The Dark Side of the Moon, released by Pink Floyd in 1973, is a concept album about the pressures of life on the road and the mental illness of former bandmate Syd Barrett. The band built it during live shows, then recorded it at EMI Studios in London, now Abbey Road, using multitrack tape, tape loops and early analogue synthesisers. Alan Parsons handled much of the engineering, and he recruited the session singer Clare Torry, whose wordless vocal defines The Great Gig in the Sky. The cover, designed by Storm Thorgerson, shows a beam of white light splitting into a rainbow spectrum, a simple image that reflected the band's stage lighting and the album's themes. Its success was enormous: it sold over 45 million copies by 2013 and remains one of the best-selling albums in history.

Hampi is a UNESCO World Heritage Site in Karnataka, India, with more than 1,600 surviving remains spread over 4,100 hectares. It was the capital of the Vijayanagara Empire from 1336 to 1565. Travellers from Persia and Portugal described it as a prosperous, wealthy and grand city with temples, markets and farms along the Tungabhadra River. By 1500 it was estimated to be the world's second-largest city after Beijing, and probably India's richest at the time. In 1565 a coalition of Muslim sultanates defeated the Vijayanagara Empire, its capital was conquered and destroyed, and the city was left in ruins. Hampi remains a religious centre, with the active Virupaksha Temple at its heart.