Pink Floyd’s classic rock bonafides are just as impressive as their English counterparts. Paul McCartney’s prediction for the band proved to be right, and they created a string of culturally impactful albums throughout the 1970s. New York City proved how much Pink Floyd’s 1973 masterpiece The Dark Side of the Moon resonates 50 years after its release.
The Empire State Building put Pink Floyd up in lights to honor ‘The Dark Side of the Moon’
How do you know you’re big-time? By having New York City’s most iconic building honor you five decades later.
The Empire State Building’s collection of LED light boards near its spire paid tribute to Pink Floyd’s The Dark Side of the Moon with a specialized light display. On March 24, 2023, those LEDs flashed the logo Pink Floyd has been using to celebrate Dark Side’s 50th anniversary. It was a marriage made in heaven — a world-famous building celebrating one of the world’s most notable albums.
“The Dark Side of the Moon is as authentic, global, and iconic an album as the Empire State Building is a building,” Empire State Realty Trust CEO Anthony E. Malkin said, per Bloomberg. “[I]t is only logical to celebrate it atop ESB’s world-famous tower.”
New York City’s one-night display proves how much of an impact The Dark Side of the Moon still makes at age 50. The Beatles’ music makes a hidden cameo on the album, but that’s not why it hit home with music fans.
New York City’s light display proves how impactful ‘The Dark Side of the Moon’ remains
Like The Beatles, Rolling Stones, and Led Zeppelin did, the uniquely-named Pink Floyd reached a massive audience of dedicated fans with a string of commercially successful and artistically impactful albums. The Dark Side of the Moon is the band’s crown jewel.
For anyone who’s listened to the album — and the sales indicate there are millions — it’s easy to understand why Dark Side is worthy of the Empire State Building’s 50-year salute.
No matter when fans find Dark Side, life’s natural progression aligns with the record’s primary topics. Its universal themes — boredom, money, war, sanity, despair, the drudgery of life — hit home with each subsequent generation of music fans. It was true 10 years, 25 years, and 50 years later. A hundred years from now, those issues will be the same, and music fans will still be able to connect with the album.
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It doesn’t hurt that those depressing talking points came wrapped in catchy and brilliantly produced tunes that used cutting-edge technology to make an inwardly cosmic album (it opens and closes with heartbeat sound effects) in 1973.
How did ‘Dark Side’ perform on the charts? Very, very well
Classic rock fans probably know The Dark Side of the Moon practically moved into the Billboard albums chart soon after its release. Still, it’s worth noting just how successful the record has been.
It spent only one week at No. 1 — aside from late-era live album Pulse, every other record Pink Floyd sent to No. 1 lasted multiple weeks at the top — but Dark Side has logged an incredible 976 weeks on the Billboard 200. That measures out to roughly 244 months — close to 19 years. If the album were a person, it could get a driver’s license, vote in U.S. elections, and buy lotto tickets almost anywhere in North America.
Pink Floyd had yet to break through in the U.S. in early 1973. The Dark Side of the Moon made them a household name. In addition to reaching No. 1 less than two months after its release, the record achieved RIAA gold status by mid-April 1973. It peaked at No. 2 in England, but it spent 557 weeks in the charts there, per the Official Charts Company.
All that is to say that Pink Floyd’s The Dark Side of the Moon left a big impact on music fans in 1973. The Empire State Building proved how massive an effect the album made with its light show display to celebrate its 50th anniversary.
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