WISH YOU WERE HERE

When I heard "Dark Side of the Moon" for the first time after my love of progressive rock was already firmly established, to say I was underwhelmed by one of the supposed "greatest albums of all time" is a bit of an understatement. "Wish You Were Here" fares better however, and I can genuinely say that I enjoy this album. Most of it, anyway.

I've said this in my Pink Floyd reviews before: Pink Floyd attracts two main demographics, those new to progressive music and people so stoned that they make Cheech and Chong blush. And it makes sense why the band is so appealing, their music is very well-produced, subdued and generally very accessible. And that is exactly what "Wish You Were Here" offers. In a sense, it's like the stereotypical Pink Floyd album. The tempo never picks up above 80 or 90 BPM, if that, and all the songs are either about Syd Barrett or how Roger Waters thinks "the man" is out to get him. But how good is the music itself?

If you're a Pink Floyd fan, you're clearly going to love everything on here; that's a fact. But if you're like me and don't have any particular attachment to the band's sound or story, the quality is a bit more wavering throughout. The three shorter middle tracks, "Welcome To The Machine", "Have A Cigar" and "Wish You Were Here" are all absolute snore-fests. There's nothing here that you haven't already heard on the first side of "Meddle"; tedious, melancholy songs where the lyrics stand out a lot more than their instrumental accompaniment.

"Shine On", on the other hand, is a different story. Both parts are excellent, but not because "Shine On" is a prog chef d'oeuvre, but rather because it's a wonderfully done blues song. A slow blues epic, both halves of the song are sparse and slow-building in typical Floyd fashion, but interestingly enough the slow tempo works very well to produce tension. Even though it's almost 10 minutes before the vocals even enter, it really doesn't feel like so long because the instrumental parts work very well complementing and working off of each other. A wonderfully executed song if I do say so myself!

So with half of the album being marvelous and the other being mediocre, I'd say that "Wish You Were Here" averages out to about a 3 star album. A must-have for Pink Floyd fans and an inoffensive buy for the rest of us.