Every Track on Dark Side of the Moon, Ranked

Send this to your Dad to get him really riled up

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The Dark Side of the Moon is one of the greatest albums ever made. To pump up the flames of dissent, I’ll go even further and say that an argument can be made that regardless of genre it IS the greatest album of all time. I’m sure some vaporwave trip-hop fan is getting ready to give themselves an aneurysm while typing an incoherent rebuttal to this, but good luck trying to convince anyone but your five online friends that Funki Porcini, or whomever (is this the correct usage of whomever? I honestly don’t know) the hell, is any good.

The Dark Side of the Moon is to the point in its career where millions of wrong-minded people have tried to drown it in haterade. Every great album gets this treatment. To be fair, when you reach college dorm poster status, you deserve a little bit of haterade. Same for the whole Wizard of Oz-deal. It’s easy to write Pink Floyd off as a band reserved solely for 70s potheads and day trippers. I’m sure your parents listened to this after skipping Geography 201 to get stoned out of their gourds. To be fair, it is a perfect album for that. Not that Dang Dude or any of its affiliates condones or approves that type of behavior.

Even if you’re straightedge, or just don’t partake, it’s still an excellent album. Lyrically it’s complex, and most importantly, heartfelt and honest. There are themes here! Sonically, to use the snotty Pitchfork word, it’s a masterpiece. Layered sounds, amazing singing, and out-of-this-world drumming. A feast for the auditory senses, one could say if one was into that sort of thing. Each of the tracks stands out on its own, while still working together as a whole.

With an album like this, ranking isn’t always the fairest thing to do. Pink Floyd wrote this as a cohesive album, and all the tracks bleed into the next. However, I love clicks and this is one way to get them. So, I’m going to rank the tracks from best to worst with the caveat that they’re all good, and that this is an album that should be listened to from tip to tail.

One final note. I often listen to this album on a record player while lying on my living room floor and looking at the tree branches outside our front window. It’s weird, I know. But it’s also a great way to listen to this album. Trust me.

10. Speak To Me

It’s really not fair to judge Speak To Me as a solo track. The first on the record, it’s hugely important to the whole vibe and concept of the album, but musically, there’s not much there. Wikipedia describes it as “music concrete” but with an accent over one of those “e’s” so you know it’s fancy. It’s mostly a heartbeat, muffled audio, and snippets of some of the later songs. That being said, it really does hold the album together.

9. Eclipse

The outro track, Eclipse doesn’t get enough love either. Essentially an extended bridge to Brain Damage, Eclipse ends the album on a note of questioning. It brings back the heartbeats from Speak to Me in a slow fade out. Neither explanatory nor incomprehensible, Eclipse invites the listener to put the album back on and repeat the experience. What else could you ask for from the final track in an album?

8. Any Colour You Like

Pink Floyd is at heart a prog rock band. Any Colour You Like showcases their ability to experiment with composition and tone. This track opens with a wild kaleidoscope (sorry, but c’mon, you knew this word was going to be in here somewhere) ride through an acid jazz soundscape. It continues the ride, showcasing the guitar-playing ability of David Gilmour (inspired by founding guitarist Syd Barrett). It’s prog psychedelia at its finest.

7. Breathe (In the Air)

The first track recognizable as a “song,” on the album Breathe (In the Air) provides some of the finest examples of the incredible singing found throughout this album. It starts with screaming and drips into a sweet molasses flow of early synth-influenced sounds and textures. If a song can be a dream tinged with a nightmare then this is it. If it can’t be that, well it’s the closest a song has ever gotten.

6. Brain Damage

I wish I could rank this song higher. It’s truly great. The problem is that every song after this is also great. Containing one of the all-time great lyrics, “The lunatic is on the grass,” Brain Damage in many ways presages the lyrical content of the later Pink Floyd album The Wall. It’s not the raw exploration of declining mental health, that lifts this song up, but the crescendo hits of the organ that lie in wait through this whole tune. Incredible work from producer Alan Parsons on this one.

5. Us and Them

My fiancé once said that she liked this song. I think she was just trying to get me to stop talking about this album. Jokes on her, I’ll never stop talking about this album. Us and Them is what I would call the most traditional Prog Rock song on the album. It’s seven minutes long and wends and winds its way through any number of dissonances and melodies. It has some of the smoothest saxophone playing you’ve ever heard in your life. If you’re in the right state of mind, it'll make you cry. A sunbeam poking through a cloudy day. Magisterial. You get it.

4. On the Run

If Breathe (In the Air) is a dream tinged by nightmare, then On the Run is a nightmare tinged by a dream. Following directly after Breathe, On the Run is a wild Escher staircase of a song, falling in on itself over and over again. Forever moving forward, this is what I imagine being trapped in the movie Run Lola Run would feel like. Don’t get that reference? Fair enough! It’s a trippy, never-stopping, repeating song. A great one to get lost in.

3. Time

If you have a fear of alarm clocks do not listen to this song. The second most-famous song on this album, Time is about well, time. It also features some of the greatest tom-tom hits in musical history. Add that to some killer bass, and you’ve got yourself a hit. I overuse “atmospheric” as a descriptor in this newsletter, but it really fits here. I won’t say anything else because you’ve definitely heard this song before. Form your own opinion.

2. Money

We all know this song. We all love this song. How could you not? Before MIA reintroduced the viability of the cash register as an instrument to the world, Pink Floyd used it to make a massive hit. The most straightforward of the songs on Dark Side of the Moon, Money still manages to surprise with what twists and turns it does have. With a bassline like that though, why change it up?

1. The Great Gig in the Sky

There’s a scene in the Jack Black-classic School of Rock where Jack Black’s character tells one of his students to listen to this song for the vocal solos. As usual, it’s best to listen to Jack Black Featuring the singing of Clare Torry, who unfortunately had to sue to get paid what she was worth, The Great Gig in the Sky is a powerhouse of a song from start to finish. It’s impossible to listen to this song and not get worked up about it. I don’t know what else to say. Go listen to this right now.

Post your faves in the comments!

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