Following up The Dark Side of the Moon is no small feat yet Pink Floyd endured and provided an album which could, in some circles, knock it from the top spot. Wish You Were Here does not have those bursts of energy or the hits which would be adapted to TikTok explainer reels decades on from its release but what it does have is a defiant creative energy where the likes of Roger Waters and David Gilmour push themselves further, challenge their abilities as performers and try and seek out new ideas for a constantly evolving progressive rock tone. Back to the glorious, long-form experimentations of Ummagumma the band go as they take up sections of vinyl for lengthy songs and wild interpretations. Nine-part tributes to Syd Barrett who oversaw the duller days of psychedelic influence and critical punches at the music business all favour the flaming man on the front of Wish You Were Here, an incredible image which lasts on the mind longer than the music.
Tributes to Barrett filter through Shine On You Crazy Diamond, as touching a tribute to the man who morphed the early years of the band as you could ever get. David Gilmour dominates in this lengthy guitar piece and rightly so. As moving and terrifying as the Roger Waters vocal performance to be found later in the track, those repetitions of the track title stomp through. There is as much love as there is animosity. Those chances of cutting through with monumental force and disposing of someone who has outstayed their welcome. Wish You Were Here begins and ends its first track with heartbreak. A sophisticated and tragic epic which benefits greatly from the continuation of well-layered prog-rock, Welcome To The Machine looks to unravel the process. Not maliciously but to inject electronics of the next decade into place. It is an ambitious move; a slower pace takes hold, and Wish You Were Here begins directing the band to different sounds for the sake of longevity and variety when compared to The Dark Side of the Moon.
Pink Floyd moved on from progressive-rock impressions to a jam-rock style which feels looser in its instrumentals. Experimentation has always been the guarded core of the band but here implements a shift. Shorter shuffles of guitar work ride through Have A Cigar and take an almost mellow tone on the title track. Wonderful works regardless and true fascination for an album which lacks the lyrical impressions but makes its tone and thoughts clear through a creative visual on the cover and plenty of time to muse on it through the instrumental sections. Wish You Were Here lingers as a dominant Rogers piece though – those lyrics use keen and obvious back-and-forth between lush fields and soulless factories to mark the real joys of life. It is not the place we find ourselves but the people we surround ourselves with and the deals we make to keep them there. It could not be clearer on Wish You Were Here.
Further tributes to Barrett close off what becomes a fine piece of the Pink Floyd discography – a piece which is the sum of five years of experimentation. Certainly not as powerful a listen as The Dark Side of the Moon but then the easier access to its themes makes it a popular choice. Wish You Were Here dedicating itself to heartbreak and anguished tones, brings them to a boil with a fiery front cover replicating deals with the devil to get to those industrious parts of life we call paradise and later regrets the decision on Shine On You Crazy Diamond (Pts. 6 – 9). As complex as it is tender, the work within Wish You Were Here lingers as a fractured experience. An infighting band alienated by the loss of a close collaborator during their formative years and the ever-changing landscapes of the music industry. Their fears are compounded and turned into one of the finest albums out there.
It sucks