21MONEY PINK FLOYD

(1973)

Seven beats and six notes – it’s a gas!

Rock history is not brimming with odd-time riffs, and Money is the most successful 7/4 effort of all time. It’s more accessible than most because you’re never left in any doubt where beat 1 falls. Nick Mason’s drum groove seems designed to trick you into thinking you’re hearing a standard 4/4 pattern: it follows a typical kick-snare pattern for the first six beats, with an extra kick on beat seven that sounds more natural each time it repeats. Money’s riff is just one bar long and is played the same every time, which keeps it from confusing listeners who aren’t steeped in prog.

Roger Waters wrote the riff, and his bass dominates the introduction with Gilmour’s guitar double playing second fiddle. The guitar was his legendary black Strat on the bridge pickup, which at the time of recording was still unmodified. Gilmour plugged into an Arbiter Fuzz Face but backed off his volume control for a nearly clean sound – you can hear the grit as he digs into the quarter-tone bend on beat 7 of each riff. His towering Hiwatt amp rig kicked out enough volume that chief engineer Alan Parsons mic’ed the cabinets from a foot and a half away.

Although there isn’t much variation in the riff, it builds in excitement thanks to layers of guitar and keyboard overdubs. After four times, Gilmour’s tremolo chord stabs kick in, recorded with a Kepex tremolo unit. There’s a distorted chord stab on beat 2, helped by a Colorsound Power Boost. Then there are Steve Cropper-style hits in sync with the snare drum on beats 4 and 6. These add to the illusion you’re hearing a riff in 4/4, because they sound like a classic soul backbeat part. With all that rhythmic complexity, Waters wisely kept it harmonically simple, sticking to B minor pentatonic. If it were in 4/4, Money would be considered a blues song, which shows the blues format’s massive potential for innovation.

Money became Floyd’s first US hit on release, helping to propel Dark Side Of The Moon to its gargantuan success. It dominated the top 10 for so long that US chart compilers Billboard eventually created a separate catalog [sic] chart for older albums so that Dark Side would stop eclipsing newer releases. Money’s enduring success proves that odd time signatures can be accessible and that bass riffs can be just as important as guitar riffs.