Wish You Were Here

Performer: Pink Floyd
Artist: Roy Harper
Engineer: Peter James; Brian Humphries
Producer: Pink Floyd
Distributor: EMI Music Distribution

Notes: Pink Floyd: David Gilmour (vocals, guitar); Richard Wright (vocals, keyboards, VCS3 syntheszier); Roger Waters (vocals, bass); Nick Mason (drums). Additional personnel: Roy Harper (vocals); Dick Parry (saxophone); Venetta Fields, Carlena Williams (background vocals). Recorded at Abbey Road Studios, London, England from January-July 1975. Digitally remastered by Doug Sax (The Mastering Lab, Los Angeles, California). Pink Floyd: David Gilmour (vocals, guitar); Richard Wright (vocals, keyboards, VCS3 syntheszier); Roger Waters (vocals, bass); Nick Mason (drums). Additional personnel: Roy Harper (vocals); Dick Parry (saxophone). Recorded at Abbey Road Studios, London, England from January to July 1975. All songs written by members of Pink Floyd. This is part of Columbia/Legacy's Master Sound series. Master Sound releases are 24-karat gold CDs remastered from first-generation masters. This process utilizes 20-bit technology and Sony's "Super Bit Mapping" system. Personnel: David Gilmour, Roger Waters (vocals, guitar); Richard Wright (vocals, keyboards); Venetta Fields, Carlena Williams (vocals, background vocals); Roy Harper (vocals); Dick Parry (saxophone); Nick Mason (drums). Recording information: EMI Abbey Road Studios, London, England (01/1975-07/1975). Illustrator: George Hardie. Photographer: Hipgnosis [Design Group]. Unknown Contributor Roles: Jeff Smith ; Peter Christopherson. The breakthrough success of DARK SIDE OF THE MOON made WISH YOU WERE HERE a crucial follow-up in strictly commercial terms. Further pressure came from it being Pink Floyd's first recording for a new label, Columbia. Yet the demands on the band only provided Roger Waters with more fodder for his lyrics, which glanced at the band's roots as well as their new responsibilities. The mechanized throb of a VCS3 synthesizer, fed through a repeat-echo unit, signals the opening bars of "Welcome to the Machine," a diatribe against an industry more concerned with money than creative music-making. "Have a Cigar" further establishes Waters' contempt by bringing in singer Roy Harper to play the role of a "faceless suit," who none-too-innocently asks, "Which one's Pink?" The remaining songs indirectly look back to the first casualty of Pink Floyd's growing fame, the group's founder, Syd Barrett. The 20-minute-plus "Shine On You Crazy Diamond" has its roots in earlier pieces like "Atom Heart Mother Suite" and "Echoes." But rather than just another Floydian soundscape, its lyrics make it a paean to Barrett's genius and a requiem for his subsequent breakdown. The first five of the song's nine movements open the album with sax player Dick Parry wailing as effectively as he did on DARK SIDE. The final four sections, which close the album, form a reprise that starts with the sound of wind and David Gilmour's guitar screaming and crying. The band then settles into a laid-back jam that ends with Richard Wright's billowing synth delicately fading out. The title track deals also with Barrett, as well as the tension the idealist Waters was feeling in battling the greed that surrounded the band's success. The themes of disillusionment planted throughout WISH YOU WERE HERE would eventually sprout full-blown on THE WALL.

Q (6/00, p.72) - Ranked #43 in Q's "100 Greatest British Albums" - "Stuck with the impossible task of following DARK SIDE OF THE MOON, Pink Floyd did it with panache....'Shine On You Crazy Diamond' is the mellifluous rock-gospel opener, but there's weirder stuff here..." Q (Magazine) (p.120) - "[The music] has a magnificently ethereal quality, with David Gilmour's guitar and Rick Wright's keyboards sounding like meteorites gently pinging around some far-off galaxy."

From their first Syd Barrett-led psych-pop record to their concept albums and elaborately presented live shows of the 1970s, these space-rock pioneers reached unprecedented heights of commercial and aesthetic success. Their '73 opus, DARK SIDE OF THE MOON, remained on the album charts for an astounding 14 years, making it one of the best-selling records ever. Even after the departure of main conceptualist Roger Waters following 1983's THE FINAL CUT, Floyd continued to release albums well into the '90s, with David Gilmour leading the band.

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