This month on Twitter, @sotachetan hosts #BrandedInSongs – which is a head-on collision of my personal world of music and my professional world of branding and advertising. The challenge is to simply pick a song with a brand name in its lyrics or title. I added one more criteria to my picks, which is this: the songs themselves must be as iconic as the brands they mention. No filler here.
Dark Side of The Moon has triggered very polarizing reactions to it. On one end of the spectrum, fans consider it to be the holy grail of prog rock converging with jazz. On the other end, a sizable population of music fans think it’s grossly overrated. I lean toward the first end simply because I don’t think there’s anything else like it. What’s great about it? Plenty. There’s the creative ingenuity first and foremost, which is prominent in the unconventional song structures, the improvisational nature of the instrumental solos, and the new dimension of sound design and effects.To the naysayers, I say this.You might not like the sound of it, but you have to recognize the magntiude of creativity of Dark Side. Like a Pet Sounds, Aja, Psychocandy or OK Computer, it sounds like nothing that came before it. Just take a listen to “Money” if you don’t believe me.
While “Money” belongs in the annals of classic rock history, the song seems to be more at home inside a tiny jazz club than a stadium. The track begins with the iconic sound of the cash register. This is genius, not gimmick. There was no established template telling rock bands this was the way to kick off a song. This is the ingenuity of Pink Floyd from the very first second of the track. Next, the bass line kicks in, one of the most memorable ones ever crafted. You don’t have to be a rock fan to instantly recognize it. But I think what brings “Money” over the edge is the combination of sax and guitar work. Trippy psychedelic guitar licks during the verses surround the sax solo that improvises in the gaps. Like I said, rock seamlessly blended with jazz. And like any good jazz outfit, one solo leads to another. The song’s climax is Gilmour’s guitar solo exploding greedily for nearly half the song.
“I'm in the high-fidelity first-class traveling set, And I think I need a Lear jet.”