Money

Pink Floyd's most commercially coded moment arrives wearing a disguise: a cash register as rhythmic instrument, time signatures that shift before you notice, a saxophone so bluesy it could've wandered in from a different record entirely. Waters's bass line is elastic and funky, something the band rarely allowed themselves. The lyrics anatomize greed with the bluntness of a pamphlet, but the music contradicts the message — it's too enjoyable, too locked-in to read as condemnation without irony. Gilmour's guitar solo builds from conversational to incandescent. The song works as satire and as a pop record simultaneously, which may be why it's the most radio-played track from an album that otherwise refuses easy consumption. It lodges in the brain like something you've always known.