Wish You Were Here (Pink Floyd album) the UK, and on the following day in the US. In Britain, with 250,000 advance sales, it went straight to number one, and demand was such that EMI informed retailers that only 50 percent of their orders would be fulfilled. With 900,000 advance orders (the largest for any Columbia release) it reached number one on the US "Billboard" chart in its second week. "Wish You Were Here" was Pink Floyd's fastest-selling album ever. On release, the album received mixed reviews. Ben Edmunds wrote in "Rolling Stone": "Melody Maker" reviewer wrote: "From whichever direction one approaches "Wish You Were Here", it
Wish You Were Here (Pink Floyd album) was sold in an opaque green cellophane sleeve – censoring the cover image – and he copied the idea, concealing the artwork for "Wish You Were Here" in a black-coloured shrink-wrap (therefore making the album art "absent"). The concept behind "Welcome to the Machine" and "Have a Cigar" suggested the use of a handshake (an often empty gesture), and George Hardie designed a sticker containing the album's logo of two mechanical hands engaged in a handshake, to be placed on the opaque sleeve (the mechanical handshake logo would also appear on the labels of the vinyl album this time in