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The first two Talking Heads albums established them as a creative and funky new wave band, with a quirky and neurotic charm. David Byrne’s nerdy persona and their intricate instrumentation made them stand out in the late 70’s. Their third album, Fear of Music, raised the neuroticism up to a level of paranoia. Byrne sang about seemingly random subjects like paper, cities and air and singing of how fearful and wary he was of them.  This album raises the level of neuroticism and paranoia to a climactic level. The instrumentation is as rich and involved as it’s ever been, and the record has a really interesting trajectory in the style it portrays the mood. It starts off really energetic, gradually descending to a more subdued and weary tone. The first three tracks are almost jittery in their energy level. The intricate layering of the all the instruments and vocals give the effect of controlled chaos. Bongos and other percussive instruments constantly charge through each song
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Wish You Were Here is for the most part taken up by the song Shine On You Crazy Diamond. A 26 minute tribute to former friend and bandmate Syd Barrett. It’s divided into nine parts, and split into two halves, one to begin the album, one to end it.   Syd had taken too many drugs and went crazy so the band mourned the effective loss, and expressed it in the song.  The result is a near masterpiece, filled with dense emotion and weaving atmospheres. It starts with a synth playing long and ambient minor chords, setting a dramatic and solemn tone. With delicate synth and slide guitar soloing over it, the chords underneath have a stillness and gravity that really effectively set up the magnitude of the piece.  In Part Two those chords fade out and the famous four notes (unofficially named “Syds Theme”) hit. They’re played in isolation a few times between tense pauses, before the band joins in. This moment, to me, is a perfect representation for the theme of the song. The
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His first album featuring rock and roll music. What puts this album in that upper echelon of Dylan albums is actually the slower and acoustic stuff though. Dylan's just getting his feet wet with rock and roll. The songs are very rudimentary and some of them sound like they were written on a whim. The arrangements and performances on Side A (the electric side) seem like they were recorded in just a couple days.  This gives the rock songs a raw, almost garage band like sound. There's a sense of spontaneity that was never really recaptured in succeeding albums.  If your not a fan of Dylans' voice this is probably the last album of his you'd want to get. His approach to singing rock music at this point is to simply sing like he did before but louder and harder. This means all the more nasally and grating. I don't mind the voice, I find it has a strong character and command. I do think it's mixed too high here though. When hearing it with earbuds some of it is pret
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