Published on Apr 27, 2002
With a catalog stretching over 30 years and a band history that
is so filled with turmoil one’s surprised VH-1 hasn’t done a
“Behind The Music” special on them (yet), Pink Floyd is a band who
are prime material for a comprehensive best-of set. (I’d say
they’re due for a box set, but
Shine On – essentially a re-packaging of many Floyd albums
with one disc of rarities – takes that claim.)
But
Echoes: The Best Of Pink Floyd proves one thing without a
doubt: It’s impossible to boil down the essence of Roger Waters,
David Gilmour, Nick Mason, Richard Wright and (in the beginning)
Syd Barrett into a mere 150 minutes. Don’t get me wrong,
Echoes is a nice effort with plenty of material to please
any level of Pink Floyd fan. But sometimes, it doesn’t seem like it
goes far enough.
No matter how producers broke up the tracks on this set, they
had to know that someone was gonna get angry about what was
included or excluded. A pretty good argument could be made for
including all of
Dark Side Of The Moon (even though four tracks are included
among the 26 in this set),
Wish You Were Here (two, including the whole “Shine On You
Crazy Diamond” suite) and
Animals (one meager track). I could argue for the inclusion
of “On The Turning Away” (from
A Momentary Lapse Of Reason) or one of the several rarities
included on
Shine On, such as “Point Me At The Sky”. Cripes, this whole
review could be a wish list, so let’s stop there.
It is interesting to note that a few of Floyd’s albums don’t get
any play on this set – namely
More,
Obscured By Clouds,
Ummagumma and
Atom Heart Mother. It’s almost like that portion of Pink
Floyd’s career is forgotten about – though there were points on
these albums where I could understand that approach.
As it is,
Echoes runs pretty smoothly. Intermixed with many songs
you’ve grown up with (and probably heard to death on classic rock
radio) are some real gems. I was a bit surprised to see “Echoes”
(taken from
Meddle) included in this one, but in the big picture, it
really does fit, since it helped to show the direction that Pink
Floyd would move with
Dark Side Of The Moon. And while I have never been a fan of
The Final Cut, the angst-ridden 1983 album which spelled the
end of Waters’s tenure with Floyd, “The Fletcher Memorial Home”
does pique my interest in the album again.
Other tracks I could question. I make no bones about
Dark Side Of The Moon being a classic album, but including
“The Great Gig In The Sky” is a tad questionable, since it mostly
features a female vocal wailing over the band’s music. Likewise,
“Set The Controls For The Heart Of The Sun” is a bit too sleepy for
me, though I can understand why it made the cut. I also would have
dropped at least one of the three tracks culled from
The Division Bell – most likely “Marooned,” since it’s a
short enough piece.
In the end, though, I guess that’s mostly nitpicking. It is
interesting to hear the early days of Pink Floyd (“Arnold Layne,”
“See Emily Play,” “Bike”) go head-to-head with more modern
selections (“Comfortably Numb,” “Wish You Were Here,” “Learning To
Fly”) – and what’s interesting is that it all works together.
Pink Floyd will never be successfully contained in any sort of
“greatest hits” package, no matter how hard anyone tries.
Echoes: The Best Of Pink Floyd is a respectable enough
effort at this, and is worth picking up, especially if you are new
to the band and want to sample all the different flavors that have
made up this band over the years.