Box Set Review Pink Floyd – Wish You Were Here 50: Deluxe Edition (Part 1 of 2)

In 1975, Pink Floyd was one of the biggest bands in the world, a status that its members – and most observers – could have scarcely imagined even three years earlier.

Though the group had embarked upon a five-year journey to find its way in the wake of losing founding singer, songwriter and guitarist Syd Barrett, that journey eventually led to The Dark Side of the Moon. That 1973 breakthrough album catapulted the band – until then a largely underground sensation – into the big time. But the creative streak that brought forth in Dark Side would be sustained: even as they were touring in support of their ‘73 blockbuster, the members of Pink Floyd – guitarist David Gilmour, bassist Roger Waters, keyboardist Richard Wright and drummer Nick Mason – were already hard at work developing new material.

By the time they entered the studio to make 1975’s Wish You Were Here, two-thirds of Pink Floyd’s next album (1977’s Animals) was already in the band’s live set. Meanwhile, Wish You Were Here represented a continuation of the band’s best work. In observance of the 50^th anniversary of that record’s release, a massive and lavish box set expands and builds upon the original by including copious relevant bonus material. Wish You Were Here 50: Deluxe Edition includes four vinyl LPs, two CDs, a Blu-Ray disc and much more. Here’s an in-depth look at what’s inside the black box.

LP1: Original Album
The first LP in the new set is an exact reproduction of the original Wish You Were Here album from 1975. It’s pressed on clear vinyl, a nod to the original album sleeve’s back cover art depicting a faceless man in the desert holding a translucent disc. Among Pink Floyd fans, WYWH is often considered superior even to its predecessor, 1973’s The Dark Side of the Moon. With its extended instrumental passages, emotionally resonant lyrics and deep sonic ambiance, Wish You Were Here is a near-perfect combination of meditative melancholy and graceful grandeur. All four musicians are contributing at the peak of their powers, and while contemporary reports reveal that Waters, Wright, Gilmour and Mason weren’t getting on all that well with one another, WYWH is nonetheless the product of a cohesive creative unit.

Few consumers, though, will purchase Wish You Were Here 50: Deluxe Edition for that LP, one that they most assuredly have in their collection already, perhaps in multiple formats. It’s the copious extras that make this set worthwhile.

LP2: Rarities 1
A fascinating piece of Pink Floyd Lore concerns the band’s quandary after creating their masterwork The Dark Side of the Moon: Where to go next? One possible answer, oddly enough, was to dispense completely with traditional musical instruments. Having explored the sonic capabilities of guitars, bass, drums and keyboards (most notably the VCS3 synthesizer), the group toyed with the idea of making music using household objects. The experiment quickly proved unworkable, requiring great amounts of time and effort to create music that ended up sounding like synthesizers. For many years, that brief episode in the group’s history remained the stuff of legend, but when the album was reissued in 2011 in expanded “Immersion Box” configuration, the bonus track “Wine Glasses” revealed part of the aborted project. The brief piece, however, will have sounded quite familiar to anyone who ever heard the opening of WYWH’s “Shine On You Crazy Diamond.”

An alternate version of “Have A Cigar” features a dual lead vocal by Waters and Gilmour in place of the official album’s Roy Harper guest vocal. This version is closer to what concertgoers would have heard. The spare mix highlights various subtleties – mostly from David Gilmour – not heard in the official release.

While Pink Floyd was recording Wish You Were Here at EMI’s studio on Abbey Road, they encountered jazz violinist Stéphane Grapelli; the band asked him to contribute to the title track. This he did, though his work was left off the finished album. A mix of the song with his violin solo – entering around the three-minute mark of the song – is featured on this set. It undoubtedly adds to the song’s heart-rending vibe, but in the end it’s neither better nor worse than the official version; it’s just different. Both the “Have a Cigar” and “Wish You Were Here” alternate versions first appeared on the 2011 reissue, but this release marks their debut on vinyl.

An early instrumental version of “Shine On You Crazy Diamond” features quite a number of different musical elements. Nick Mason’s tom-tom opening is strongly reminiscent of the introduction to “Atom Heart Mother Suite” from 1970. This no-vocals mix highlights the superb instrumental work of the four musicians, and features numerous melodic lines and solos that wouldn’t make it onto the finished version, proving yet again that Pink Floyd had more good musical ideas than space on record to share them. This previously-unheard recording makes its debut on Wish You Were Here 50.

A pair of Roger Waters demos of “The Machine Song” are fascinating; the work tapes demonstrate just how many of elements of “Welcome to the Machine” were in place from the start. The song’s seething, malevolent sonics are even more unsettling here than on the finished song, set as they are against acoustic guitar and Waters’ comparatively understated, near-whispered vocals. Both recordings are released here for the first time; the first is on LP2, and the second opens LP3.

LP3: Rarities 2
After the second demo of “The Machine Song,” David Gilmour takes center stage for Take 1 of “Wish You Were Here,” showing that he had developed many of the song’s signature guitar lines early in the creative process. His untreated vocal emphasizes the up-close-and-personal nature of his performance; it’s relaxed but not offhand, loose but heartfelt. A glorious alternate instrumental mix of “Wish You Were Here” features extensive pedal steel from Gilmour, emphasizing the song’s dreamy, elegiac feel with a high lonesome country and western feel. Both of these recordings are new to this release.

LP3’s second side features a new stereo mix that for the first time links together “Shine on You Crazy Diamond” Parts I-V with Parts VI-IX. The edit is seamless, creating an epic 25-plus-minute version of the masterpiece.

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