Showing posts with label moon. Show all posts
Showing posts with label moon. Show all posts
Saturday, March 16, 2013
Pink Floyd’s ‘Dark Side’: 40 Years Later
40 Mind-Blowing Facts About The Mad Classic ~ A Yahoo Music article by Chris Willman | Stop The Presses!
Sure, like everybody else, you’ve listened to Pink Floyd’s The Dark Side of the Moon so many times that you can recite not just every line but every heartbeat, clock tick, and cash register ring by heart. But how much do you really know about the landmark prog classic, which is celebrating its 40th anniversary this month?
Image Source
To celebrate the 40 years we’ve been listening to what is arguably the preeminent rock album of the 1970s, here are 40 things you ought to know about Dark Side. Because lunacy breeds albums about lunacy, and albums about lunacy breed lunatic obsessions with album trivia. Let’s start with that iconic cover art, shall we?
The band members spent three minutes deciding on the front cover. Designer Storm Thorgerson brought seven designs into the Abbey Road studio where they were still recording. “The band trooped in, swept their gaze across the designs, looked at each other, nodded, and said ‘That one,’ pointing at the prism. Took all of three minutes,” Thorgerson recalled in liner notes for the 2011 deluxe box. In an 2003 interview, the designer elaborated, “No amount of cajoling would get them to consider any other contender, nor endure further explanation of the prism, or how exactly it might look. ‘That’s it,’ they said in unison, ‘we’ve got to get back to real work,’ and returned forthwith to the studio upstairs.”
One of the rejected designs involved a then-popular Marvel comic book superhero. Imagine how differently we’d think of the album if the Floyd members had expressed any interest in one of Thorgersen’s alternative ideas, to have the cover feature… the Silver Surfer!
The band had always hated having their photos in the artwork. “When Storm showed us all the ideas, with that one, there was no doubt,” guitarist David Gilmour told Rolling Stone in 2003. “It was, ‘That is it.’ It's a brilliant cover. One can look at it after that first moment of brilliance and think, ‘Well, it's a very commercial idea: It's very stark and simple; it'll look great in shop windows.’ It wasn't a vague picture of four lads bouncing in the countryside. That fact wasn't lost on us.”
It was keyboardist Rick Wright who was insistent that the cover not feature any photography at all, even conceptual photos. The Hipgnosis design team was famous for elaborately staged and photographed covers, like Wish You Were Here, which came out two years later. But in this instance, as Thorgerson remembers it, Wright “said, ‘Storm, let’s have a cool graphic, not one of your tatty [figurative] pictures…’ I protested. ‘Rick,’ I said, ‘I do images, I don’t do cool graphics.’… Whereupon Rick said, ‘Why don’t you try to see it as a challenge.’”
The prism design was partly inspired by Floyd’s extravagant live light shows. “The refracting glass prism referred to Floyd light shows–consummate use of light in the concert setting,” Thorgerson said in an interview for the album’s 30th anniversary. “Its outline is triangular and triangles are symbols of ambition, and are redolent of pyramids, both cosmic and mad in equal measure, all these ideas touching on themes in the lyrics. The joining of the spectrum extending round the back cover and across the gatefold inside was seamless like the segueing tracks on the album, whilst the opening heartbeat was represented by a repeating blip in one of the colors.”
Click here to continue to the rest of the list!
Via
More info on the great album here, at its Wikipedia page..
Sure, like everybody else, you’ve listened to Pink Floyd’s The Dark Side of the Moon so many times that you can recite not just every line but every heartbeat, clock tick, and cash register ring by heart. But how much do you really know about the landmark prog classic, which is celebrating its 40th anniversary this month?Image Source
To celebrate the 40 years we’ve been listening to what is arguably the preeminent rock album of the 1970s, here are 40 things you ought to know about Dark Side. Because lunacy breeds albums about lunacy, and albums about lunacy breed lunatic obsessions with album trivia. Let’s start with that iconic cover art, shall we?
The band members spent three minutes deciding on the front cover. Designer Storm Thorgerson brought seven designs into the Abbey Road studio where they were still recording. “The band trooped in, swept their gaze across the designs, looked at each other, nodded, and said ‘That one,’ pointing at the prism. Took all of three minutes,” Thorgerson recalled in liner notes for the 2011 deluxe box. In an 2003 interview, the designer elaborated, “No amount of cajoling would get them to consider any other contender, nor endure further explanation of the prism, or how exactly it might look. ‘That’s it,’ they said in unison, ‘we’ve got to get back to real work,’ and returned forthwith to the studio upstairs.”
One of the rejected designs involved a then-popular Marvel comic book superhero. Imagine how differently we’d think of the album if the Floyd members had expressed any interest in one of Thorgersen’s alternative ideas, to have the cover feature… the Silver Surfer!
The band had always hated having their photos in the artwork. “When Storm showed us all the ideas, with that one, there was no doubt,” guitarist David Gilmour told Rolling Stone in 2003. “It was, ‘That is it.’ It's a brilliant cover. One can look at it after that first moment of brilliance and think, ‘Well, it's a very commercial idea: It's very stark and simple; it'll look great in shop windows.’ It wasn't a vague picture of four lads bouncing in the countryside. That fact wasn't lost on us.”
It was keyboardist Rick Wright who was insistent that the cover not feature any photography at all, even conceptual photos. The Hipgnosis design team was famous for elaborately staged and photographed covers, like Wish You Were Here, which came out two years later. But in this instance, as Thorgerson remembers it, Wright “said, ‘Storm, let’s have a cool graphic, not one of your tatty [figurative] pictures…’ I protested. ‘Rick,’ I said, ‘I do images, I don’t do cool graphics.’… Whereupon Rick said, ‘Why don’t you try to see it as a challenge.’”
The prism design was partly inspired by Floyd’s extravagant live light shows. “The refracting glass prism referred to Floyd light shows–consummate use of light in the concert setting,” Thorgerson said in an interview for the album’s 30th anniversary. “Its outline is triangular and triangles are symbols of ambition, and are redolent of pyramids, both cosmic and mad in equal measure, all these ideas touching on themes in the lyrics. The joining of the spectrum extending round the back cover and across the gatefold inside was seamless like the segueing tracks on the album, whilst the opening heartbeat was represented by a repeating blip in one of the colors.”
Click here to continue to the rest of the list!
Via
More info on the great album here, at its Wikipedia page..
Wednesday, February 13, 2013
Monday, May 21, 2012
Solar Eclipse of May 20, 2012
And the best image I've found..
Via / Image Source: Ben Brockert (Twitter @wikkit) - with permission Click to enlarge!
Another beautiful one:
Image Source (AP Photo/Odessa American, Albert Cesare)
Via / Image Source: Ben Brockert (Twitter @wikkit) - with permission Click to enlarge!
Another beautiful one:
Image Source (AP Photo/Odessa American, Albert Cesare)
Friday, May 18, 2012
Saturday, July 9, 2011
Sunday, May 29, 2011
Wednesday, March 16, 2011
Thursday, February 24, 2011
Thursday, February 17, 2011
Sunday, January 16, 2011
Lunar Calendar 2011 Poster
Via
Click the picture for a better look, as well as for ordering information, several more images, and a lot more cool stuff!
Monday, December 20, 2010
Total Lunar Eclipse Tonight
Click the moon for details, including a timetable for your area. I think it's gonna be too cloudy to see it here.
Related: This previous post
Wednesday, August 4, 2010
Reality of The Moon Exploration
vs. an average baseball field
Click to enlarge..
Via
I'm really not surprised. Compared with the size of the moon, and the desire to get there after all those years, this is miniscule if you've ever seen a baseball field. Not impressed. I explored more territory behind my house growing up right after dinner on my 11th birthday!
Click to enlarge..
Via
I'm really not surprised. Compared with the size of the moon, and the desire to get there after all those years, this is miniscule if you've ever seen a baseball field. Not impressed. I explored more territory behind my house growing up right after dinner on my 11th birthday!
Sunday, May 30, 2010
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