Pink Floyd releases 18 concerts to stream since “Dark Side of the Moon”

As the rock age entered old age, a phenomenon known as “copyright dumping” emerged, where artists are required by vaguely defined European Union law to publish recordings before they reach 50 years of age. of, or in respect of, his age. the rights for them to lose.

This leaves artists in the difficult position of having to choose between officially releasing substandard studio or concert recordings as part of their official sales or leaving them in the public domain, where anyone could find them. publish and profit from them without paying the creators. Therefore, in the last ten years we have seen how artists such as the Beatles, the Rolling Stones, Bob Dylan or Motown Records released these recordings discreetly or briefly to renew the copyright, often a few days or weeks before the due dates. . At the end of 2019, the Stones uploaded nearly 75 tasty live and studio songs from the late 60s to YouTube for 24 hours. On its own, the Beatles album “Bootleg Recordings 1963”, on iTunes alone, compiles mostly 59 songs. radio sessions or studio recordings, which were not considered good enough for their official multidisc compilations.

Last year, Pink Floyd put a dozen of their first concerts on streaming services in a few weeks and, more interestingly, they did the same last week with 18 concerts since 1972, when the group played their flagship album ” Dark Side of the Moon” in its entirety up to a year before its release (as first reported by Rolling Stone). The concerts, many of which appear to be salvaged bootlegs – some of which are audible vinyl scratches – vary wildly in acoustic and musical quality, and some are incomplete, but they present a fascinating timeline of era albums – time to prepare the group quickly. one of the best selling and highly praised albums of the rock era.

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The process of working out new material on stage before recording it was common at the time (though becoming increasingly rare as bootleg CDs and cell phones became ubiquitous) and Floyd did it for most of his career. life. A strategic job at these concerts, many of which will last between two and three hours, shows the group screening the now-completed “Dark Side” songs on stage: Early Concert Versions (Best Quality: Tokyo, March 3) looser and less defined. than the familiar ones, with a lot of improvisation and more experimental vocals, especially from Waters on “Money”, which also has some percussion beats that dropped out early. They gain confidence as the year goes on – Pink Floyd toured like crazy in those days, with these concerts documenting two separate UK, US and European tours, as well as one only on Japan – and by the end of the interpretation year the album’s songs find the band at the peak of their instrumental powers. As is often the case with Pink Floyd live, however, they are much weaker in the vocal department – many parts are sung cheerfully out of tune, especially by David Gilmour, who often makes his first verse sophomoric – what can. -we think of unflattering uplifting letters (and let’s face it, Pink Floyd lyrics have a lot less gravitas when you’re no longer a stoned teenager).

Just as interesting for fans are the band’s performances of songs from the psychedelic era, many of which got one chance on this tour: Epics like “Set the Controls for the Heart of the Sun,” “One of These Days, ” “Careful With That Axe, Eugene,” and, of course, “Echoes” (which was performed as an encore later in the decade in a “Dark Side”-style arrangement with sax and backing vocals) featured most of the trips. ), but occasionally the group included “A Saucerful of Secrets”, “Childhood’s End”, “Atom Heart Mother” and even an instrumental called “Blues” which is exactly what it claims to be.

There’s also a five-song EP featuring alternate versions of songs from the album, three of which are bona fide hits (including one “Us and Them” without the vocals), the other two not “Trance Remixes” echo. .” which, as the title suggests, is from the early 90s and was rumored to be the work of dance music pioneers Orb.90 and rumored to be the work of dance music pioneers The Orb, but is now said to be from an Italian DJ which took advantage of the country’s weak copyright laws at the time (many pirated CDs with great sound left Italy in the 90s). On the other hand, although these recordings have been attributed to Sony Music’s Legacy catalog division, sources say that this does not mean that the group, which has been buying rights to their masters for an estimated price of almost $500 million dollars, has been sold. them; the group still owns its masters and the deal is part of Pink Floyd’s distribution contract with Sony.

Concerts are a bit hard to come by on streaming services and probably won’t be around for long; Last year’s batch was taken down after a few weeks, but can still be found on YouTube. On Spotify, look under “album,” then “compilation,” click “show all,” and scroll down (assuming you don’t feel like searching for titles like “Pink Floyd Live at the Palais des Sports de L’Ile de la Jatte, Saint Ouen, France, 01 December 1972”).

Although this area is certainly not a place for casual fans, it is fascinating to hear “Dark Side of the Moon” played in its entirety to a completely unknown audience before it was converted, and to imagine being among the first people in the world who fly one.