WISH YOU WERE HERE

This is without a doubt the best Pink Floyd album of all time, but I can not in good conscience grant even the best Pink Floyd album a five-star rating, as so many others have done here. That would insulting to many of the other prog albums that I cherish so dearly and hold on high as genuine five-star albums. I can't rate this album on the same level as Close To the Edge or Selling England By the Pound, as I have never felt that the players in Pink Floyd could hold a candle to those in most other prog bands that I am familiar with. But, the music here is still tremendous, certainly, and I appreciate the fact that this album was conceived in the wake of Dark Side of the Moon, a runaway train of an album, the success of which obviously took the band by surprise. The songs on this album are powerhouses of emotion. Welcome to the Machine and Have a Cigar are so brooding, Wish You Were Here so melancholy, Shine On You Crazy Diamond so transcendent.