Pink Floyd

Wish You Were Here

In retrospect, great

Review Score:

(10/10)
"Dark Side of the Moon" was such a staggeringly successful album, continued to be for more than 30 years to date, the rock critic world assembled ready to savage whatever came next. These guys surely did not deserve to record the most popular pop record in history, so it was up to the cognoscenti to educate us poor slobs. Next after "Dark Side of the Moon" came two and a half years later, and its arrival triggered some of the furthest off-base reviews ever set to type. Ben Edmonds in Rolling Stone trashed everything from the band's talent level to their creative ambition. Mr. Edmonds couldn't prevent the record from going platinum many times over, but he surely dissuaded a lot of people from giving it a chance. Welcome back.

"Shine On" and the title track are more polished and, I say, more timeless pieces than anything on "Dark Side of the Moon." The whole record is highly listenable, but these two tracks transcend pat pop rock formulae. I love the combination of musical restraint and emotional tension. They are done with now stereotypical 1970s excess, but the Floyd were perhaps the ones who deserved some rope, inspiring the less capables into unfortunate imitation.

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