With the revival of vinyl in recent years, it seems as if we are in a golden age of bootlegs, counterfeits and fan-made projects. Many of these have at least something unique to offer besides just looking cool or being in a cool package. As a Pink Floyd fan, one recent “series” that’s caught my attention lately has been the /Remade box sets. I haven’t written about any of these yet, but as soon as I got my first one, I was kind of hooked on them. I have some other ones to cover later, but Wish You Were Here /Remade is one of the latest issues and is still available out there in the wild. I figured I would cover it now while people still have a chance to get a copy at a reasonable price.
Essentially, the /Remade series are fan-made (or rogue edited? I’m not sure what else to call it) remixes pressed on vinyl with rarities and bonus material. Sometimes this material is available on official releases, and sometimes not. Wish You Were Here /Remade is a good-looking box set. Everything appears top quality all the way from the box itself to the records. It comes with four colored LPs with full color labels, along with a foldout set of liner notes. Each box has a cool sticker and is numbered out of 300 copies. I often think they had to have made more than 300 copies of these things, but who knows? I just pick these up when I see someone selling it and have never seen more than one physical copy of any of these releases. For all I know, they could all have the same number mine does.
I will say that the wax on this set is really beautiful. I’m not sure if everyone who gets a box will have the same colors I got, but mine came with pink, blue marbled, and red LPs. When I get a box set like this, I don’t just sit down and listen to it all in one day. Part of the reason for that is I just don’t have time to do it. The bigger reason though is that hearing it all at once sort of makes everything blur together. Typically, I’ll listen to one disc a day, make notes and then think about what I heard. Eventually, some of the stuff makes it to this site. In other words, I just don’t throw these on in passing and move onto the next. So, that’s what I did with this set.
Alternate Mix Version
Listening to each disc in order, I started with the “Alternate Mix”. There was no information given other than that, so I had high hopes for this after hearing some of the other remixes in this series. Right away, I noticed that there was definitely some surface noise on the disc, but nothing too bad. On this mix, the songs are out of the usual running order, with all of “Shine on You Crazy Diamond” as the last track. As I made notes, I broke everything down track by track, hoping to list them all for you here. Sadly, every note turned out to be the same. Any differences here on the “Alternate Mix Version” are so subtle, they are unlikely to be noticed by even the most die-hard fan. It sounds good, but it’s really nothing different.
Demo Tape
Moving on, the second disc in the box is the Demo disc. This one sounded pretty good and had very minimal surface noise. I had to keep in mind that this is a demo. This is not something most people would want to listen to on a regular basis in place of the actual album, but it is important from a historical perspective. The two most interesting tracks here are “The Hard Way” and “Wine Glasses”.
“Shine on You Crazy Diamond” (Parts 1-8) – Once again, all the different movements of this song are combined into one track, and it takes up the whole first side of the album. This is certainly a demo cut, and it’s a bit rough. The guitar parts are a bit different, but otherwise, everything else sounds about the same as the official version. Parts of the harmony vocals are different, but I’m guessing not too many people would notice that.
“Welcome to the Machine” – This one is interesting. You can hear the band talking in the studio as they are working on this track, and there is some talk box guitar that obviously did not make it onto the album.
“Have a Cigar” – The vocals are a lot different from the final version, as is the music. This version is worth listening to.
“The Hard Way” – I really like this one. It’s an almost surviving track from the abandoned Household Objects project and is very catchy. The best moments are the chorus, which is really quite beautiful. I wish they would have done more with this track, and I wonder what it would have been like had it made it to a finalized version on the album.
“Wine Glasses” – Basically, this is “Shine On”. With a lot of wine glasses.
Overall, this is my second favorite disc in the set. With that being said, it’s important to point out that the most interesting and desirable tracks here are also present on the official Wish You Were Here Immersion box set. More on that later, but I do consider this disc a worthwhile listen.
Ceci N’est Pas Wish You Were Here
This disc does have some surface noise (at least on my copy), but the mix itself sounds very good. I love the blue marbled wax. The title is clever for this one. If you don’t speak French, it means “This is not Wish You Were Here”. Besides the obvious meaning of the phrase in relation to this not being the official version, it also has a bit of a deeper meaning. It’s based on the painting Ceci n’est pas une pipe by René Magritte. Basically, it’s saying that “the word is not the thing”. When we see a painting of a pipe and are asked what it is, for example, we would answer “a pipe”. In reality, the painting is, of course, not an actual pipe, but a representation of a pipe. In a similar way, this disc is not Wish You Were Here, but rather some other representation of it. This is the intellectual high point of this review.
“Shine on You Crazy Diamond” (Mashed-Up Version) – Once again, “Shine On” is all the same track. It’s a solid mix, but I’m not sure this can accurately be described as “mashed up”. If you are expecting something radically different here (as I was), you’ll probably be disappointed. There are some differences, but once again, they are very subtle.
“Have a Cigar” (Roger & Roy Duet) – This is a cool version of the song. This is the first time I found myself saying, “maybe they should have done this on the real thing”. In the end, it’s still only a little bit different, but there are some good additional harmonies between the two of them. I think I like it better because it injects some Roger qualities into the vocals while keeping the same unique sound and phrasing from Roy Harper that we are all familiar with at this point.
“Welcome to the Machine” (Drum Version) – This is an excellent version of this track, and I definitely wish they would have kept this one. I think this is how it should have been. Basically, at the end of the track, Nick Mason comes in and completely rocks it out. It’s no different up until this point, but it’s worth the wait.
“Wish You Were Here” (Stephane Grappelli Version) – Grappelli is a very famous French violinist. From the start of the track, this version is quite a bit different. It’s got a totally different feel, and it is very good. Do I think it’s better than the final version? No, but it’s not worse. It’s just different. My guess is that they decided everything sounded just a bit too busy with the addition of the violin, which becomes a lead instrument.
This is my favorite disc in the set. I could see myself putting this one on in place of the real thing every once and a while, since it’s different enough to be refreshing, but not so different that it’s entirely distracting. Once again, the track that most people probably want to hear is the Grappelli one, and it’s available in the Immersion box set as well. I really wish the surface noise had not been present on this one.
A Different View (Alternate Mono Mix Version)
This disc has bad surface noise. Some spots are worse than others. It looks nice, though! When I saw this one, I wondered why anyone would ever want a mono mix of this album. Think about the stereo elements of the finished official version and ask yourself if the album could possibly be improved by taking those away. I’ll save you some time. The answer is “no”. The only point of listening to such a thing would be to make you appreciate the fact that you never have to hear it again, and that the finished version is in stereo. On the title track, for example, there is just a bunch of blank space where the panned guitar is supposed to be. Why did they include this disc? It pains me to say it, but I’m sure the answer is to bulk up the set and charge more for it. It’s not worth looking at individual tracks here. This one is no good.
Liner Notes
Unlike some of the other sets in this series, the liner notes here have nothing to do with the records. They consist of two reviews of the original album. The first one must have been written and published at the time the record was released. It says David Gilmour sucks as a guitar player, the rest of the band can barely play their instruments, and that the album is no good. It’s got some quotes from listeners who apparently called into a radio station and for the most part, also say the album sucks compared to The Dark Side of the Moon. Needless to say, this one hasn’t aged well.
The second article, judging by the author stating “40 years later” at one point, is more modern and more realistic. It talks about the album as the obviously massive success that it was and is not written by a vindictive author. Obviously, I liked this one better, but don’t see how either of these are relevant to the set. I really would have liked to read something about what I was listening to, and I feel like the notes were just included as an up-sell.
Conclusion
This is the first /Remade box set that I have been disappointed with. I know I haven’t written about any of the others yet, but keep an eye open for that in the future. In the meantime, don’t let this dissuade you from checking out any of the others. The long and short of it is that most of the discs here have substantial surface noise, and most of the best tracks can be found on the officially available Wish You Were Here Immersion Box Set which can still be purchased at retail prices all these years later. The content you get with that set is far greater than what you get here. WYWH /Remade is only for completists, or people who refuse to listen to stuff on anything but vinyl.
It seems to me like extra material for this album must be scarce compared to the others. The whole set could have been better if they had removed the two weaker discs and maybe replaced them with live performances. If that wasn’t something they wanted to do, they could have just knocked a disc off and lowered the price. I’m sure that sounds bad to someone trying to make money, but I think they would have sold more copies, so maybe it would have been a wash. For what’s being charged (anywhere from 100.00 to 200.00 USD), it’s way too expensive for what you’re getting. The box and the records are beautiful and look great on the shelf, but the content just isn’t there on this one. My recommendation would be to get the official Immersion set (and always buy official products when and if they are available), and only pick this one up if you absolutely can’t live without it.
Final verdict on this one:
Box Set Quality – 8/10 due to surface noise on the discs. The liner notes aren’t even worth factoring in here.
Overall Content – 3/10. Not much you can’t get elsewhere for a better price and with better sound quality.