Wish You Were Here (album)

Wish You Were Here is an album by Pink Floyd, recorded at Abbey Road Studios between January 1975 and July 1975 released on September 15, 1975 (see 1975 in music).

Related Topics:
Pink Floyd - Abbey Road Studios - January - 1975 - July - September 15 - 1975 in music

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The album is largely a tribute to former band member Syd Barrett, whose mental illness and erratic behaviour made it impossible for him to effectively contribute to the band after the album A Saucerful of Secrets. Originally, the album was to consist of three songs that the band had been playing live over the previous two years: "Shine On", "Raving and Drooling" and "Gotta be Crazy". "Shine On" was preserved as "Shine On You Crazy Diamond", Roger Waters decided to drop the other two, which later became "Dogs" and "Sheep" on the Animals album. In their place, Waters wrote new material that documented the band's current condition (the title track) and caricatured the negative aspects of the record business ("Welcome to the Machine" and "Have a Cigar").

Related Topics:
Syd Barrett - Mental illness - A Saucerful of Secrets - Roger Waters - Animals

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Coincidentally, Barrett himself actually turned up at the studio in the middle of a recording session of the backing vocals for "Shine On You Crazy Diamond" on 5 June 1975 which was also the day guitarist/vocalist David Gilmour married his first wife Ginger. Across the corridors of Abbey Road floated "Shine On You Crazy Diamond" and there he was, in person. He arrived unannounced, looking bald and fat, and had put on so much weight that some of the band did not recognize him at first. Others were close to tears; Waters later confided that he cried. Barrett asked at one point if there was anything he could do and that he was available if needed. He later appeared at Gilmour's wedding reception where some mistook him for a Hare Krishna devotee. He hadn't been seen by the band in five years, and wasn't seen again after that point.

Related Topics:
5 June - 1975 - David Gilmour - Hare Krishna

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It was the last Pink Floyd album which would see a writing credit for Rick Wright until The Division Bell in 1994.

Related Topics:
Rick Wright - The Division Bell

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Wish You Were Here was originally released on Columbia Records in the US. It was digitally remastered and released in 1994 in the UK as a CD on the EMI label, and in 1997 by Columbia for the rest of the world. The album was subsequently re-released in 2000 for its 25th anniversary, on the Capitol Records label in the US, and on the EMI label for the rest of the world.

Related Topics:
Columbia Records - 1994 - UK - EMI - 1997 - 2000 - Capitol Records

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Wish You Were Here will be re-released as a dual-layered Super Audio Compact Disc in fall 2005 to commemorate the album's thirtieth anniversary. This was done in 2003 as the group's previous album, Dark Side of the Moon, was re-mastered in the SACD format.

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Wish You Were Here peaked at #1 on Billboard's USA Pop Albums chart(where it stayed for two weeks in October, 1975) and stayed on the charts for a year. The album has, to date, sold over six million copies in the US and was certified Gold on September 17, 1975 in the US and as Sextuple Platinum in the US on May 16, 1997 by the R.I.A.A. and has sold altogether worldwide 13 million copies.

Related Topics:
Billboard - September 17 - 1975 - May 16 - 1997 - R.I.A.A.

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On the track Wish You Were Here, you hear a coughing noise, which is supposedly the sign that David Gilmour had quit smoking, which he did quit while recording this record.

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In 1998, Q magazine readers voted Wish You Were Here the 34th greatest album of all time.

Related Topics:
1998 - ''Q'' magazine

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In 2003, Rolling Stone named it #209 of the 500 Greatest Albums of All Time. True to critically prescient form, this happened twenty-eight years after the magazine initially panned and trashed the recording. Quoting reviewer Ben Edmonds from the November 6, 1975 issue of Rolling Stone magazine, "Passion is everything of which Pink Floyd is devoid."

Related Topics:
2003 - Rolling Stone

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Wish You Were Here (album): Track listing ►