In reading over some other criticism of this album, it was comforting to find out that I am not the only person who is intimidated by the process. Rather than breaking down what's good, what's not good, most of what people seem to have to say is either that they experience a nirvana-esque awe when they listen to it, or they just don't get what it's all about. A third camp sometimes crops up talking about advanced technical proficiency, but I am not going to even pretend to pretend to know anything about that kind of stuff.
As for the awe/disappointment debate, I certainly feel like I fall into the former, with certain exceptions. Of course Dark Side Of The Moon is the album that you listen to all the way through, unshuffled, in the order that God/Floyd intended. Doing so creates a soundscape experience with a huge variety of auditory stimulation. Some of the songs are self-contained enough to allow you to have favourites ("Time" or "Money"), but others (like the series from "Us And Them" to the finale, "Eclipse") blend into each other with track names and times introduced because of the insistence of structure. That last flurry is also generally my least favourite, with the exception of "Eclipse," which is an epic conclusion to an epic album.
Rating: 4.2 stars
Tomorrow: The Doors - The Doors
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