Dark Side of the Moon Pink Floyd DVD (2003) Eagle Vision $20.98 Buy it at Insound.

Certain DVDs in the series (Deep Purple's Machine Head and Judas Priest's British Steel) cover recordings you might never want to hear, but Dark Side is done so well that it offers optimism for all. You have David Gilmour revealing the unique guitar intro to "Money", and Nick Mason showing how he casually borrowed from Miles Davis for a keyboard sequence in "Breathe". Waters perfectly illuminates his lyrics, too. Essentially, Dark Side tackles the same subjects and emotions as The Wall, The Final Cut, or Waters's solo work, but it offers a healthy optimism and empathy ("Breathe / Breathe With Me") that most overlook. Like "The Tide is Turning", a superb solo Waters composition, it's not oppressive but hopeful. Can we deal with the issue of us and them? Can we get along? Beating Rodney King to a quotation hardly merits certain critics' praise ("most important statement on mankind in the past fifty years"), but the music does convey the profundity in our most basic human instincts. It also is not deliberately strange (as with the lyric, "I've always said I preferred your lips red / Not what God made / But what He intended", from Waters's Pros and Cons of Hitchhiking), stating all its humane philosophies in clear and genuine terms.

As Waters proudly intuits, Dark Side was not merely a rehash of an interstellar space rock record; it was completely "driven by emotion", as with later works like Wish You Were Here, but made more successful by the band's camaraderie. Pink Floyd conceived the record during a unique and special moment in time when Gilmour liked Waters and Waters liked Gilmour. Everyone appreciated each other's contributions, and, most importantly, none denied Waters's sensitive genius its due. While the more specifically personal Final Cut might work best for that grand lot of 12 with recurring Falklands War traumas, each member of the group could directly connect to Waters's material here. The members point out exquisitely phrased evocations of the British character ("Hanging on in desperation / Is the English way") and intriguing thoughts on the inner psyche. They say such kind things that Waters must replay their words in his sleep.

As the band repeatedly divulges the most interesting material about the record, it's not surprising that the best commentary appears in the bonus section. It's this section of the Classic Album Series in which individual band members provide informative monologues before their solo re-recordings. Waters explains the first track, "Brain Damage", like we were all Adam and Eve, driven mad by Eden's presence in the distance. For him, Eden was a plot of grass he wanted to walk upon as a kid, but couldn't. It's amazing how he can recall that instance, then write a song that imagines him walking upon that grass after years of being denied it ("The lunatic is on the grass"). The emotional complexities are made far more apparent by his explanations, and his imagination proves itself more alive than anal; he rides a single idea until it defines and sheds light upon our sorrowful existence.

Other highlights are more technical in nature, but always interesting. You hear about looping, and some of the exploratory studio work that the band did. Chris Thomas's contributions are illuminated, too; rather than exalting his studio prowess, the disc presents him as a person who was able to get Gilmour, Waters, Mason and Wright to find the necessary compromises and produce the most successful result. He got them all to see that more cowbell was needed.

There are many such revealing moments on the DVD, but you wouldn't be mesmerized if the songs did not hold up in stripped-down, demo form, or as sequences, alone and apart from the rest of the music. These factors probably separate Dark Side from other volumes in the Classic Album series, because the "old dinosaurs" in Pink Floyd still sound wonderful (particularly Gilmour). They are top-level musicians, able to enthrall you with their playing, and their Dark Side songs are very rich. This might be the only Floyd record that could have worked in a totally acoustic setting, and it's due to the songwriting, the bridges, and the surprising lack of puffery in Waters's words. On the DVD, the pre-song monologues actually blend in with the music. As the band members answer in thoughtful, contemplative tones, their voices parallel the music, and turn the DVD into a sort of alternate recording where mad mutterings ("There is no dark side of the moon, really") play a bigger role. It's hard to imagine an equally great record, like Graceland, pulling off the same trick. Talking, on almost any other DVD, would be nothing more than talking. Somehow, on the Dark Side DVD, it's mood music in itself, and turns the whole piece into some sort of grand extended mix.

As a kid, I could not appreciate Dark Side as I did The Wall, Final Cut or even Animals. I loved Waters's obsessions and could not feel them as strongly here. Now, having seen this DVD some seven times, the album may well have become my favorite. In childhood, it only gave me one anecdote -- a teacher asked me what I was sitting around, waiting for, and I said, "The eclipse" -- but in adulthood, or whatever stage of life I'm in right now, it gives me a certain strength -- a strange willingness to reach out and hope.

-- Theodore Defosse