On The Dark Side Of The Moon There's A Pot Of Gold

37 years ago - April 28, 1973 - Pink Floyd's Dark Side of the Moon reached number one on Billboard's Top 100 record chart. It held the position for a week. The album was released in North America March 10, 1973 and this began what would become the longest stay on Billboard's Top 200 chart in popular music history. Dark Side of the Moon remained on the chart for 741 weeks. Do the math. That's over fourteen years. Plus, it has sold over 20 million copies, which puts it in the pantheon of best-selling albums of all time. That's almost one copy for every adult in Canada.

The single "Money" was the catalyst to push the album over the top. It is in 7/4 time, which itself is odd for a hit song. The grand majority of pop hits are written in 4/4 time. The opening cash register and money clinking sounds are also in 7/4 and it's one of the first instances of a tape loop being used in a hit song, or in pop music for that matter. The band used the tempo of the tape loop as a kind of "click track" to ensure the music was in time with the non-musical sounds.

The release of "Money" broadened Pink Floyd's audience to North America and, as a result, British progressive rock became popular on a grand scale. Pink Floyd helped solidify the use of extended song forms, electronic sounds, and tape manipulation and the album is dominated by lyrical themes of insecurity, fear, and the sterility of modern life.

The entire project was carefully crafted from start to finish. Hipgnosis designed the album and the band was hands-on through the entire process. Hipgnosis was responsible for virtually every Floyd album through Animals, but DSOTM was in a lot ways, their crowning achievement. The cover was gatefold, which means it opened up like a book, and it was designed to lay flat in order to display the rainbow/prism. This allowed a "chaining" of covers that created a continuous line of rainbows and prisms. A clever marketing idea used in more than one record store to promote the album. Included inside the album jacket were two posters and two stickers that continued the theme. Even the label was special and did not use the logos from either Capitol Records or Harvest Records.

Incredibly, DSOTM was not Pink Floyd's best-selling album. It's notoriety comes from chart longevity and influence. The Wall, released in 1979, out-sold Dark Side, putting the Floyd in an even smaller group of artists that have more than one album on the best-selling-of-all-time list. The album was recorded in Abbey Road Studios and carrying the engineering tasks was Alan Parsons, who would later form the Alan Parsons Project. Parsons won a Grammy Award for his engineering on Dark Side and would go on to credit part of his success to the album.

Even after 37 years, Dark Side of the Moon remains one of the most popular albums ever. It still sounds new and fresh, and its ever-changing textures and styles really do create a world of their own.

So, in honour of this monumental album, turn on the black light, fire up your audio reproduction device of choice, sit back, and dig the Floyd.

The Juno Awards: Oh What A Feeling

The Juno Awards, the venerable annual celebration of Canadian music excellence (?), was held April 18 in St. John's, Newfoundland. CTV broadcast the awards, not live for us west coasters, and this year marks the 39th anniversary of the awards and the 35th anniversary of the broadcast. I know! 39!

It has taken time for the Junos to be accepted. Throughout the years, the Junos suffered criticism and ambivalence from the very industry they were designed to celebrate. Admittedly "Mickey Mouse" shows were televised in the beginning and things were so bad that Anne Murray spurned the awards and Stompin' Tom Connors, as well, had his issues. He thought the Canadian music industry had become too "Americanized" and returned all of his Junos in protest.

Over the past ten years or so, the Juno Awards has gotten increasingly more like its American counterpart, the Grammy Awards. The show is slicker, louder, more performance oriented, and the awards have evolved into something Canadian artists actually consider worthwhile. Winning a Juno helps increase an artist's record and concert ticket sales, and CARAS (Canadian Academy of Recording Arts and Sciences) annually releases a compilation CD of the winning songs, which helps expose the music to new audiences.

For the most part, I enjoyed this year's show. It was refreshing to see indie bands like Great Lake Swimmers and Metric perform, instead of the usual Nickelback pyrotechnics. Great performances by Billy Talent and Michael Bublé too. However, the "Juno on George" segments could have been improved. Aside from showing us how many people had crowded on to George Street (St. John's famous music street and something they do every weekend) and subjecting us to horribly wooden hosts, these segments were much ado about nothing. How about outside performances on George? Nope. Thumbs down for this. And I wasn't crazy about the decision to use musicians and bands as hosts instead of a single host for the entire show. Musicians are not always good at the TV thing. Bring back Russell Peters. At least he's funny.

And I learned something. Myles Goodwin is kind of a dick.

Elvis In Mexico, Jimmy Buffett Too!

Oye como va. Last week I was in Mexico. The planets aligned and gave me the opportunity to take a vacation in Bucerias, which is northwest of Puerto Vallarta. I was part of a large group and we stayed at an all-inclusive resort. We were fed commercialized Mexican culture and free booze. A good time was had by all.

Luckily, I managed to hear some Mexican bands. At the resort first was a guitar trio with a female singer that played pop tunes like "Margaritaville" and "Brown Eyed Girl" with phonetic pronunciations of the English lyrics: "Jour my brown-eyed girl," even the sha-la-las were "Spanish." They resembled the type of band that playing weddings thirty years ago. They threw in the odd Latin American song, but mostly played crappy old pop standards. "Beer Barrel Polka" and "Achey Breaky Heart." Ack.

Next, a midday trip to the Bucerias market led to lunch at a restaurant appropriately called La Cucaracha. There I met a duo called Pamed that, like the previous group, played a mix of Latin American songs and American pop. They asked me to sit in and once we got past the language barrier and figured out that "Tears In Heaven" was a good choice, we launched into a smooth, loungey version. Very cool. Next we played "Black Magic Woman" with a screaming guitar solo complete with beer bottle slide guitar.

Pamed is two brothers, Cesar sings and Charley plays lead and fills. They use backing tracks, and for some reason that I never found out, Charley plays a five-string guitar. His guitar is missing the A string, so he never played any chords, just single lines under the vocals, some fills, and the solos. He pulled off a great solo in "Black Magic Woman," notwithstanding his five strings. We finished off our little set with "Proud Mary," complete with a weird introduction that sounded like they didn't know what the real intro was so they made it up. Charley pulled off a behind-the-head-Hendrix-style solo too. It was great. Trans-cultural exchange at its finest.

The next group was a mariachi band at the resort. Very cool sound, but the group looked old and tired. I wondered how many times they had played their tunes, which were mostly very recognizable Latin standards. "Guantanamera" has to get old after you play it 500 times. Having said that, it's no different than me singing "Take It Easy," which I did around 2500 times. Still, they gave the touristas what they wanted, me included. I thought they were great. 

The last group was in a restaurant called Pipi's in Puerto Vallarta. A trio of guitar, bass, and accordion played pretty much whatever you wanted for 70 pesos. Such a deal. Our table was serenaded with "Blue Suede Shoes," entirely apropos for a Mexican restaurant. Great, I thought, come all the way to Mexico to hear Elvis played badly by a Mexican trio. "Margaritaville" was a fave of this little group too, although they couldn't bring themselves to sing "And I know, it's my own damn fault," instead they sang "And I know, it's my own darn fault." So funny.

I did enjoy the music I heard while in Mexico. Throughout the resort the various bars played a mix of classic rock, 70's disco, and current Latin pop stuff, the latter being the most enjoyable. I also found it interesting how pop music has become so international. Latin pop is identical to its English counterpart, language being the only real noticeable exception. I heard Spanish versions of Bon Jovi and Avril Lavigne alongside Latin pop superstars.

Music truly is the international language, but pop music is the international money maker.

Livin' the vida loca!

A New Model For The Recording Industry: No More EMI?

EMI is in trouble. The venerable home of The Beatles and Pink Floyd is in dire financial straits, so dire that if the problem is not solved by June it's possible EMI will be bankrupt, broken apart, and pieces of its cadaver sold off to pay its debts. Oh the humanity!

How did the once powerful and influential label get into this situation? Is it the fault of the downloaders? Is it because the private equity owners had no idea about the music business? Was it bad choices by the A&R staff who could not discover anything that would sell? Was it bad marketing? Was it losing Paul McCartney to Columbia in the 1980s? Was it Vanilla Ice?

The answers to these questions would take more time and space than I have available and frankly, I don't know the answers, but they are worth pondering (except maybe the Vanilla Ice one). I have a soft spot for EMI or Capitol Records as they are better known in North America. They are and were the label of The Beatles and Wings. EMI is one of the original record companies in the world, along with Germany's Deutsche Grammophone and RCA Victor in the US. Coincidentally, EMI owns the rights to the iconic "His Master's Voice" label that RCA uses in North America. The Capitol Records building in Los Angeles is as recognizable as the Eiffel Tower. EMI owns Abbey Road studios, that's almost enough right there.

I sincerely hope EMI is saved from disaster. It would be a shame for one of the oldest and influential record companies in the world to slide into recorded music history. If it wasn't for EMI we might not have The Beatles or Pink Floyd or Bob Seger or Anne Murray or The Beach Boys or The Barenaked Ladies, I could on. And who knows the fate of its archive and its current artists if it goes bankrupt? I know the artists that are selling will survive on other labels, it's the marginal or niche artists that will suffer. The archives will most likely vanish into oblivion except for the choice few songs or albums that will manage to be scarfed up by licencing agreements and reissued, repackaged, and repriced. And EMI will become the label that once was.

The most frightening outcome of EMI's demise will be that only three major record labels will be left in the world. Add the fact the majors control over 90% of the market and EMI's failure will seriously impact the diversity of the recorded music available, which in turn will make it harder to find the kind of music you want to hear. And given the proclivity for the labels to cannibalize each other, three will quickly become two.

The end result will be pseudo-individualization at its finest.

Oh noes. Adorno was right!