Nick Mason has commented on Roger Waters re-recording Pink Floyd’s classic 1973 album The Dark Side of the Moon.
Waters made headlines in February when he announced he re-recorded the LP sans his Pink Floyd bandmates. At the time, he told The Telegraph his reason for doing so was because, “Not enough people recognized what it’s about, what it was I was saying then.” He also told the outlet, “I wrote ‘The Dark Side of the Moon.’ Let’s get rid of all this ‘we’ crap!” Weeks later, he walked back his comments a bit saying, in part, “It’s not a replacement for the original which, obviously, is irreplaceable … And also, it is a way for me to honor a recording that Nick [Mason] and Rick [Wright] and Dave [Gilmour] and I have every right to be very proud of.”
Mason’s comments about Waters re-recording the LP happened at an event at London’s Dolby Atmos Immersive Studio. According to NME, the event was a playback of the legendary album. The outlet quoted the Pink Floyd drummer saying he was aware of Waters’ re-recording. In fact, Waters sent Mason a copy.
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So, what was Mason’s verdict? He said, ” … I write to him and said, ‘Annoyingly, it’s absolutely brilliant!’ It was and is. It’s not anything that would be a spoiler for the original at all, it’s an interesting add-on to the thing.”
Of course, many are still likely questioning why Waters would do something like this in the first place. Waters, himself, admitted in a social media post it was a “f—ing mad” decision. Waters explained the idea to re-record the album came when he was recording Lockdown Sessions. That album contains reworked songs from his time with Pink Floyd and as a solo artist. Among the songs re-recorded is the classic Floyd track “Comfortably Numb” from The Wall.
“It occurred to me that ‘Dark Side of the Moon’ could well be a suitable candidate for a similar re-working, partly as a tribute to the original work, but also to re-address the political and emotional message of the whole album,” wrote Waters.