Oh boy. Here we go. As a 19-year-old college student who had decided that I was well-versed enough in the music industry to offer my own judgements on artists and albums, I still never had thought that I reached the point where I could criticize Pink Floyd. They are one of those bands that American Eagle tries to put on T-shirts, similar to the Rolling Stones and the Beatles. So in simple terms, Pink Floyd has felt too classic and intimidating to touch for someone like me. But here I am, on this fine sunny afternoon, finally documenting my input.
I dipped my toe into the Pink Floyd pool with David Gilmour’s incredible guitar solo in “Time”. After feeling out the waters of “Money” and “Breathe (In The Sky),” I decided it was time to give Dark Side of the Moon a complete listen, and that changed my entire perspective on music. Prior to this experience, I didn’t realize that artists intended for their music to go through such journeys. I considered songs as separate experiences that happened to have a similar-enough theme to put together into an album. Pink Floyd always had different intentions for their music. They paint massive, coherent pictures with each album. And that is no different for their album I am reviewing today: Wish You Were Here.
Composed of a nine-part dedication to former co-founding band member, Syd Barrett, divided by three more songs, Wish You Were Here serves as Pink Floyd’s ninth studio album. It preceded Dark Side of the Moon, and the artists definitely felt the repercussions of that fame and success in the creation of this album. Oftentimes going to the studio just to drink and then go home, it took time for them to find energy and inspiration to create another album. Ultimately this struggle resulted in the theme of the album: the greed and dishonesty that follows the music industry.
This is encapsulated in one of the root metaphors that follows throughout the album, and that is the rise and fall of Syd Barrett. Seven years prior to its creation, Barrett had to leave the band for mental health reasons.
Come on, you boy child, you winner and loser,
Hidden in the phrases of the albums 12 minute and 27 second finale, they express the duality behind success in the industry, showing how the Barrett’s ingenuity also led to the un-recoverable attention and pressure that resulted in his demise.
When I first sent the quarter-of-an-hour opening song, “Shine On You Crazy Diamond,” to my roommate, she almost killed me. How can you trust a song that is the same length as most Phineas And Ferb episodes? In this day and age, our attention spans can barely get us through sixty second Instagram reels. Yet, in Pink Floyd we trust.
The gradual opening minutes filled with synthesizers, wet wine glasses, percussion, and the classic guitar tune drags you right on in. Gilmour even claimed, “‘I thought we should try and work harder on marrying the idea and the vehicle that carried it, so that they both had an equal magic.’” The idea being the juxtaposing realities of the music industry, and the vehicle being their amazing instrumental vision and voices.
How I wish, how I wish you were here
We’re just two lost souls swimming in a fishbowl, year after year
With clear allusions to Barrett throughout the album and how they longed for his presence in their success, this album actually reflects so much more. A Melody Maker reviewer expressed, “‘From whichever direction one approaches Wish You Were Here, it still sounds unconvincing in its ponderous sincerity and displays a critical lack of imagination in all departments.’” Yeah, that reviewer has definitely never appreciated music for all it can give you. As Gilmour said, Wish You Were Here is an experience. Words are expressed for probably less than half of the actual recordings in the album (don’t quote me on that), yet the message is delivered the entire time. One simple example being the ominous, slightly-robotic feel of “Welcome to the Machine,” which tells me all I need to know about the mechanical greed contained in the music industry.
Yes, there are clear comparisons made between Barrett’s collapse and the album’s storyline. But notably, it illustrates so much more about the ups and downs of the success they have faced. altrockchick writer expresses, “It is therefore fortunate for the listening public that the band’s members seem to have a genetic disposition that enables them to shine brighter when facing adversity.” I couldn’t agree more. Their album cover depicts a man shaking hands with a version of himself that is on fire, presenting us with the idea that the fire we are fighting is inside of us. Metro Boomin even recreated the duality presented on the album cover for his album HEROES AND VILLAINS. Pink Floyd created something timeless, genreless, and barrierless. That is why it has sold more than 13 million copies in the United States and has the 264th place on Rolling Stone’s most recent 500 Greatest Albums of All Time (arguably it should be higher, but we’ll take it for now).
How does such disorientation of a band result in such an oriented musical production? Who knows. Hopefully I did Pink Floyd and their innovative musical ingenuity justice with this little write-up because they deserve it. I feel like I should take a psychedelic or something after listening to something so masterful.
Anyway, back to my relaxing, sunny day.
Sources
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wish_You_Were_Here_(Pink_Floyd_album)
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