Pink FloydWish You Were Here

One of the best albums ever made

Good quality, price and as described.

Sounds like the album I know and love!

The opening synthesizer lines of the magnum opus that dominates Pink Floyd's 'Wish You Were Here' album, "Shine On You Crazy Diamond," are light and pulsating, transporting the listener into a false sense of serenity before changing direction and allowing guitar notes and heavy drums to call out cries of desperation. The piece continues to morph as it goes along, with one suite of music dissolving into another, finally making way for bassist Roger Waters' lyrics - sung by Waters himself - offering a romantic vision of Syd Barrett, Pink Floyd's co-founder and original guitarist, before fading out with a saxophone solo that suggests a mother weeping for a lost son. As the guiding force of Pink Floyd in the band's early years (it was Barrett who named the band, after two Georgia bluesmen, Pink Anderson and Floyd Council), Barrett was known for his enigmatic, psychedelic lyrics and his innovative, distorted guitar technique; he was celebrated as an charismatic artist with great promise. He was driven to madness, though, by his increased drug use and erratic behavior, and he proved to be too gentle a soul to survive the increasingly commercial demands of a record business that valued hit records over artistic innovation. (Barrett died in 2006.) Though the band went on without Barrett - and with ace guitarist David Gilmour, a childhood friend of Barrett, in his place - his subsequent absence stood as a testament to how the record business and the rock culture could and did destroy a unique artist of such original vision.'Wish You Were Here' is an album of loss, a loss of a gifted musician and the loss of artistic integrity in the cutthroat culture that was the record business of the 1960s and 1970s, as well as an acknowledgment of possibilities in rock and roll that were never realized. Gilmour, Waters, keyboardist Rick Wright, and drummer Nick Mason try to connect with Barrett and their audience less with words than with sounds; when "Shine On You Crazy Diamond," divided into five distinct parts on side one, resumes with a second suite of four parts on side two after a three-song interlude, the music is more violent, with a wash of white noise and guitar lines that scream like ghosts, brittle synthesizer riffs and strong bass undercurrents. It all finally dissolves into a mournful piano and electronic keyboard requiem that ends on the same note that the record began on. Gilmour has noted that the pressure from their record company to follow up 'The Dark Side Of the Moon' with an equally worthy album fueled Pink Floyd's playing, which dovetailed with the band's increasingly negative attitude toward record company executives; the result is fascinatingly compelling.Lyrically, 'Wish You Were Here' concerns the artist as the second person; the words in the songs address speak to "you," and the second party presented is the tormented artist who is cynically manipulated and by record companies while celebrated by his peers. It's Barrett, but it's also any artist whoever dared to dream. "Welcome To the Machine," carried along by tape loops, Gilmour's acoustic guitar and Wright's explosive keyboard fills, finds the young rock musician sold dreams of stardom that are meant to turn him into a company man doing the bidding of the music "industry." The blistering rocker "Have a Cigar" - with a comically devastating performance by guest vocalist Roy Harper - skewers haughty music moguls who profess to love music they don't even understand from bands they know nothing about ("Which one's Pink?" Harper's clueless A&R man asks of the band).The most astonishing track on 'Wish You Were Here', however, is the conventionally arranged title song. Carried by a mostly acoustic guitar line rich in treble that vaguely recalls the Beatles circa 'Rubber Soul', "Wish You Were Here" is a loving, highly emotional open letter from Waters (with Gilmour's vocals as the medium) to Barrett that expresses solidarity between kindred spirits ("We're just two lost souls swimming in a fish bowl, year after year") and even as it mourns the turn of events that allowed Barrett's spirit to be broken ("Did you they get you to trade your heroes for ghosts?"). It's hard for me to listen to it without tearing up, and the opening guitar riff, transmitted through a tinny speaker, is chilling. It's the most personal expression that Pink Floyd, famous for having hidden behind its music and surreal album covers, ever offered from their side of a wall Waters would spend the next several decades trying to tear down.--Steven Maginnis

This is such a sterile sounding recording, not a lot of life in it, but looking at what it is, it holds up well. All the original master tapes were accidentally ruined during the recording process, forcing the band to re-do it all, the whole story is in Nick Schaffner's book called " A Saucerful Of Secrets: The Pink Floyd Oddessy."The first half of Side One is comprised of parts I through V of "Shine on, You Crazy Diamond," dedicated to founding member Syd Barrett; this song is often criticized for the band, and particularly Roger Waters, capitalizing on the troubled life of Syd Barrett. The first stand-out guitar part, those four notes at the beginning of "Part II," are remembered by David Gilmour as having this sad quality to it, and he has said that he instantaneously thought of Barrett when he first heard that little motif that he made up. And Waters wrote those words, and it all just came together.Dick Parry returns from the "Dark Side" sessions to play saxophone on "Part V," which segues into the eerie, gloomy, "Welcome To The Machine," a song about alienation as well. The lyrics discuss success, but it's in an artificial world, where they "(tell) you what to dream." The falsetto vocals on any other song would be very annoying, but they add to the mood here, one of preconceived ideas, and pre-measured success.The second half of the program opens with "Have A Cigar," and Roy Harper featured on lead vocal. Trying to do the vocals, take after take, on "Shine on...Part IV" left Waters practically unable to speak, let alone sing, so Harper was hired to sing here, and does a nice job. It's about all the cluelessness of record company exec's, and the band's first encounter with one of these people. In the middle 1960's, Syd Barrett was the one who got all the attention, he was cheif song-writer, did most of the lead vocals, and had the "Pop-Star" good looks that attracted many girls into their fan-base. So the snazzy record company exec wanted to cash in on them, blowing smoke, telling them that they were fantastic, and wanted to know "Which one's Pink?" This same concept made it onto the film of "The Wall;" Geldof's character's name is "Floyd Pinkerton," hence the name "Pink Floyd." As an aside, in the film, you can see this when the boy is looking through a drawer full of momentos from his father, who was killed in World War II. The scene where he's trying on his dad's uniform in front of the mirror, there's a paper signed by King George to the soldier named "Pinkerton." Of course, the real story of how the band got the name "Pink Floyd" is a different one altogether; the name was created by Syd Barrett. And no, there's no person by the name "Pink Floyd;" if anyone tries to tell you otherwise, they are full of it. The only person named Pink Floyd is the guy in the movie, and that's just a nick-name and stage-name, not even real, anyway."Have A Cigar" shapes itself into the title track, "Wish You Were Here," ironically, one of the Floyd's biggest hits. I say ironic, because it is about as anti-floyd as it gets; strumming basic guitar chords with a simple melody, almost a country song, and lyrics that could've been written on a greeting card. In fact, the original release back in 1975 did come with a postcard, it had a picture of a guy diving into some water with hardly a splash. I've never been too sure of why this picture, but it's an interesting photograph, anyway.This fades into howling wind, the background to the second half of "Shine on, You Crazy Diamond"'s intro. It sounds like New Age jazz, very progressive, very cold. It forms into "Part VII," a reprise of "Part IV," with Waters singing again.(I kind of prefer the way Gilmour sang it on "The Delicate Sound Of Thunder" and "Pulse.)Listen to "Part VIII," and tell me that doesn't sound like The Alan Parsons Project. It has all of the elements of a Parsons recording, even though it's only the guys in Pink Floyd playing it.Which brings us to the closer, "Shine On, You Crazy Diamond, Part IX." It's slow and dirge-like, plodding beat, somber piano rhythm, and a haunting melody on synthesizer as lead instrument, Barrett's fade-out into obscurity.On the whole, this work has all the warmth of an iceberg, but it falls into the premise of the piece; the idea of being alienated and isolated. Not my favorite, but I do like it a lot.P.S. I upped it to 5 stars. It's that good.

I bought it mainly cause Wish you where here is my favorite song from Pink Floyd, but overall the album is awesome! Just play it and chill, need a few more from them, really recommended.

Glad to have this greatly remastered CD.

This is my favorite Pink Floyd record and this pressing is very cool. The vinyl is THICK and the presentation is neat. The double bagging is a litter excessive but I dig it.

David Gilmour's favorite PF album, and usually taking the #2 spot behind DSM as the bands best & for good reason. BRILLIANT! Front-back. Not an easy record to conceptualize, write, record following the phenomena that was Dark Side of the Moon, the sessions were initially schizophrenic, unfocused, the band exhausted. However, between Water & Gilmour, an incredible engineering & sound crew, produced yet another stunner.

The media could not be loaded. Tiene una excelente calidad de audio. En tema de tiempo de entrega llego antes del tiempo mencionado.Más que satisfecho. Excelente vinyl!!!

Cool

Très beau CD des PINK Floyd. Très beaux souvenirs