Search - Pink Floyd :: Echoes: The Best of Pink Floyd (Spec)

Floyd Forever

Lonnie E. Holder | Columbus, Indiana, United States | 11/01/2006

(4 out of 5 stars)

"Most "best of" collections for most groups seem to lack something. My expectations for "Echoes" were low. I was wrong about "Echoes." I have many "greatest hits" and many "best of," and this one, for one of the greatest progressive rock groups, is an absolute gem. While this album can never capture the greatness of Pink Floyd, it can intrigue you enough to go buy their albums.



I am least familiar with Syd Barrett's work in early Pink Floyd. The songs "Astronomy Domine," "See Emily Play," "Arnold Layne," "Jugband Blues," and "Bike," all written and sang by Syd Barrett, urged me to obtain Pink Floyd's early albums "The Piper at the Gates of Dawn" and "A Saucerful of Secrets." This music is psychedelic and imaginative, and now I know why there is a "Shine On You Crazy Diamond (Parts 1-7)."



I think it is a nearly bizarre truth that there is almost no such thing as bad Pink Floyd music. There is weak Pink Floyd music, and Pink Floyd music that is difficult to appreciate. However, Pink Floyd at their worst is still musically a force. When I listen to this music I remember the promise and potential of progressive rock through what many consider to be the glory years of progressive rock. Music from "Dark Side of the Moon," which set all sorts of longevity records on the charts, is represented, of course. However, Pink Floyd in the post-Barrett years has always been more than one album. There was the wonderful "Wish You Were Here," the epic "The Wall," and the bizarre and complex "Animals." Then there is the sonically pleasing "The Division Bell," and the often derided "A Momentary Lapse of Reason." There are also the albums "The Final Cut" and "Meddle." This album also includes one song from the movie "The Wall."



Note that this CD is listed as a "Special Edition." Pardon my cynicism, but, big whoop. The only thing "special" about this edition over the previous version of "Echoes" is the biodegradable plastic cover. If you have the original "Echoes" and tossed the plastic wrapper into the trash, I think you can rest assured that it is too late to get that plastic back into a barrel of oil. Buying another copy may help someone's bottom line, but not yours. There are three reasons to buy this album.



(1) You have to have every album released by Floyd (the definition of Floyd fanatic).

(2) You are just getting into the group and you want an overview of their career to see if you should buy more.

(3) You absolutely have to have the song "When the Tigers Broke Free" from the movie "The Wall," which does not appear on the CD "The Wall."



Listening to these songs in the order on the CD is almost surreal as the album cuts back and forth between decades and band lineups. As I listen to this music I remember all that I love about rock, particularly progressive rock, and what I love about life and Pink Floyd, and then I wonder how we got here, and why David Gilmour thought Pink Floyd had run its course when it really had not. There is still time. We can only hope that one day the members of Pink Floyd realize that they were always greater than the sum of their parts. Until that time, cherish all the music from Pink Floyd you can get, because Pink Floyd is one of the few groups that managed to find the middle ground between art and entertainment. These songs and instrumentals will always be diamonds in my collection, and they will carry me forward and backward in time, until there is no time left.

"

Pink Floyd - 'Echoes:The Best Of Pink Floyd' (Capitol)

Mike Reed | USA | 10/14/2006

(4 out of 5 stars)

"A 2-CD,26 track,2 1/2 hours compilation of Floyd's repertoire.Sure,it's nice to once again relive tunes like the trippy "Astronomy Domine","See Emily Play",the pulsating "Set The Controls For The Heart Of The Sun","Sheep","One Of These Days","Learning To Fly" and the quirky Syd Barrett's(R.I.P.)"Bike".Even though several of these cuts have been edited down to fit on the CD, I thought that was a good thing. Most fans should have all these songs anyway. For the completists, die-hards or any new patrons that have never owned a Pink Floyd record before."

Pink Floyd's best non-box set retrospective gets a new look

Terrence J. Reardon | Lake Worth (a west Palm Beach suburb), FL | 12/24/2007

(5 out of 5 stars)

"Pink Floyd's 2-CD retrospective entitled Echoes was released in November of 2001.

When I first got wind of Echoes at first, I thought it was going to be worthless but then after hearing that the then rare track When the Tigers Broke Free was finally being issued on an album (it then appeared albeit in a remixed form on the 2004 re-issue of The Final Cut), I said what the hey and took the plunge into buying Echoes.

Echoes is not like many best ofs that go year to year which is what Roger Waters wanted, the songs go from one to the next like your average Pink Floyd album which is how David Gilmour, Nick Mason and Rick Wright and longtime co-producer/engineer James Guthrie saw it. Many fans and Floyd bashers either stop whining and crying or go to listen to the regular albums (to the Floyd fans) or your Britney Spears and Beyonce records (some one star reviewers who bash this record for no reason)!

It was impossible to put a collection of Pink Floyd songs together that would please everyone. I think the non-chronological placing of these songs adds something new to the mix and the transitions between some of these songs create a mosaic of music just as these songs did on their original albums. My favorite segue is between Us and Them and Learning to Fly. The classics are here such as Astronomy Domine, See Emily Play, The Happiest Days of Our Lives, Another Brick in the Wall (pt.2), Hey You, The Great Gig in the Sky, Money, Keep Talking, Time, Comfortably Numb (with outro to Bring the Boys Back Home at the start), One of These Days, Us and Them, Learning to Fly, Arnold Layne and Wish You Were Here appear as does lost classics like Set the Controls for the Heart of the Sun, The Fletcher Memorial Home, Jugband Blues (one of the late Syd Barrett's best pieces), Sheep (from the overlooked Animals), Sorrow (one of PF 1987's best epics) and Bike.

Some of the songs were edited. For instance, Echoes is reduced to 16 and a half minutes like it was on the band's 1987 tour when they played it for three weeks and it works fine. Shine on You Crazy Diamond is edited into one long suite with a bit of the guitar solo from Part 3 missing and some of Part 6's lap steel solo shaved off and the intro to Welcome to the Machine missing and of course parts 8 and 9 are cut but a great edit. Marooned is reduced to two minutes to serve as a bridge between Hey You and The Great Gig in the Sky. Also, High Hopes has some of the intro effects, the ending lap steel guitar solo and the final bell tolls edited but most of this epic is left intact. The reason many hardcore fans bought this, including myself was the inclusion of When the Tigers Broke Free which was not on an album until this collection's release in 2001(now it is on the reissued Final Cut album but in a remixed form with part of The Wall film version for the first verse and the single mix for the second and third verses but the Echoes version was the melding of the film version).

Echoes did very well when it was released debuting at #2 in the US and selling over four million copies in the US alone (it was held off #1 by Britney Spears' Britney here in the States whilst in the UK Floyd outcharted Britney (a/k/a the skankaroo)) reaffirming Pink Floyd's place in history as the most successful progressive rock band ever.

In 2006, the album was repackaged with a biodegradable wrap which reminds me of the shrink wrap that they used with Wish You Were Here on the 1975 vinyl record.

Highly recommended!"