Pink Floyd - Echoes: The Best of Pink Floyd

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Music reviews of Echoes: The Best of Pink Floyd

Music Review: Great introduction for the newcomer, frustrating for the fan
Rating: 3 Stars

For the fan, though, this is a frustrating compilation. You've got to give them credit for trying something inventive, arranging tracks thematically rather than chronologically (chronological compilations often just make you wish you were just listening to the actual albums). And they've done a nice job subtly tweaking the mixes, edits and segues of the tracks. But the simple problem is that you can't cram a fair selection of all of Pink Floyd's music on to two CDs. And it shows.

Let's start with the omissions. I never cease to be frustrated by the fact that `More', `Ummagumma', `Atom Heart Mother' and `Obscured by Clouds' seem to have been painted out of the band's history - not just on here, but in interviews with band members, and also in sizeable parts of fandom. I know these four albums aren't the most critically acclaimed, but they've got some great music on them, and they represent important parts of the whole `first band in space' experimental era.

Still, I guess I should be grateful that `Animals' and `The Final Cut' - both of which tend to get short shrift from everyone in the band except Roger Waters - get a small look-in here, with one track apiece (`Sheep' and `The Fletcher Memorial Home', both great songs). Also, the hard-to-find (but very good) song `When the Tigers Broke Free', which was originally used in the soundtrack to the film of `The Wall', is included here - which is a bonus for the completist. And `Jugband Blues' - Syd Barrett's apparently-happy-but-in-fact-very-very-sad final song with the band, from `A Saucerful of Secrets' - is another welcome inclusion.

To be fair, some of the edits and segues work really well. `Hey You'/'Marooned'/'The Great Gig in the Sky' form an unlikely but perfect suite, which I now listen to often. The original `Marooned' instrumental, on the `Division Bell' album, went on for too long and got dull. But the shortened version used here is just the right length, and flows perfectly into the opening chords of the sublime `Great Gig in the Sky'.

Another thing that works well is making `Shine on You Crazy Diamond' parts 1-5 flow straight into `Shine on You Crazy Diamond' parts 6-7. This replicates the arrangement of the song played on the `Division Bell' tour, but uses the studio originals to do it - a naughty-but-nice bit of revisionism. Admittedly, they've lopped off `Shine on You Crazy Diamond' parts 8-9 to do this, and I do miss them - it would be great one day to hear the entire song assembled as one. But what they've also done is segue part 7 straight into `Time', which in turn runs straight into `The Fletcher Memorial Home', and this flows perfectly. Again, I listen to the resulting (lengthy) suite often.

Not every edit on the compilation works this well, though. Going from `See Emily Play' into `The Happiest Days of Our Lives' is too harsh a contrast. But the absolute worst thing they've done on here is significantly shorten `Echoes'. And even though they've tried to be as subtle as they can doing it, it just doesn't work. I adore `Echoes' - it's an epic, perfectly constructed piece of music that represents a pinnacle in the Punk Floyd's career. But shortened, it just comes across as an amputee. It's like the King Crimson `Frame by Frame' box set that came out in the early 90s, which was full of stark edits and butchered classics (fortunately, subsequent King Crimson compilations atoned for this). I can't bear to listen to this version of `Echoes' - as soon as it comes on, I have to dig out the `Meddle' album and listen to the original.

The packaging of `Echoes' is the usual high quality you'd expect from Storm Thorgerson of Hypnosis, who's been working with the band for over 30 years now. And this is something of a culmination of the partnership - the cover design cleverly incorporates graphics from each of Pink Floyd's albums. It's obvious that Thorgerson used the previous live album/box with booklet `Is There Anybody Out There?' to try out the fonts and layouts used here.

Another bonus of this compilation is that these are the best mastered versions of these tracks that have been released to date - the sound quality is great. But even this is a mixed blessing. `Wish You Were Here', `Dark Side of the Moon', `The Wall', and to a lesser extent `Animals' and `The Final Cut', are among the best produced albums in music history. Audiophiles seek these albums out and use them to road-test state-of-the-art sound systems. Even on the cheapest systems, these albums sound great.

`A Momentary Lapse of Reason', on the other hand, is produced in a way that screams `dated cheesy 80s' at you through a loudhailer. (Follow-up `The Division Bell', although itself not perfect in the production department, was a significant improvement.) Which means that this compilation takes you from sublime 70s recordings, that (especially with this latest remastering) sound like you're in the studio hearing the band play in front of you, to recordings (`Sorrow' and `Learning to Fly') that sound like you're watching `I Love the 1980s' on your television.

So for the newcomer, this is a great introduction with a rich diversity of music on it. But for the fan, while this has a few new suites that'll knock you out, it also has a limping, mutilated `Echoes', harsh contrasts in production, and some omissions that'll have you running back to your original Pink Floyd album collection.

Description of Echoes: The Best of Pink Floyd

Interestingly, the album's nonchronological track listing works--the summery, childhood enchantment of "See Emily Play" is right next to the school discipline of "Happiest Days of Our Lives"--and at least this way no one will switch off when material from A Momentary Lapse of Reason comes around. Despite the curious omission of "Atom Heart Mother," this really is the very best of the Floyd--from the throbbing "One of These Days" to the pop operatic "Great Gig in the Sky" to the genius silvery fluidity of Dave Gilmour's guitar work. This is timeless, as many members of Sigur Rós, Radiohead, and the Beta Band will attest. --Kevin Maidment

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