage and a guest slot for another pal from Cambridge, the saxophonist Dick Parry. In the dawning age of stadium rock, the Floyd were truly its masters.

Or maybe its servants? Even before Dark Side broke Middle America through FM radio – with the single ‘Money’ – alienation, isolation and mental fragility had long been Waters’ themes. As a stadium performer, and a cog in the music business machine, he was becoming more prone to all three.

Pink Floyd – ‘Us And Them’ (from Live At Pompeii)

Get more at http://www.pinkfloyd.com