Celebrating Two Milestone Albums In The History Of Pop Music

By Doug Draper 

As those of you who are regular visitors to Niagara At Large may already know, every once in a while I can’t resist channeling the inner amateur musicologist in me and post a little something on milestones in our pop music culture. 

I believe that the odd post like this is a good break from the more serious, and often disturbing or controversial issues we deal with here, and yes, the feedback suggests that at least some of you welcome them.

So this time out, it is hard to let the final days of this March go by without remembering that it was 50 years ago – yes a full half century ago for those of us baby boomers who would rather forget about how quickly the time of our lives is flying by – that Parlophone Records in England released the very first Beatles album.

The album was called ‘Please, Please Me’ and in addition to containing the title tune, which became the very first number one hit single in their homeland and the first of what would be many number one hits worldwide, it began with a great Paul McCartney rocker called ‘I Saw Her Standing There’ and ended with John Lennon’s  shattering vocal performance on ‘Twist And Shout’. In between those  two album tracks, were a list of great tunes from originals like ‘Misery’, ‘Ask Me Why’, ‘There’s A Place’ and ‘P.S. I Love You’ to fine covers from their Hamburg and Cavern Club days.

This first Beatle album was released months later in the United States on a small label called Vee-Jay as ‘Introducing The Beatles’ before Capital Records took over issuing Beatle music, and a variation of it (so far as the songs included was concerned) was released in Canada under the title of ‘Twist And Shout’.

Suffice to say, ‘Please, Please Me’ and its North American hybrids was the world’s introduction to collections of songs by arguable the greatest group in rock history, and it is a testiment to its endurance that it was recently –re-released for the first time in more than two decades in a vinyl format, as a compliment to a remastered CD version, released more than a year ago. And who is buying them? ‘Mostly younger people under the age of 25’, I’ve been told by a number of music store employees. Wow!

Last but not least, I can’t let these final days of March go by without remembering that it was 40 years ago this month that an English group called Pink Floyd emerged from a few earlier years of relative obscurity, except for a dedicated cult following, with an album called ‘Dark Side Of The Moon’

It was a tour de force of a concept album that would go on to become one of the biggest selling records of all time and would launch the group into super stardom.

As a university student at the time, I can hardly remember going to a party at the time without hearing  ‘Money’, ‘Time’, ‘Us and Them’ and other cuts from ‘Dark Side Of The Moon’ blaring from a sound system, and seeing those posters that came in the album sleeve, especially the spacey, greenish shot of the pyramids in Egypt’ taped to a wall. Recently, a friend my 20-year-old daughter met at Brock University gave a copy of ‘Dark Side Of The Moon’ to her. 

‘Dark Side Of The Moon’ was one of those albums that many listeners could not help but listen to from start to finish. Listening to one or two tracks out of context with the rest could never quite generate the rush that came with listening to the whole thing. I remember once listening to it – complete with the ching ching sound of  cash registers and an alarm clock bell going off between some of the cuts ll –  with my brother, in the basement of our old family home with all the lights turned out, and still remember how moving and sometimes how chilling that experience was. 

‘Dark Side Of The Moon’ was also, for its time, a breakthrough album in terms of the cutting edge recording technology used to produce it. And for better or worse, it encouraged record producers to turn to virtually every possible technical device that became available to record music. The results could sometimes be great but just as often, it came across it was looking like record companies were replacing computerized gadgets with the raw talents of the musicians in the studio. 

It seemed like too many producers forgot that the it took a combination of great musicianship and leading-edge technology, not to mention well-written songs, to end up with an album as astonishing as ‘Dark Side Of The Moon,.

So while we are more or less stuck in the house waiting for the nice spring weather to finally get here, you may want to dig out your copies of The Beatles’ first album and Pink Floyd’s ‘Dark Side Of The Moon’, if you have them, and give them another spin.

(Niagara At Large invites all of you who care to attach your first and last names with your comment to share your comments on these musical milestones below.)