Pink Floyd: Wish You Were Here Blu-ray Movie

Rating summary

Movie		4.0
Video		2.5
Audio		5.0
Extras		5.0
Overall		4.5

Pink Floyd: Wish You Were Here Blu-ray Movie Review

Having wonderful time.

Reviewed by Jeffrey Kauffman November 4, 2011

The music business has a well known propensity for chewing up artists and spitting them out at the first sign of market weakness. For a lot of artists, that tends to be their second album, the so-called infamous “sophomore slump” where the sensation caused by an individual’s or band’s premiere effort is considered yesterday’s news, a stale headline and a sound that’s already been heard. I personally have several friends here in my hometown of Portland who experienced huge chart success with either singles or albums and then saw their labels basically shrug and say “Too bad for you” when lightning didn’t strike twice. But what is a band to do once they’re already well established with several albums to their credit and have just released what is easily their biggest hit in their already long career, a hit of such immense proportions that it’s still on the charts years later and has already been acclaimed as one of the all time classics of modern rock? That was the dilemma facing Pink Floyd after the release of Dark Side of the Moon, an album as iconic in its own way as The Beatles’ Sgt. Pepper or White Album, and which instantly catapulted Floyd into the very top echelons of the modern rock scene. How can you possibly follow up an album of that import and impact, especially when your band is suffering from a certain amount of post traumatic stress disorder caused not just by the unimaginable success which required constant touring, but also the public mental breakdown of one of the band’s founding members? Somehow Pink Floyd managed to put the expectations aside, to concentrate solely on the music, and though Wish You Were Here, their follow up (two years later) to Dark Side of the Moon wasn’t met with the same critical rapturous acclaim that their 1973 effort was, it’s since become recognized as a classic in its own right, though one in very substantial ways quite different from Dar Side of the Moon. This is a more introspective and meandering album in its own way, which is not to say it’s not focused and cohesive. Roger Waters perhaps hit unexpected heights with his writing for this album, and while his lyrics addressing everything from the isolation of a modern rock star to the music industry itself were telling, often distressingly self-confessional, it may be the music separated from the words, and in fact the long instrumental interludes, that remains the most evocative elements of Wish You Were Here now close to 40 years (wow!) after its initial release.

Once again EMI has offered a sumptuous package, though once again some fans are going to be scratching their heads and wondering about at least some of the swag included in the oversized box. (What is this fixation with marbles, anyway?) But in the long run, these sets are all about the music (or should be, anyway), and in that regard Wish You Were Here does not disappoint. This set offers a wealth of previously unreleased material, as well as new remasterings of the original stereo mix and a really excellent 2009 surround mix which brilliantly exploits some of the panning and wide separation the band was attempting to introduce into its sonic palette. The Blu-ray’s contents include:

• Wish You Were Here 5.1 Surround Mix (2009; 96kHz/24-bit) (Previously unreleased)
• Wish You Were Here Original 1975 Stereo Mix (Remastered in 2011; 96/24)
• Wish You Were Here Original 1975 Quad Mix (96/24)
• Concert Screen Films. As with Dark Side of the Moon, you can kind of recreate the live concert feeling by seeing what the boys were playing in front of on tour. All of these segments (which are shown in the screencaps included with this review) are available in either LPCM 2.0 or LPCM 5.1 (48kHz/24-bit). The songs included are:
  Shine On You Crazy Diamond Part 1 (1080i; 4:57)
  Shine On You Crazy Diamond (1080i; 7:48)
  Welcome to the Machine (1080i; 7:42)
• Storm Thorgerson Short Film (2000; SD; 6:02)

Wish You Were Here didn’t dent the charts with quite as much ferocity as Dark Side of the Moon (how could it have, really?) and it never produced anything approaching a real hit single (though “Have a Cigar” did get a single release), and so it may have languished unfairly in the minds of many as not offering much of value or import. But what this reintroduction to the project makes abundantly clear is that not only was Floyd at the height of its collective powers, and certainly Waters was individually, but that the band wasn’t simply resting on its laurels and was pushing ahead into even more extended forms and perhaps more importantly for those interested in high res audio, recording techniques. This album is a veritable thesaurus of fantastic studio and mixing effects and it makes this release in a way more indicative of the pleasures available for Blu-ray audio than Dark Side of the Moon was.

This is another impeccably handsome boxed set that is well packaged and contains a slew of goodies (see the Supplements section for full details). This box has the Blu-ray, DVDs and CDs individually sleeved in cardboard, though the bottom of the box has an inlay tray with four holders for what I assume must be the DVDs and CDs (hey, what’s up with that? What’s this Blu-ray disc, chopped liver?). While the set is expensive, there’s no denying the fact that it offers a wealth of material, though some of it is obviously duplicated among different formats. Hopefully EMI will consider releasing standalone Blu-rays of just the HD (audio and video) content down the line for those diehard fans who simply can’t afford to spring for this entire set.

Pink Floyd: Wish You Were Here Blu-ray Movie, Video Quality 

Though this is ostensibly an audio release, as with Dark Side of the Moon, there are a few video elements on this release as well, all presented encoded via AVC and for the most part in 1080i (see the main body of the review for complete details). There's nothing spectacular about the video presentation (it is, after all, made up almost entirely of still frames), but it's really interesting from a historical perspective.

Pink Floyd: Wish You Were Here Blu-ray Movie, Audio Quality 

Once again there's almost an embarrassment of riches with regard to the audio options on this release, but the one that's probably going to be of most interest to longtime fans of this album will no doubt be the previously unreleased 5.1 surround mix done in 2009 and presented here in 96/24. As innovative as Dark Side of the Moon was in terms of discrete stereo effects and even its own quad mix, it simply pales in comparison to Wish You Were Here. Obviously Pink Floyd was trying to introduce even more extreme uses of discrete channelization, even in their stereo mix (which receives a stellar remaster here, sounding better than ever), which features one great panning sequence after another, as well as long stretches where just one channel is being utilized. The 5.1 mix ups the ante considerably, so that now for instance on the opening of "Welcome to the Machine," instead of just right to left panning, we get intense surround activity that moves forward and backward through the soundfield. The lovely guitar arpeggios which enter at around 1:00 also are more widely splayed front to back, even as they still are clearly on the left and then the right. There's also a clearer separation between that pulsing bass as it moves back and forth between the channels. The sampling at the head of "Wish You Were Here" also sounds fantastic in 5.1, still clearly skewed right, but now subtly surrounding the listener from both front and back. The center channel also is impeccably utilized, clearly separate from the side channels, when the guitar makes its entrance at around the one minute mark. That haunting wind sound that starts out "Shine On You Crazy Diamond Parts 6- 9" also pans madly around the soundfield in the new 5.1 mix, enveloping the listener in what might be a sonic recreation of the madness enveloping Syd Barrett. The old 1975 Quad mix by comparison sound noticeably more "crowded" in terms of central placement, with a tendency to simply splay all sounds equally around the four channels with occasional nice discrete channel utilization to perk up the proceedings. While there's nothing wrong per se with the Quad mix, and it is undeniably immersive, my hunch is most fans are easily going to repeatedly opt for the newer 5.1 mix, which also has the benefit of much improved low end.

Pink Floyd: Wish You Were Here Blu-ray Movie, Special Features and Extras 

As with the two other EMI sets reviewed here recently, The Dark Side Of The Moon and Aqualung, we're operating under the assumption that anything other than the Blu-ray itself is a supplement. This set includes (items with asterisks have been previously released, those without asterisks are previously unreleased):

• CD 1: The Original Album, Remastered in 2011*
• CD 2: Unreleased Audio Tracks. These are going to be one of the major calling cards of this new set, with some excellent, extended versions of several Floyd stalwarts. The most interesting and appealing track for me personally was the incredible "Wish You Were Here" featuring a guest turn by the iconic Stéphane Grappelli. This disc's contents are:
  Shine On You Crazy Diamond (Live at Wembley Stadium 1974) (20:22)
  Raving and Drooling (Live at Wembley Stadium 1974) (12:35)
  You've Got to be Crazy (Live at Wembley Stadium 1974) (18:09)
  Wine Glasses (from the 'Household Objects' project) (2:12)
  Have a Cigar (Alternative Version) (7:07)
  Wish You Were Here (with Grappelli) (6:13)
• Audio DVD contains these audio elements:
  Wish You Were Here 5.1 Surround Mix (2009; 448 kbps)
  Wish You Were Here 4.0 Quad Mix* (1975; 448 kbps)
  Wish You Were Here LPCM Original Stereo Mix* (1975, remastered in 2011)
  Wish You Were Here 5.1 Surround Mix (2009; 640 kbps)
  Wish You Were Here 4.0 Quad Mix* (1975; 640 kbps)
• DVD 2: Visual Material. This DVD contains the visual material that is also on the Blu-ray, in standard definition.
• 36 page 26cm x 26cm softcover booklet designed by Storm Thorgerson
• 20 page 26cm x 26cm softcover photo book edited by Jill Furmanovsky
• Exclusive Storm Thorgerson Art Print
• 4 Collectors' Cards featuring arts and comments by Storm Thorgerson
• Replica of Wish You Were Here tour ticket
• Replica of Wish You Were Here backstage pass
• 100% polyester printed scarf
• 3 clear marbles
• 9 coasters unique to this box containing early Storm Thorgerson design sketches
• 12 page credits booklet with additional information

Pink Floyd: Wish You Were Here Blu-ray Movie, Overall Score and Recommendation 

I was probably like a lot of Floyd fans who considered Wish You Were Here an okay, if frankly kind of lackluster, follow-up to Dark Side of the Moon. Consider myself corrected. Listening to the new 5.1 mix of this album reconnected me with the fact of just how innovative Pink Floyd was, not just in terms of songcraft and extended song forms, but in the pure techniques of recording and mixing (obviously with some help from their engineers). This album is a riot of invention that only gains luster in high res audio and a 5.1 mix. While this may not have the iconic import, or maybe even the intrinsic quality, of Dark Side of the Moon, it's a brilliant album which sounds absolutely magnificent on the new Blu-ray. Some of the boxed set's contents are a bit questionable, and so some may want to wait to see if EMI decides to release a standalone BD of just that content. But for the obsessive compulsive completist fan, while this is yet another pretty spendy set from EMI, it comes Highly recommended.