Pink Floyd - Wish You Were Here

7.5 - England - 1975

I know this is supposed to a great album, and as a Floyd fan (more or less), I'm supposed to like it.  I know that it's David Gilmour's favourite album (the only one where his music and Waters' lyrics were, to him, in perfect balance).  But Gilmour also thought Atom Heart Mother was "a load of rubbish", so what does he know?

Me, I find the record rather cold, which I suppose is the intent, but while the emotional coldness may be appropriate, I can't help but compare it unfavourably to the warm sound of the Floyd's pre-Dark Side records (More, for example, balances well the gloomy lyrical content with a warm, analog sound).

The album's split centrepiece, "Shine On You Crazy Diamond", has some nice moments (Waters' dark chuckle after the "remember when you were young" line in the first verse is particularly fine), but doesn't hold together as well as previous epics such as "Echoes" or "Atom Heart Mother Suite".  Perhaps the main problem is the synth sounds used.  By this point, synthesizer technology had progressed beyond the early Moog and VSC-3 fumblings the Floyd had hitherto indulged in, but with increased technical sophistication does not necessarily come an improved sound.  The title-track, in particular, an otherwise fine slice of countryish rock, is marred by an out-of-place cheesy stringy synth (why oh why did Richard Wright not opt for his old Hammond organ?  Musta been all that coke - both him and Mason were phoning it in at this point).

Finally, I don't understand why "Welcome To The Machine" gets so much radio play, when there are plenty of unspun sides of "Careful With That Axe, Eugene".