Three immersion sets and three very different levels of quality with the highest bar set by DSOTM and the lowest by The Wall, leaving WYWH to sit evenly in the middle in terms of content and presentation. As with the Discovery box set, if you have even glanced at the WYWH immersion set then you’re already a Pink Floyd fan, not someone with a passing fancy to try out something new, so we shall eschew a straightforward review of a faultless album and go straight for a review of the box set itself.
As I’ve already noted WYWH is neither quite up to the standard of DSOTM, nor has it filled out its contents with the mindless repetition with which the producers have approached The Wall, rather it has plumped for quality over quantity… it’s just that the quantity is rather anaemic! So, what that means is that instead of six discs, you get five and of those five, one disc (the BluRay) replicates content from two others (the pair of DVDs). This, in and of itself, is not a terrible crime, but given how much video and audio footage of vintage Floyd must be out there, you can’t help but feel that this could have been done with a touch more generosity. Hell, even a documentary might have been nice, but its absence does rather suggest a lack of forward planning – maybe the record label wanted to release this before the market becomes so glutted with special editions that the bottom falls out of it.
Anyhow as a Pink Floyd fan you’ve surely already glanced at the contents but in case you’ve missed out here it is. On disc 1 you get the discovery edition of WYWH (re-mastered in 2011 and sounding gorgeous); disc 2 provides the audio goodies (although this is also available as part of the ‘experience’ set) in the form of previously unreleased live tracks and a couple of demos; disc 3 is a DVD which provides both Quad and DD 5.1 mixes of the album (and in a variety of resolutions); disc 4 is also a DVD that gives us the screen films from the tour as well as a random promo clip; and last, but not least, disc 5 is a Bluray which contains everything from disc 3 & 4 but in higher resolution. Aside from that you also get some funky packaging which I’ll deal with later.
Disc 1, as you may have noted from my ‘discovery edition’ review, is arguably the most sonically perfect version of WYWH yet available on CD. A pristine re-master that allows far more sonic clarity and depth, even at high volumes, than the previous mid-90s re-mastering job, it is probably the closest we’ll ever get to the vinyl release. Moreover, as you’re buying it as part of a wider set, the complaints about the skimpy booklet and poor-quality digi-pack don’t apply (although a whole host of other problems are presented instead). Nonetheless, if you didn’t fork out on the ‘discovery’ or ‘experience’ editions, then this version is likely to replace any previous CD you might have.
Disc 2 is the real treat. Available here or as part of ‘the experience’ edition it provides some rare live material, an outtake form the abortive ‘household objects’ project and a couple of alternate takes. Of these ‘shine on…’ is a lengthy live version of the famous track pre-WYWH and it is therefore rather different to the final version. With Roger still working out the vocals and some sublime bass work, not mention a much more jazzy, improvised mid-section, it is a delight to hear after so many identikit versions released across more recent live albums. Of even more interest are formative versions of tracks that would later appear on ‘animals’ – ‘raving and drooling’ (later ‘sheep’) and ‘you’ve got to be crazy’ (‘dogs’), both of which boast different music and lyrics not to mention a rather vicious compliment of sarcasm and bile that still makes the skin crawl at a remove of 38 years. ‘Wine glasses’, a track from ‘household objects’ which saw the band experiment aimlessly with music without instruments, continues the left over moments that DSOTM introduced us to, but here the track is presented with a clear lineage between it and the intro to ‘shine on…’. At 2’12” it’s hardly going to set the world on fire… and it doesn’t; but the final two tracks are solid gold: ‘have a cigar’ which clocks in at 2 minutes longer than the final version and features Roger’s self-rejected vocal take; and a version of ‘WYWH’ featuring a somewhat mournful violin part courtesy of Stephane Grappelli. Neither version outdoes their studio counterpart, but then that’s not the point – for Pink Floyd fans, any glance at the band’s inner workings, after such a lengthy dearth of archive material, is a welcome one. At 66 minutes the band have hardly packed the disc, and while there is nothing here that is without interest, you still can’t help but feel that they could have gone the extra mile and included more live material. Still, as it stands disc 2 is a treat and certainly nothing has been included that shouldn’t have been.
Disc 3 is where we move into exclusive territory and this is where audiophiles and Pink Floyd enthusiasts will be in heaven: five versions of the album across a wide spectrum of surround sound and enhanced audio options (5.1 surround at 448 and 640 KPS; the rare quad mix at 448 and 640kps and LPCM stereo of the 2011 re-master) and while the different bit rate versions may feel redundant it is certainly a joy to have the choice. Now this is where the Immersion box set comes into its own. We reviewed the 5.1 surround at 640kps version and it sounds simply amazing. The first ‘shine on…’ is a subtle introduction to this new mix, and while it offers up an unparalleled experience, throwing up all sorts of elements that you may not have noticed before, it is not until you hit ‘welcome…’ that you experience the full, awe-inspiring power of this mix. Sound effects and machinery clunk and whir around you, the bass line throbs and the vocals appear to float above your head. It truly is immersive and even compared to fine 5.1 efforts by NIN (‘the downward spiral’ reissue), Depeche Mode (‘violator’) and Dream Theater (‘systematic chaos’), this is the best 5.1 mix I have ever experienced. The clarity and power that have been instilled into the mix are just mind blowing and if you are a Floyd fan nothing will diminish the experience of sitting in the middle of ‘WYWH’ for the first time and experiencing the long imagined possibility of the sounds of the album surrounding and absorbing you. It is an intense and wonderful effort. Rather different, but also of note is the quad mix (originally mixed in 1975) which offers a different but equally invigorating take on the album. For my money though, it is the 2009 5.1 mix that you’ll return to with the most regularity. The only slight gripe is that the screen remains resolutely blank throughout – surely this would have been a good opportunity to flash up images from the period? Perhaps not…
Disc 4 is, however, largely disappointing offering up nothing more than screen films for ‘shine on…’ (static images), animations for ‘shine on you crazy diamond and ‘welcome to the machine’ (very cool indeed) and a Storm Thorgerson short film which is a miserly 6 minutes long and which has had no re-mastering from its original incarnation as a Flash film thus leaving it floating in the centre of the screen like the last survivor of the low-resolution wars. It’s short, it’s mean and you can’t tell me that there isn’t at least a little live footage from the period that couldn’t have been included – someone, somewhere clearly doesn’t wish to give away too much and the cynic in me is already anticipating a slew of live releases to cover the gap in the market. Nonetheless, while the content may be short and to the point, the little that is there is really impressive and Gerald Scarfe’s animation does much to indicate where ‘the wall’ was headed just a few years down the line.
The Bluray doubles up the DVD content but at a significantly higher resolution and it’s good that they’ve included both as it keeps the set future-proof.
You will have read elsewhere about the actual presentation of the box and certainly websites such as Amazon carry a lot of negative reviews, and yet most of them seem to be rather redundant. The box itself is beautiful – produced to a high standard with a gloss finish it feels heavy and reliable and it looks great. The contents… well: first off this is a high-end, collector’s box and as such it’s going to have some randomness connected to it. For my part the books are great – I love to have the 12” sized booklets and the art and pictures are great reproductions of classic and previously unreleased images. The other stuff, in all honesty, I could live without. The marbles (clear because the theme of the cover is absence – thanks Storm) just seem lazy when compared to the designed versions in the DSOTM box set, the coasters are unusable as coasters (why not laminate them?) but they do look cool and will live happily in the box, and the assorted tickets, backstage passes and cigarette cards are fine in a “I’ll never really look at them again” kind of way. And yet that is the nature of such box sets; they are for the fan who already has everything and wants something different. For sure I’d rather have a decent cotton T shirt than a viscose scarf, and I’d rather have an LP than coasters and marbles, but on the other hand the contents was clearly listed, the price clearly marked and as an adult I can make a rational decision as to whether I want these things or not. The worst offenders on Amazon seem not to have actually bought the thing but confine their comments to “I’m not paying for…” – well that’s fine, but hardly a valid critical point! One area, however, is inexcusable and that is the poor quality of the disc holders at the base of the box which cheerfully unleashed all four discs during transit so they could slide around and get scratched to pieces. EMI were made well aware of this problem with DSOTM and yet, despite this being a ‘high end’ product did nothing to fix it and, as with the ‘artistically clear’ marbles, the rather empty second DVD and the simple card coasters, it smacks of laziness and a ‘throw-anything-together-and-the-fans’ll-buy-it” attitude that says a lot about why the music industry’s decline is far more self-imposed than they would have you believe.
Nonetheless, while we may indeed castigate EMI for their lack of care and attention to detail, it seems churlish to moan about ‘unwanted contents’ because the contents is clearly signposted from the get go (and backed up by extensive reviews throughout the web) so there really is no excuse for the “I opened the box and was horrified to find…” school of comments because you were clearly warned beforehand! In truth, as a Pink Floyd super-fan – the sort of fan that will spend 80-odd pounds on a box set in the first place – you will want this and you will find much to enjoy in the box of treasures that arrives on your doorstep. As a casual fan, however, you’ll find more to moan about than to enjoy, and thus I would recommend you go for the much cheaper but still enjoyable ‘experience’ edition. These box sets will inevitably attract criticism and it’s certainly true that it could have been done better… but then it could also have been a lot worse and for the 5.1 mix, the books and the extras, this is worth a fair mark at worst and certainly not the reams of criticism currently devoted to it.
