Polyphonic Press - Classic Album Reviews
1,000 essential albums. One random generator. Zero escape. Jeremy Boyd and Jon VanDyk take a deep dive into the records that shaped music history one randomly selected choice at a time. Whether it’s a 60s psychedelic masterpiece or a 90s alternative powerhouse, we break down the lore, drop 5 fast facts, and give you the tracks that actually matter so you can sound like the smartest person at the record store. New episodes every Tuesday.
Polyphonic Press - Classic Album Reviews
Pink Moon by Nick Drake: The Album That Became Legendary Too Late
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Recorded in just two midnight sessions with nothing but a guitar, a piano, and a single microphone, Nick Drake’s Pink Moon (1972) is a haunting departure from the lush orchestrations of his earlier work. It’s a record of absolute solitude—stripped of all artifice and reduced to its barest essentials. This week, the Random Album Generator finds the quietest masterpiece in the folk-rock canon.
Inside This Episode:
- Side A Reaction: This record is famously short, so we’re moving quickly. If you’re listening with us, pause after track five, "Hazey Jane II." Jeremy and Jon react to the eerie intimacy of Drake's vocals and his incredible, intricate guitar work.
- 5 Fast Facts: We uncover the mystery of how these tapes were delivered to the label, the "one-piano-overdub" rule, and how a car commercial 27 years later turned this forgotten record into a cult phenomenon.
- Side B & Final Thoughts: we finish the final six tracks and discuss the heavy silence that follows the closing notes. Is this an album of despair, or is there a hidden light in the minimalism?
- The Verdict & Standout Tracks: We pick our top 3 essential tracks. Does Pink Moon earn a permanent spot on the "Essential Vinyl" shelf?
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This is Polyphonic Press.
SPEAKER_01The podcast where two music fans pick a classic album completely at random.
SPEAKER_02Hey, welcome to Polyphonic Press. I'm Jeremy Boyd.
SPEAKER_01And I'm Jonathan Dijk.
SPEAKER_02And uh let's not waste any time. We've got the patented random album generator right in front of us here. Uh so let's hit the button and see what album we're gonna be listening to this week. And the album we're gonna be listening to is Nick Drake, Pink Moon.
SPEAKER_01Oh, okay.
SPEAKER_02I know a little bit of uh his stuff, but I'm not overly familiar.
SPEAKER_01Yeah.
SPEAKER_02Anyway, here is a description of the album. It says Pink Moon by Nick Drake is a stark, haunting masterpiece that feels almost whispered into existence. Released in 1972, the album strips away the subtle arrangements of Drake's earlier records and leaves just voice, acoustic guitar, and a ghost of piano on the title track. The result isn't an is intimate to the point of vulnerability, as if the listener has stumbled into a private confession recorded in the quietest hour of the night. Clocking in at just under 30 minutes, Pink Moon unfolds in brief elliptical songs that uh blend delicate finger picking with lyrics full of shadow, longing, and existential reflection. Tracks like Place to Be and Parasite feel suspended between hope and resignation, while the title track, Pink Moon, carries an almost prophetic stillness. There's very little ornamentation, no lush strings, no full band, only space. That space becomes part of the music. Though it sold poorly during Drake's lifetime, Pink Moon has since become one of the most revered folk albums ever recorded. Its quiet intensity and emotional honesty have influenced generations of artists, and its sparse production now feels timeless rather than minimal. It is not an album that demands attention, it gently asks for it, and rewards listeners who are willing to sit long enough to hear it breathe. Okay, so this album was released on uh 25th of February 1972. Uh the genres are folk and indie folk, and uh it was released on Island Records and produced by John Wood. There are 11 tracks on the album. Side one has six six tracks. So the side one starts with Pink Moon and ends with uh Things Behind the Sun. So if you are listening along with us, which we do encourage you to do, if you want to start the album at Pink Moon and uh pause at uh Things Behind the Sun so you can hear the uh discussion at the halfway point. Uh okay, here we go. Here's the first song on the album, uh the title track, Pink Moon.
SPEAKER_00So I written on a so it say on its way. None of you stand so bingam and I get you think of you.
SPEAKER_02And uh ending the uh first side with Things Behind the Sun. Um yeah, this is interesting for sure. I don't really know exactly what to talk about because it's uh I mean is i uh the songs are great, but it's j it's is they're very sparse and it's just kind of him with a guitar. And um so it i it's uh it's hard to sort of pick things out to to really you know talk about and and and what's happening, but uh one thing I will say is and something I noticed and I think I knew this about him, is he mostly mostly plays with a lot of open tunings. And you know, you can definitely hear that sort of that style uh in his playing. And um yeah, he's a very unique guitarist in that way that he he plays with uh all sorts of different tunings. He's not just sticking to standard tuning. Yeah, I I am enjoying it so far though.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, so am I. Um yeah, the songs are really well written, especially that last one, the uh Things Behind the Sun. I thought that was a really well-written song. It's almost it reminded me of like some like like some progressive rock bands would would write songs like that. Obviously they'd be they'd make bigger production out of it, but that but the just the solid songwriting of that, it comes across in there.
SPEAKER_00Once you've seen what they've been to and they asked you to see what's every day Look around you find the ground is not so far from where you are the never ground stuff never surprised Take the time you find Say a prayer for people there for see what's meant to be done in the day of trying to say I never thought about that, but now that you mentioned that, yeah, I can hear that for sure.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, that's um yeah, you're right. I can it it kind of has like a stone Yeah, that's that feel to it. Almost like um I know a lot of progressive rocks rock bands would have like a uh sort of a medieval sort of theme, and I can kind of hear that that rhythm in that song. But uh this the so song overall, like the lyrics and everything for sure. Yeah, I can yeah, I can hear that.
SPEAKER_01I I don't know exactly what like it what you mentioned, like as far as production goes, is uh it's not a lot to pick apart. I do like the tone of his guitar. It sounds like a guitar that's been aged well. I don't know how old his guitar was, maybe it's just the the the recording equipment or even on it. But it just it's it's up front with his voice. Actually his voice might even be slightly behind it, but that's just because he's so soft-spoken. But it's not drowning him out or anything like that. You can hear him, you can understand him. But that guitar tone is like front and center, and it just carries the melody of the song uh through very well.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, you're right. I mean I think it's I like I don't like you said, I don't know how old the guitar is, but it's it sounds it sounds like it's it's his guitar, if that makes sense. Like it's it's it's like his traveling companion. It's like it's kind of like Willie Nelson's um trigger. Yeah, it's like that's his guitar that he plays everything on. Uh and I'm getting this sense that whether it's like a a guitar that he bought like two years ago, or you know, if it's older than that, it it it sounds like he's um he's very comfortable playing that particular guitar. Um and whether it's age just because he plays it all the time, or if it's actually like an old guitar that was given to him, I don't know the story, but um it it's worn in with his hands. Like it's it's not not like an old old guitar you pick up and he's like, oh someone else played this. It's like the grooves are from his playing, basically. Yeah, I I I totally totally get that. It's it sounds very natural. And it blends with his voice in a way that it's like there's no question that it's him playing the guitar the guitar. It's so it sounds like I'm in the room with him playing like he's putting on on a concert for me or for for a small group of people in an intimate setting. That's what it and well that's that's exactly how how it was recorded. It was just him and the engineer basically you know, setting up or some home recording equipment, really. I don't think they even went to a studio, they just recorded it at his at his house and um they just hit record and he played.
SPEAKER_01I think a lot of his stuff is sort of that's just kind of the way he was. Um like he was never really big when it when he was, you know, uh alive. Um I don't think he lived very long.
SPEAKER_02No, he didn't. I was actually just reading about uh him uh as we were listening, and he yeah, he died at the age of twenty-six, and this is his third and final album. Um he was living uh with his parents, um so this is on Wikipedia, this is just about his his death is during the early hours of the 25th of November 1974, Drake died in his bedroom at Far Lee's, um which is in England. Uh he had gone to bed early after uh spending the afternoon visiting a friend. His mother said that around dawn he left his room for the kitchen. His family had heard him do this many times before and presumed he was eating cereal. He returned to his room a short while later, uh, where it is believed that he took an overdose of um amateur amitriptyline, uh, an antidepressant. Oh, that's the same. It says he Drake had been accustomed to keeping his own hours. He frequently had difficulty sleeping and often stayed up through the night playing and listening to music, then slept late into the following morning. His mother said, uh, I never used to disturb him at all, but it was about 12 o'clock, and I went in because it really seemed it was time he got up, and he was lying across the bed. The first thing I saw was his long legs. Um according to Rodney Rodney Drake's uh personal diary, I think that's his father, uh Nick's body was uh first discovered by their housemaid, who looked in on Drake around 1145 and called out to Molly, who went in to discover that he was dead. There was no suicide note, although a letter addressed to Ride, um, I think that's his friend, was found close to his At the inquest on the eighteenth of December, the coroner stated that the cause of death was acute ametryptaline uh poisoning self-administered when he suffered from a depressive illness and and concluded a verdict of suicide. The inquest revealed a minimum of thirty-five pills worth of uh worth from his stuff from stomach samples and up to a further fifty from blood samples. So he took a lot, like probably like almost a hundred pills. That's that's intentional. That's not an accident.
SPEAKER_01Yeah. I mean and it's it's sort of ironic that the pills that were supposed to, you know, help lift his mood was the thing that undid him in the end when he was when his mood was really low. I guess medications have come a long way since 1974 too, so Yeah, I mean that's that actually that also happened to uh to Keith Moon.
SPEAKER_02Um he overdosed on a prescription, I don't remember the name of it, but it was a prescription to help him uh curb cravings of alcohol. Um and uh he just took too much. So yeah, ironically, both of them overdosed on on medication that was ultimately to help the symptom that or help the illness that uh that they uh ultimately passed away from. And yeah, he was 26 when he passed away, so not old at all. And yeah, and I you know, during his life he wasn't very well known, like you were saying. He his music was sort of discovered after he had passed away. Um and I think he pretty much was i like pretty obscure during uh the the time that he he was putting out albums.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, there's a few artists like that who get discovered you know, sometimes decades after they were actually putting out stuff.
SPEAKER_02But getting back to this, I did manage to find a few uh interesting facts about this album. It was uh the album was recorded in almost complete secrecy over two nights. Uh Nick Drake recorded Pink Moon in just two late night sessions in uh in October 1971 at Sound Techniques Studio in London, arriving unannounced and laying down the album uh with only producer and uh engineer John Wood present. There were no overdubs except a brief piano part on the title track. Most of the album is simply Drake's vocals and acoustic guitar. Um okay, so I I I I was wrong. I I I for some reason I thought it was recorded at his house, but it was recorded in a studio. But uh it was just him and and this uh John Wood who is the uh the engineer on it.
SPEAKER_01I think it was just it was done during off time or something like that. Just kind of oh yeah, I'll work with you.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, yeah, exactly. Probably not uh probably didn't pay for studio time, just whenever a studio was uh And this is kind of interesting. The label didn't know about it until it was finished. Uh unlike most albums, Pink Moon was not uh actively promoted or even anticipated by Island Records. After finishing the sessions, Drake quietly dropped off the master tapes at the label's office, sometimes said to have left them with the receptionist without discussion or fanfare.
SPEAKER_01It's like, yeah, there's my record here, just like here it is. Here, yeah, here, put this out. As far as like the production goes, it's it's good to not have like, you know, the the industry breathing down your neck while you're trying to produce the thing. You get more of the artist when you just let them kind of go in and do what they're doing. And then you know, and then the label can do you know, decide what to do with it from there.
SPEAKER_02Yeah. And you m well the same kind kind of thing happened uh with Bruce Springsteen when he did the album uh Nebraska. They actually just made a movie about it. Um and that album is just him and a guitar and a c he did a little more, just a I think he overdubbed a uh a Glockenspiel or or something. And they added an echo effect on the whole thing because he thought it sounded like sort of distant and fit the songs really well. But you know, he just he was on this big tour with the the E Street band, and he went in, rented this house uh somewhere in New Jersey and started writing songs, and he got this home recording equipment and just recorded these songs, didn't know what they were gonna be. They could have been demos for the next album, tried to record some of the songs with the E Street band, but he said no, this isn't really working. They're you know, the big band sound isn't really right for these songs. So he just okay, we'll just put out the demos. And that was the the record label didn't know what to do with it. But uh but yeah, that that album is probably like I've heard I after watching the movie, I listened to the album, it's like, yeah, this is a really good album. And probably I didn't I like Bruce Bingstein, but never a like a diehard fan. I wasn't overly familiar with this stuff, and listening to that album, it's like, okay, yeah, he's he's a pretty good songwriter, he knows what he's doing.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, actually, a lot of his stuff I kind of prefer without the band. Um like I think there's a demo of uh Board in the USA and it carries a it carries the message a little better than the than the hit version.
SPEAKER_02That version was recorded for this that Nebraska.
SPEAKER_01Oh, was it? Okay, yeah, it's it's really good.
SPEAKER_02I mean, I think Nebraska is on on the list, so I don't want to talk too much about it until we get get to listen to it. But yes, yeah, that is uh sometimes and and you know, even though he wasn't um recording his own songs, the first album that Johnny Cash did with Rick Rubin um is just him and an acoustic guitar. And it's the same sort of thing. He's not singing songs that he wrote, but he's singing songs that mean something to him.
SPEAKER_01He was he was a really good curator for songs. Johnny Cash was. I mean he curated a list that his daughter did, and uh that's a really good album too.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, and so when you get these artists that you know, and I'm not saying that Nick Drake was known for being in a band or having big production.
SPEAKER_01I don't think I don't think he ever did that. I don't know. Uh maybe he was in some obscure psychedelic band back in the 60s or something like that when he was a teenager. I don't know. I've never heard of anything like that.
SPEAKER_02No, nothing that that has come out or anything. But um but yeah, I mean sometimes when you get a really good songwriter, you just want to hear them with a guitar or a piano, whatever instrument they play, and you just want to hear the songs. And so the another one of this is kind of cool, is that there was a track that nearly made the cut. There's uh uh hidden in on the original master tapes was an additional piece, an instrumental rendition of the 18th century French song, uh Plaisir d'amour, uh, that was listed on the tape box with a note reading spare title, do not use. It stayed unreleased until appearing on a later Drake compilation and would have been the only non-original composition on any of his albums.
SPEAKER_01He he he basically did it for filler. But he wasn't comfortable with it, I guess. I don't know. Whatever his reasoning was, he says, Don't use this, it was just extra.
SPEAKER_02He probably did it for filler, or maybe they just recorded it to like test the equipment or something like that. Yeah, it could be. Yeah, and like we we talked about before, commercial success only came decades later. At the time of the release in 1972, Pink Moon sold poorly. Uh, much like Drake's earlier albums, its widespread recognition didn't appear until 1999, when the title track was used in a Volkswagen Cabrillo television commercial, introducing Drake's music to a whole new generation and boosting album sales dramatically.
SPEAKER_01Where did Volkswagen find it?
SPEAKER_02Yeah. He was sort of known among like hardcore music fans, but I didn't know it was that late, like 1999, until he was like really well known.
SPEAKER_01Well, I know he flew under the radar for a long time. Yeah, he's probably another one of these musicians who, you know, if you know him, you know him, and it's probably because you're in the industry.
SPEAKER_02But number five is uh one of the most highly regarded albums of the 1970s. Um yeah, and and later, like though overlooked in its own era, Pink Moon was uh has come to be celebrated by critics and fans alike. It's been the it's been included in various greatest albums lists over the decades and is often cited as one of the most influential minimalist folk recordings, praised for its stark emotional honesty and Drake's innovative guitar work. Yeah, it's it it is fascinating. I and I wonder it does make you wonder what else is out there because uh it's one thing to be to put out music and to be recognized in your time. And then it's another to be to put out like the same th and then the other th is to be to be discovered later, like Nick Drake or like the big star that we uh that we did um a couple months ago. But I wonder what else is out there that flew under the radar. That also stayed under the radar. And I'm sure there's lots of great stuff out there that just hasn't been heard by a lot of people.
SPEAKER_01Well, it's funny you mention that. Like my mom found a video um of a I think it's a Canadian band. I don't know. But they were just like out of high school and they were touring, you know, a small area playing, you know, this sort of psychedelic hard rock sort of stuff in in the late 60s. And they just had a recording, and this guy decades later, probably only like a couple of years ago, got this record with no label on it. And he's and he just would he's the kind of guy who would go, I wonder if there's something cool on here. And most of the time there wasn't. And but this time there was. And and he spent time on the internet asking, like, Do you know who this is? And most people had no idea, and it was no, no, no, no, until finally he got a yes, and it was the guy, one of the guys in the band.
SPEAKER_02So So they just recorded this song like they were like a high school basically.
SPEAKER_01They recorded an entire live album, basically. And this recording was just on this record. Um, he's since actually released it. He doesn't expect it to like, you know, take off hugely or anything like that. I don't know, maybe it will because it seems pretty cool. It's got really cool album art on it now. I'd love to find it. I'm trying to remember what the band's called.
SPEAKER_02Like, stuff like that is cool. Like, I wonder just how much is out there that just never never saw the light of day. Yeah. But yeah, I guess we'll get back into the uh the second side of the album, and uh it starts with the song No. So here we go. All right, we're getting into side two in just a second, but I wanted to invite you into the clubhouse. Uh, if you've ever finished an episode of ours and wished you had someone to actually debate the track list with, you should come join us on Patreon. We have a totally free membership tier specifically for the community. It's where I'm hanging out to chat with you guys between episodes, and it's a spot to connect with other listeners who are just obsessed with these deep dives as we are. I will also be dropping the occasional Patreon exclusive video of me digging through some of the vinyl that I've collected. It's completely free to join and stay, but if you do find yourself wanting to help us out and to keep the lights on, there's lots of cool stuff like picking an album for us to review and getting the episodes the day before that they go live. But for now, just come for the music and the conversation. The link is right there in the show notes. Alright, back to the album. Let's talk about side two. Okay, and ending the album uh with From the Morning. Uh yeah, this is um this is an interesting album, that's for sure. Yeah, and his the songwriting is is incredible. Um I will say one thing about the production is I like that it's fairly dry. I like that there's no there's no effects, even on his voice, there's no reverb or echo or anything. It's just it's just how it was recorded on the tape. And um and yeah, and I just it's I just like that about the recording, and I just like that about uh about this album, yeah.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, I kinda like that about a lot of 1970s sort of um sparse recordings. That sparse I think is similar to like the John Martin record that we did I don't know what, a year or so ago. It's a s it's a similar sort of like production sound that they did a lot in the early 70s on stuff like this. Um, but it always suited it so well. And it's it's hard to have something be too dated despite the fact it was sort of the trend to do it at the time when there's really nothing to date it.
SPEAKER_02I know it wasn't, but it could have been recorded yesterday and or, you know, in the 70s, or it could r could have been recorded at any time. And you're right, I mean, even though that was sort of a common um technique in the 70s and especially the early 70s, to just have the songs or the recordings just have no other effects other than what was happening in the room, even though that was a common technique at the time, it you're right, it doesn't tie it to that era. Um the only way that I would maybe know that uh that this was recorded in the 70s to is to look at the album and look at the the copyright date and see, oh, this is from 1972. But it it could have been recorded you know earlier than that, it could have been recorded years later, it could have been it this sounds almost exactly like the Johnny Cash album in terms of production. And those are 20 years apart. And but but there's really no difference. So it it gives it a timeless quality, and he's not the what he's singing in his lyrics are sort of universal, and he's not really singing about what a lot of folk music in the the late 60s and early 70s was talking about what was happening in the world politically, a lot of it was about Vietnam and stuff, and but his these songs are more universal things that happen to everybody, kind of thing, and so not only is the production timeless, it's the songs are timeless too.
SPEAKER_01Well, even if he is sort of commenting on something like that, he's he's using a lot of metaphor, metaphoric and poetic license to sort of disguise it, not necessarily to make it like indecipherable or anything like that, but it's it's a little more generalized to uh it's not a bad thing or anything like that. It's it's just uh it it it makes it more universal that way.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, he's he's singing about something that's yeah, and I I just I love that about this, and and um I don't feel that the some like I don't feel like anything's missing in the production. Uh like it doesn't feel like there should be anything else. Um that overdub piano on the title track, yeah, that fits.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, I barely noticed it, so you know it's it's not really distracting or anything like that. It's it obviously was meant to do its job and just sort of enhance what was there.
SPEAKER_02No, exactly. And it's like last week when we were doing the um that Tragically Hip album, and I'm sort of thinking about I was like, okay, that that could change here, and we could change the arrangement here, and I un I wasn't doing that at all here. Like I don't feel like anything needed to change or anything. I think this album is pretty stands pretty solid the way it is. So with that being said, what would be your three uh highlights on the album?
SPEAKER_01Hmm. I like Things Behind the Sun. I thought that was a a really well-written song. I think some the best writing, I think, was on songs like that. And uh the song No, it's started off the second half of the album really strongly. And Free Ride was another really strong one.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, I uh those are solid choices, and I think I would probably go with two of those. I would go with Things Behind the Sun and Free Ride as well. And I think my other pick was probably probably be the title track, Pink Moon. Really nice way to open the album. Yeah. So I think I know the answer, but uh would you listen to this album again?
SPEAKER_01Yeah, I I think I I need to get a little bit more into Nick Drake because I think he's again he he's another one of those artists where not that he had like hits or anything like that, but the songs that sometimes rise to the surface didn't necessarily catch my attention. You gotta listen to the whole album to find the ones that that that really speak to you, and I think that's the case here.
SPEAKER_02Yeah. Yeah, I agree. And I yeah, I would absolutely listen to this album again, and I will I'm curious to hear his other stuff too. Like he this is uh he has two other albums that you he released before this. Um so yeah, so I would be very curious, curious to hear his his other stuff as well. So yeah, I would definitely listen to this again. Um so yeah, so I guess we'll uh end the episode there. Uh thank you so much for listening if you made it this far. Uh, we would love to hear from you if you want to uh go to the website and go to the contact page, go to polyphonicpress.com slash contact, and uh you can drop us a line and maybe we'll read your message on uh one of these episodes. And uh if you want to help us out, you can go to uh our Patreon, go to patreon.com slash polyphonic press. You can get these episodes the day before they go live. Uh you can pick an album for us to review and uh even get a shout-out during these episodes. And um, if this is your first time listening, be sure to follow the show and leave a rating or review, uh, because it helps uh helps us uh find new listeners or helps new listeners find us. And um I think that just about does it. Uh I'm Jeremy Boyd, and I'm jumping to take it easy.