1973 Classic and Longest-Charting Album of All Time Went to No. 1 On This Day 53 Years Ago

Consult the astrological history books, and you won’t find a solar eclipse listed for April 28, 1973. However, on that day, the music world witnessed a rock eclipse of epic proportions: Pink Floyd’s The Dark Side of the Moon overshadowed all others by going to No. 1, kicking off a record-setting run on the Billboard 200 albums chart that no one has touched since.

First released on March 1, 1973, The Dark Side of the Moon entered the albums chart at No. 95 on the week of March 17. Up to that point, the highest that Pink Floyd ever reached was No. 26 with their previous album, Obscured by Clouds. But this time, something was different. Over the next two months, The Dark Side of the Moon made its way further and further up the chart. Eventually, it dethroned Alice Cooper’s Billion Dollar Babies to take the top spot.

Though The Dark Side of the Moonwould stay at No. 1 for only a week, it would be a near-constant presence on the Billboard 200 for the next fifteen years.

The concept album, which is considered “the best rock album of all time,” spent 84 weeks on the chart (March 1973 to October 1974), a very impressive run; Billboard named it the best-selling album of 1973. Dark Side returned to the charts in December 1976, where it would stay for 593 weeks. In October 1988, after accumulating 741 weeks on the chart, Dark Side of the Moon fell off…

…until it popped back on in 2009. According to Billboard, catalog albums were largely disallowed from charting from 1991 to 2009, as the albums chart “included only then-current and recently-released albums.”

With the updated rules, Dark Side has returned to the Billboard 200 chart frequently over the past decades. Since then, it has not only cemented itself as being the longest-charting of all time on the Billboard 200, but in January 2026, The Dark Side of the Moon picked up its 996th nonconsecutive week. With the Artemis II space mission touring the literal dark side of the moon, many expected the album to return to the charts and cross the 1,000-week threshold, but that has yet to happen.

Pink Floyd began working on The Dark Side of the Moon in 1971, according to Ultimate Classic Rock. Roger Waters wrote all the lyrics, exploring the concept of what drives people “mad”—money, greed, mortality—while David Gilmour and Richard Wright concentrated on the music. The album’s singles, “Money” and “Us and Them,” became staples of rock radio. It remains a cherished and celebrated album in history, with pristine copies often selling for thousands of dollars.

Related: 1973 Album That Went to No. 1 53 Years Ago Sold For a Shocking Amount