WISH YOU WERE HERE

Wish You Were Here is my favourite Pink Floyd Album. Although Dark Side of the Moon is more famous and commercialy successful than WYWH is doesn't sound as complete to me. Wish You Were Here starts off with Shine on You Crazy Diamond Part 1 which is a very mellow and somber song that picks up around the middle when the vocals come in. Gilmour is much more present on this album than the others leading up to it. Every song showcases his talents both in guitar and vocals.

The next song "Welcome to the Machine" is a creepy song with beautiful effects and instrumentation. The vocals are dark and are kept more in the background than the foreground and help the songs overall feel.

Song three is "Have a Cigar" which is a more pop/rock song compared to the others with a good bass and guitar riff and cool keyboard runs. The song also features a beautiful Gilmour style solo. He is one of those guitarists that have a tone all their own and is so recognizable even to a person just starting to listen to Floyd and prog in general.

"Wish You Were Here" is a nice acoustic song that most people can latch on to and love. People who don't dwell deeper into Floyd's catalogue will still know this song well and be able to sing along.

"Shine on you Crazy Diamond Part 2" is the finale to the album and goes out in a bang. It starts off with a grumbling bass line, very similar to sheep on Animals which followed this album, and progresses into a high pitched guitar solos that reach the upper extremes of a guitars range. It then breaks down into the vocal section and finishes off with a funky clavinet solo with nice guitar licks along with it.

This is the most complete Pink FLoyd album in my opinion. Every song on it can stand alone but together they are even more brilliant as they nicely flow into eachother. I give this album 5 stars.