(Credits: Far Out / Ben Collins / Steven Aguilar)
Tue 2 September 2025 23:00, UK
In the overcrowded haze of the 1960s, it’s easy to forget all the great things to come out of the early 1970s.
It was a time when musicians either had to keep up or get left behind. A time when uncertainty pushed people into its embrace or away into the shadows.
But beyond all the good to come out of the strange disillusionment that set in over the music scene like the cold brush of a new dawn, there were countless new strands taking shape. If it wasn’t Joni Mitchell’s effortless swarm of singer-songwriter genius, it was the darkness setting in on the other side, in the shape of Black Sabbath’s heavy metal.
In between each of those, Queen were gearing up to give rock its glamorous edge, while Carole King proved the rightful fight of female songwriters with the unexpected force that was Tapestry. By 1973, things were surely heating up once again across all corners. David Bowie already had a stake in the glam rock shift with Aladdin Sane, while Elton John released his opus Goodbye Yellow Brick Road years before he assumed his position as the ultimate friend of Dorothy.
The thing is, it’s clear that by then, the tumbleweed of the early ‘70s was fast on its way to being forgotten, despair swiftly turning into a different kind of energy where it was less about performing the cultural moment than actually being it, feeling your way through the mess and accidentally coming up with excellence at the end of it. As if the turbulence of societal unease was less a blocker to success than a much-needed spark.
But in the midst of all that, one would always come up above the rest.
What was the best-selling album of 1973?
Across several defining moments of ‘73, one thing remained clear: more is more. And with Pink Floyd’s The Dark Side of the Moon, which sold 45million copies worldwide, more came in the form of complete reinvention. Building on The Beatles’ concept album idea, Pink Floyd took it to new heights with The Dark Side of the Moon, reaching their peak and setting a new standard for musical expression that even they struggled to meet with every record thereafter.
But that wasn’t accidental. In fact, it was anything but. The band had been reaching for something just as earth-shattering in the years building up to this, but they pulled out all the stops here, knowingly making magic and readying themselves for the explosive reaction they always knew would come. Even better, they ruminated on the mental state of Syd Barrett, leaning into the darkness of the psyche in their own explorations of death and conflict, and most importantly, the passage of time. It was, without a doubt, fully-formed brilliance.
As David Gilmour later said, “We knew that it was going to do better than anything we had previously done because it was obvious.” Roger Waters echoed a similar sentiment, saying, “I always thought it would be hugely successful.”
Related Topics