By condensing the sonic explorations of Meddle to actual songs and adding a lush, immaculate production to their trippiest instrumental sections, Pink Floyd inadvertently designed their commercial breakthrough with Dark Side of the Moon. The primary revelation of Dark Side of the Moon is what a little focus does for the band. Roger Waters wrote a series of songs about mundane, everyday details which aren't that impressive by themselves, but when given the sonic backdrop of Floyd's slow, atmospheric soundscapes and carefully placed sound effects, they achieve an emotional resonance. But what gives the album true power is the subtly textured music, which evolves from ponderous, neo-psychedelic art rock to jazz fusion and blues-rock before turning back to psychedelia. It's dense with detail, but leisurely paced, creating its own dark, haunting world. Pink Floyd may have better albums than Dark Side of the Moon, but no other record defines them quite as well as this one. The album was celebrating a total of 1,350 weeks on The Billboard 200 and Top Pop Catalog charts in Billboard magazine when Capitol Records released the 30th anniversary edition in 2003. The SACD version, as had previous digital remasterings, added space and definition to the elements of music, dialogue, and sound effects that made up the album, while the 5.1 remix expanded those improvements across multiple speakers. Original designer Storm Thorgerson contributed a new, subtly different album cover and a 20-page CD booklet that was a scrapbook of photographs and artwork associated with the album over the years.

Stephen Thomas Erlewine, Rovi

Too serious to be bubblegum, too sweet to be adult contemporary, the Harpers Bizarre fearlessly blazed their own trail without worrying about whether or not their brand of elcectic adult vocal pop would endure. And sadly, some of this material hasn't worn terribly well. But there's some great stuff on Anything Goes, mainly "Snow," "Jessie," and "You Need a Change" -- "High Coin" and "Pocketful of Miracles" are near misses.

The "hit" was "Chattanooga Choo Choo," but in 2001 it seems awfully cutesy-poo, as with the title track. "Louisiana Man"/"Milord"/"Virginia City" run together as a suite- an innovation in 1967, but also kind of a shame, as "Milord" is a much stronger effort than its flanking companions. Production values are excellent, and one of these guys moved on to production work (does the name Ted Templeman ring a bell? It should.) Harpers Bizarre do not sing on "This is Only the Beginning," which can be best described as an old-time radio montage. Throughout the disc there are snippets of Cole Porter singing between tracks, in keeping with the old fashioned groove of the overall project. However the more contemporary material sounds the strongest, with one exception -- "Malibu U" is hippie high-camp; like Ed Wood, so bad it's good.

Uncle Dave Lewis, Rovi