Album Review: Wish You Were Here [1975] #4

My biggest issue with Wish You Were Here as an album lies in the fact that I'm not a huge fan of anglo prog rock as a genre. Bands like Pink Floyd, Jethro Tull and Yes have never been my favorites even if I can enjoy most of their greatest releases on a more conceptual level and at best, appreciating their works from a more objective standpoint instead of a personal one.

Wish You Were Here is centered around the two suites of the song Shine On You Crazy Diamond, a song written as a tribute to past member Syd Barrett who unfortunately had to leave the band due to mental illness years prior to both this album and The Dark Side Of The Moon which I wrote about a couple of days back. It's a metamorphing beats that transitions through synths, pads, jazz trumpets, melodic guitar riffs and the occasional call out "Shine on, you crazy diamond!" which I'm not sure is the most fitting choice of lyrics for a song tributed to someone suffering from mental illness.



However the decision to split the song into two different parts, one half for as the opening part of the album and one half making up the closing part was in my opinion a huge mistake. Shine On You Crazy Diamond is what makes up the bulk of Wish You Were Here and it's also what I think is the underlying motif, the grandiose piece that ties it all together. How mesmerizing had it not been if the band had decided to go out on the high note that is Shine On instead of using the track as a way to tie the album together?

The biggest issue about doing something like this is that you create a void that is made up by the three tracks, Welcome To The Machine, Have A Cigar and Wish You Were Here which never really attribute something to the whole of the record and mainly exist as this kind of 15 minute break that just holds up the inevitable ending to the Syd Barrett-tribute that has barely been teased during the opening of the album. Cutting the main force of the album apart also divides the record, leaving a gap that can not quite be healed, no matter how good of a track the misplaced title track is on it's own two feet. It hampers the album, leaving little reason to return when the main forces can be sought up on their own, atleast in today's society.

My other qualm with the record is the fact that I just don't really enjoy Shine On You Crazy Diamond for what it is; a prog rock jam session. As someone who's not a big fan of the genre, I find very little to hold onto with a track like this outside of the way the band incorporates elements from their influences, mainly the early 60's jazz trumpets during the closing part of parts I-V. I wish there was more depth to the four tracks of the album that aren't Wish You Were Here, something that I atleast could find on The Dark Side Of The Moon.

Maybe all of this just stems from my experiences with the genre as a whole and maybe, or even obviously actually, this is a problem that few other listeners has with this record. However I do not see this as a record that even closely compares to The Dark Side Of The Moon, let alone many of the other records that Pink Floyd has put out and Wish You Were Here will most likely not grow on me since my issues with the album are already far too strong for something like that.

It's a fine record if you're already big on similar music, but it's just not for me at all.

Pink Floyd
Wish You Were Here
4/10
Anton Öberg Sysojev