Debunk the "Dark Side of the Moon" & "Wizard of Oz" myth.

[kid a]

[Random_Australian]

1. What's the myth? I can discern nothing from two pics...

[Hissyspit]

2. If you start both works at the same time they seem to sync up

and "Dark Side of the Moon" serves to work as a soundtrack for "The Wizard of Oz."

People's brains are designed to search for patterns (as in rhythm, life is rhythm-based, indeed all existence seems to be rhythm-based), therefore coincidental patterns are often assigned significance that is not there (grilled-cheese sandwiches that supposedly show the face of the Virgin Mary).

[Random_Australian]

3. Makes sense. Did you like the copycat?

[Hissyspit]

4. I'm working on my own, right now. n/t

[Random_Australian]

5. Cool. Copycats.... so much fun. n/t

[kid a]

6. my daughter (11) is facinated with the idea and wached the movie and cd

last night - Good music!!!

[Starbucks Anarchist]

8. Actually, you start the CD on the MGM lion's third roar.

If you want to make it really accurate, that is.

[Hissyspit]

7. kick

[Deja Q]

9. One is true grayscale, the other is sepia tone, aka "dookie brown".

[Squeech]

10. Because

I'm a literal-minded boring old fart, I'll hypothesize a real answer, having to do with the history of technology.

First of all, VCRs for home use didn't exist in 1972 when Dark Side of the Moon was made. There were bands that did soundtracks (Pink Floyd did several themselves, as did the German group Can and the Italian group Goblin), but the way they had to do it was to screen an actual print of the film on the wall of their soundstage. What there was for videotape was either open reel tape or the U-Matic cartridges the size of a hardcover book, and those were seldom seen outside actual broadcast studios.

Nor did CDs exist: the dominant sound medium was the vinyl LP. And the rotation speed of turntables isn't very well fixed-- obviously there's a standard, but cheap production engineering or the aging of the motor or any number of factors can alter the speed. And given that, not even to mention the extremely variable amount of time it'd take to turn the LP over, the notion that an LP can synch up perfectly with a movie over its entire length (and who says the *projector* is perfectly calibrated, eh?) is just preposterous.

The other thing to bear in mind is that Dark Side is the record that made Pink Floyd's reputation-- which is to say that while they were making it, they were just another cult band, with no particular clout in the industry-- probably not enough to pull strings to get their own print of The Wizard.

[no name no slogan]

11. Then why does it WORK?

I did it with a turntable and a VCR back in the early 90s, at it was spot on. And pretty fucking eerie, too.

[Hissyspit]

12. kick

[Hissyspit]

13. kick

[EstimatedProphet]

14. This one and Fantasia-it's all about seein patterns, like was already said

The same thing 'happens' when you watch Fantasia with DSOTM as the theme music. Sometimes it matches so well that it is scary. For example, there is a brief scene in Fantasia during the Toccata & fugue segment where a small polyhedron-shaped thing (knid of looks like a coffin to me) wobbles away from the camera towards a reddish horizon. Some friends of mine and I played Dark Side once with Fantasia, and it just happened that when that scene came up, the lyricks from Breathe were playing, and said "Well you run and you run to catch up with the sun, but it's sinking"-which was exactly what was going on on-screen. We all damn near flipped out on that one.

Interesting point: It is all about the mind seeing patterns, so you can change the music to something else that's also kind of abstract and still have it mesh up. For example, it works out really well with long versions of Dark Star, and the mood changes with the music. I think it comes off as being more positive that way.

[fishwax]

19. I've watched Fantasia with "One of these Days" but never DSotM

Someday I'll have to try it with DSotM, if I get around to it. I agree that it's generally just a matter of the brain seeking out patterns, and don't believe any of the fanciful explanations some have offered about Dark Side and Wizard of Oz, but I still enjoy these things for what they are. Just b/c it's mere coincidence and power of suggestion doesn't mean it can't be entertaining :)

If you play One of These Days (off Meddle) with the "Sorcerer's Apprentice" segment of Fantasia there is an interesting effect when Mickey freaks out and chops up the out of control broom. This takes place as the only lyrics in the song are spit out: "One of these days I'm going to cut you into little pieces."

The best example, though (imo) is playing the last segment of 2001: A Space Odyssey with "Echoes" from Meddle. :)

[Lisa]

15. are there any moments where things DON'T seem to be in synch?

I've heard the story too, even though I haven't tried it myself (and a friend who works at an audio store claims that on several occasions he's had customers buying the two recordings at the same time, possibly to test the theory).

But as a boring old scientific methods instructor, I would ask people to look rigorously for examples where the pattern doesn't seem to match. As earlier posters said, we're so good at finding patterns that sometimes we see them when they aren't really there. It's easy to find positive examples, while overlooking the negative ones (or dismissing them as "the exception that proves the rule", which it doesn't).

[Hissyspit]

16. My understanding that it pretty much falls apart after a while...

And eventualy the album runs out anyway.

[JVS]

17. Last time there was a tornado some girl came down to the basement...

and sat around telling me and my friends that it was totally true!

[madeline_con]

18. IMO, the Wizard of Oz is SO overrated....

I think it's one of the stupidest flicks EVER produced. I don't get what all the hoopla and going gaga is about. (??)

[fishwax]

20. An even better example is playing 2001 with Echoes, from the album Meddle

Echoes, the last track from the Pink Floyd album Meddle, works very well as a soundtrack to the last segment of 2001: A Space Odyssey. The song is 23 minutes and 27 seconds long, almost the exact same length as "Jupiter and Beyond the Infinite," the last segment of the film.

Start the music when the words "Jupiter and Beyond the Infinite" appear on the screen, and there are plenty of interesting results. Some of them are interesting synchronizations--for example, the spaceship appearing, drifting through space, as the floyd sings "overhead the albatross hangs motionless upon the air," or (my personal favorite) the slow, steady beep that ends the Echoes track, beginning as the Space Baby turns towards the camera at the very end, as though it were a heartbeat for the future. Even aside from the places where music/words match up, it just makes for an interesting watch.

And unlike the Wizard of Oz example, there is at least some reason to believe this might be, on some level, intentional. Kubrick and Pink Floyd were good friends, and it was rumoured that he had initially asked Pink Floyd to score the film. They refused, thinking that creating a soundtrack might be selling out. (This was before they did the soundtracks for Barbet Schroeder's "More" and "La Vallee.") Pink Floyd later regreted not doing the soundtrack, and so (the story goes) they recorded Echoes in 1971 as an homage.

Take the story for what it's worth, but if you get a kick out of the Dark Side/Wizard thing, there's a good chance you'd enjoy this exercise as well :)

[kid a]

22. I've got both those - I'll checkit out

[Hissyspit]

21. kick