BIG READ: The album that was Pink Floyd’s zenith was also the beginning of the end
The vast success of ‘The Dark Side of the Moon’ is proof that millions reflect on life, its meaning and its tragedy
Pink Floyd’s Dark Side of the Moon was released on March 1 1973. The early 1970s, during which the album was put together, was a time of great social and political upheaval. In England the Irish Republican Army (IRA) was active and the notorious Bloody Sunday occurred, the Vietnam War was raging, Bangladesh was fighting for independence from Pakistan, the Watergate scandal began unfolding while Idi Amin expelled thousands of Asians from Uganda.
It was a period seen by contemporary historians as the beginning of the decline of liberal democracy; a time of crisis for the West, of unhappy workers, rebellious students, radical terrorists, economic recession and social crises. Historian Simon Reid-Henry describes it as an unravelling of the postwar consensus, one in which socioeconomic crises drove citizens to “suddenly demand of their governments what their governments could not provide”...
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