WISH YOU WERE HERE

So what happened to the mellotron . . . this album. Wish You Were Here created symphonic and atmosphereic textures without a mellotron. Sure others, Tangerine Dream to name one, had done it before, but this album popularized it and put it into a rock context.

In 1975 Pink Floyd was very special. They were popular enough to be on the radio, but still out there enough to write Shine on You Crazy Diamond. The theme of insanity as the sane outlet to an insane world is central to the classic era of progressive rock. Waters tackles it here better than most with this story of Syd Barrett's descent into insanity. Waters uses it to outline a critique of the burgoening music conglomeration that was not only stifling artistic growth, but cultural growth in the process. This critique would become the basis of The Wall, which in many ways is a continuation of this album and its subsequent Animals.

This album is transportive, transcendent in the way that progressive music is known for. It is one of the classic albums of the genre.