'Lunacy' by John Kruth
One-time Milwaukeean John Kruth has carved out quite a cottage industry writing music related books. Typically, Kruth’s subject matter leans to cult artists like Townes Van Zandt and Rahsaan Roland Kirk. His latest, Lunacy: The Curious Phenomenon of Pink Floyd’s Dark Side of the Moon, 50 Years On, shines a light on the album that has sold 45 million (and counting) copies and roosted, incredibly, for over 700 weeks on Billboard’s album chart.
With this hardly obscure topic, Kruth dives into the band’s backstory of how Syd Barrett, the group’s mercurial star-crossed leader, staked the band’s claim and then burned like Icarus after the debut album gained notoriety. Elsewhere, for context Kruth offers brief surveys of electronic music before Dark Side as well as the history of concept albums.
Quite organically, Kruth also takes a free-range approach to the album and its cultural relevance. He includes thoughts on the album’s urban mythology as a synched soundtrack to The Wizard of Oz; notes from steel guitarist Cindy Cashdollar on David Gilmour’s nonconventional playing; an interview with an astrophysicist; recollections from the woman who had the prescience to employ the album as a soundtrack to the birth of her child—matching Clare Torry’s scream on “The Great Gig in the Sky,” and the nurse who assists a brain surgeon performing operations to the album’s “Brain Damage.”
As something of a public service, Kruth thoughtfully adds a 10-page discography of suggested playlists to accompany each chapter.
