Fifty years on from the initial release of Dark Side of the Moon is not an excuse to remaster a piece that was already reworked just over a decade ago. The Great Gig in the Sky should have stayed up there. Assertations that this track is one of the all-time greats are mystifying. Hearing it worked over on a mix that does little for it feels inevitable after how frequently Pink Floyd are hoping to cash in on their fans. Roger Waters warned that he was working on his own version of this album, the rest of the band split off decades ago and are adamant about doing their own version too. Too much of a good thing implies anything about the current situation of remastering is good.
The Great Gig in the Sky falls on its sword once more, and Clare Torry is there to pick up the pieces. Still a track that depends on a desire to showcase how the voice can be used as an instrument. It works better when worked alongside Time and Money. In its isolated state, this bit of art-pop trickles out with soppy piano work and wet interjections that move those who have been fully convinced by the playing style on show. Understandably so when listening back to the original release or even the remaster from just over a decade ago, but hearing it here, as well as in the isolated state this 2023 remaster provides, is damnable.
Considering the extent of this remaster and what it hopes to achieve is difficult. Whether it wishes to celebrate the anniversary of a great album by shamelessly ripping on its previous remaster or whether it hopes to push that same remaster through. There are minimal, pointless changes on the remaster that makes almost no difference. Or does it? Perhaps the cloth-eared, tinnitus-ringing fool that tries to compare the many variations of this track is missing the point. People want the comfort of a re-release or a remaster not because there is anything new to gauge from the track but because they are scared of trying to find something different, something better. There is plenty to choose from and a remaster that does very little, if anything, to move the sound of Dark Side of the Moon is a landfill-ready exercise in topping up the bank balance.
A song that says absolutely nothing but means a lot to many people not because of the inherent quality but because of how it is linked to memories of youth or hope. The Great Gig in the Sky has always been a song of projection, hoping that some great idea or feeling can be held in the tones Forry brings, and that appears to have worked for the many listening in on this piece. Incredible in how similar both pieces are, isolating it and hoping to shift it as a single to build up the next release, is as pathetic as it is glaringly money-oriented. Two tracks so far that prove the last thing Dark Side of the Moon needed was polish. More of it, anyway. It was perfectly fine ten years ago; the technology has not changed enough to merit this absolutely useless remaster.
