(...) when "Dark Side of the Moon" came out it had already occurred to me to think that the (Pink) Floyd's betrayal of the Syd Barrett  spirit (whatever that might mean) made them look almost despicable. 

 

Even today I feel the noumenon when I hear the Floyd fragments live with Barrett: pure improvised madness and experimentation. But David Gilmour - when DSM came out - had already co-authored the eponymous piece (and the most beautiful) of "A Saucerful..." and, at the end, with Gilmour and without Syd Barrett, DSM has taken in the Floyds' discography the role "2001" has in the Kubrickian production: not the best, yet an unavoidable historical piece.

 

The fact that DSM is one of the best-selling albums ever is not at all the reason why it is famous. The opposite is true. There may have been an emulative effect, but that year of delay that I have witnessed shows how slowly the album was built up in appreciation in a first sign of "united Europe."

 

It was a Box Office champion because lots of people, for some reason, considered it "good music." Yes, but... why? That would be something worth knowing.

 

On the interesting issue here I can only say that (in 1980) I wrote about the ‘Punk Floyd’ of "Animals", recalling those who “reproached the bourgeoisification, the subservience of their sound to mother EMI, but on closer inspection what is most annoying is this perfectly rock sound, polished and cared for in the details.” And I remain of the idea: the effective sound technique crowned their success.

 

With a clarification and update of historic perspective: thus arranged and produced, DSM created a conformist use of ‘new’ timbres like Kosmic Kouriers, some soft-prog ninth chords keyboards and the un-expected singing outburst of Clare Torry. A professional but not sublime instrumental technique, very warm synths and the bass drum as swollen and epic as the whole ‘stellar’ drum kit (the opposite of the pyro/technique of Keith Emerson and Carl Palmer) culminating with the final moment, a brief but very intense breath of (let’s call it) symphonic rock.

 

The function given to the brass section in “Atom Heart’s Mother” here is dubbed by synthesizers and guitars indulging a lavish, superior and seductive (re)production glaze: never a Stratocaster had ever sounded so good.

 

Different musical genres and sub-genres flow between the grooves: hard rock (Money), symphonic rock (Eclipse), psychedelic rock (Us & Them), epic ballads (Brain Damage), r’n’b/gospel (The Great Gig In The Sky) and avant-garde music (little voices here and there, the sound collages in the background.)

 

With a strictly white pop continuum. At the time, however, buying the vinyl felt like a ticket to a sonic moon-landing experience in praise of the esoteric (the cover!,) of technique and of a more professional, mass-appealing "space-age" rock music.