Pink Floyd, “Dark Side of the Moon” 50th anniversary box set.

In the 1960s, communication theorist Marshall Mcluhan famously declared “the medium is the message.” Mcluhan’s point was that the means by which an idea or piece of “content” is transmitted is at least as important as the content itself. Pink Floyd‘s latest remastering of its most successful album, Dark Side of the Moon, offers an alternative perspective: the more things change, the more they stay the same.

The precise number of times the band’s 1974 commercial high-water mark has been reissued is almost impossible to determine as different versions and editions of the album have been released with varying degrees of remastering. Notable remastered versions of the album include the 20th Anniversary Edition (1993), the Immersion Edition (2011) and the 2016 remastered edition released as part of the Pink Floyd “The Early Years” box set. Additionally, the album has been reissued on various digital formats, such as SACD and Blu-ray. I worked in a record store in the 1990s and I remember stocking some fancy edition on a “gold” CD that cost $30!

And yet, it’s the same album every time. It’s like George Lucas’ endless tinkering with his original “Star Wars” movies: Han shoots first, then in reedits 20 years after the film’s release Greedo fires first, and now in the latest edit the green alien cries out “Maclunkey” before croaking. The latest reissue of Dark Side offers nothing nearly as substantive in terms of changes. In fact, the latest tinkering is more akin to the endless rejiggering of the final Death Star explosion scene that evolved over the various “Star Wars” releases from a shower of sparks to a fiery explosion that ringed the orbiting battle station. Bear with me folks, I’m trying to make a larger point here, which is that none of changes to the explosion alter the cinematic tenor of the film, or the quality or quantity of emotions evoked by the final scene. And none of the knob twiddling done to this iconic album is going to make your goosebumps any bigger during Clare Torry’s vocal solo in “The Great Gig in the Sky.” They’re big enough.

If you need me to describe what Dark Side of the Moon sounds like because you’ve never heard it, you’re better off listening to it. I’m afraid I can’t tell you what the album sounds like in Dolby 5.1 or whatever, because I have a stereo with two speakers that point at me when I sit on my couch. And that’s enough. If the entry fee to hearing all the new bells and whistles on the album is a bunch of expensive audio gear, then that’s too high a price to pay for me. Audiophiles can gush about how amazing the album sounds on your car-priced home audio systems in our exclusive, gilded comment section below.

Of course the album sounds great. But the real prize in this elaborate rerelease is an accompanying live recording of the band playing the album at Wembley Stadium in 1974. Recorded that November, the songs are significantly different from the album versions, which have become so tattooed on the brains of avid listeners over the decades that any variation, however slight, feels jarring. However, when the band and the material is this good, it’s a pleasant jarring.

Every song feels just a little different, and in some cases the variations are striking.The synthesizer twiddling during “On the Run” sounds a little grittier and goes on a little longer. “Money” features a markedly different arrangement, especially in regard to the song’s iconic guitar solo during the second half of which the drums drop out almost completely for a much jazzier feel. “Us and Them” begins with an extended organ solo and contains a more extensive saxophone solo.

Pink Floyd, “The Dark Side of the Moon: Live at Wembley.”

And best of all, you can buy The Dark Side of the Moon: Live at Wembley 1974 as a standalone in both vinyl and CD formats for no more than that gold edition I was tasked with selling in the ’90s. While it’s not as thorough or literally as heavy as the box set, it comes in a nostalgia-inducing architectural-type prototype drawing with annotated comments for the original album cover, as well as a couple of posters.

Freud’s notion of the uncanny — again, bear with me folks — is that things that are simultaneously familiar and unfamiliar produce a feeling of unease. That’s not the case with the live versions of these iconic songs. The differences twinkle amid the familiar, offering up a deeper appreciation for the quality of the compositions and the talent of the performers. While only the most geared-up of fans need the latest reissue of Dark Side of the Moon, anyone calling themselves a fan should check out this live album.

Follow writer David Gill at Twitter.com/saxum_paternus.