WISH YOU WERE HERE

Both DSOTM and Animals are far superior to this, IMO. Here is where you start to hear this band slowly fall apart. By the time WYWH was being recorded, the band members were starting to drift away from each other. Waters was beginning to be an egomaniac; Wright was starting to be uninterested and a coke-head; Mason seemed to be more interested in cars than music; and Gilmour just wanted to play guitar, man. Both Wright and Gilmour claim this as their favourite Floyd album. All the members hate the more inconsistent but better overall Atom Heart Mother. Silly bastards, who are they to judge their own music?

Everybody knows how this album's concept is about Syd Barrett. Most Floyd fans are aware that Syd even showed up in the studio when they were recording it. Few know that Syd also visited the band when they were recording Atom Heart Mother as well. Trivia rocks! On this album Mason only uses one kick/bass drum. He was one of the first rock drummers to use a double-bass drumkit. On WYWH he could have been replaced by a drum machine. Like DSOTM there is some sax and female backup vocals. The sax playing here is awful. It sounds like an intrusion, it doesn't compliment the music at all. The female vocals are almost pointless and don't add anything like they do on DSOTM.

The lyrics may be some of Waters' best, like the classic line: "The band is just fantastic, that is really what I think/Oh by the way, which one's Pink?" But the music is some of the most uninteresting they had done up to this point. Most of the time they sound like they are on auto-pilot. Just going through the motions. Before this album they attempted to make an album called Household Objects. All the instruments would be...household objects. That concept sounds more interesting than almost anything here. At the beginning of "Shine On" you can hear some wine glasses recorded for the aborted album.

On DSOTM they only used one synthesizer: the EMS Synthi-AKS. Most of the time it was Gilmour and Waters, not Wright playing it. On WYWH that synth is still used(mostly for sound effects), but they had added MiniMoog and ARP Solina. On "Have A Cigar" Wright has the most unique keyboard mix for a Floyd song: Wurlitzer, clavinet and Solina. You never heard him sound funkier. "Welcome To The Machine" is not a very strong song, but it is one of the proggier moments here and the synth playing is good. I like the stereo panning here. I never really cared for the first half of "Shine On". Very dull and boring for the most part. The only parts I like are the guitar and synth solos after the drums kick in. The 4- note guitar part known as "Syd's Theme" is alright the first hundred times you hear it.

The title track here is perhaps the first evidence of the band attempting to "sell out". The lyrics might tie in with the Syd theme, but from a musical point of view it seems as out of place here as the "Pigs On A Wing" tracks are on Animals. It's a nice enough song but it's not prog and Floyd have done many better shorter songs. Roy Harper sings on "Have A Cigar" and apart from his vocals and Wright's playing, this song never interested me much. Gilmour has a few nice solos but he's done much better on other albums. I like the radio seque between "Cigar" and "Wish".

Parts VI-IX of "Shine" have always been my favourite part of the album. Even here I hate the actual vocal parts. The instrumental parts are superb and are the proggiest moments on the album. Well played and sounds great. Animals has stronger music while DSOTM has better production. A good album but nothing more. 3 stars.