Track Listing

Disc 1:

1. Astronomy Domine
2. See Emily Play
3. The Happiest Days Of Our Lives
4. Another Brick In The Wall (Part 2)
5. Echoes
6. Hey You
7. Marooned
8. The Great Gig In The Sky
9. Set The Controls For The Heart Of The Sun
10. Money
11. Keep Talking
12. Sheep
13. Sorrow

Disc 2:

1. Shine On You Crazy Diamond (Parts 1-7)
2. Time
3. The Fletcher Memorial Home
4. Comfortably Numb
5. When The Tigers Broke Free
6. One Of These Days
7. Us And Them
8. Learning To Fly
9. Arnold Layne
10. Wish You Were Here
11. Jugband Blues
12. High Hopes
13. Bike

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #631 in Music
• Released on: 2001-11-05
• Number of discs: 2
• Format: Original recording remastered
• Dimensions: .29 pounds
• Running time: 150 minutes

Amazon.co.uk Review
Echoes is a double-CD collection of some of Pink Floyd's best songs; it's also an interesting document of the band's history. They began life as Syd Barrett's mandrax-flavoured nursery-rhymers--gnomes, scarecrows, cats and bikes a speciality--before clasping the wings of Icarus and ascending towards the sun on an epic space-rock odyssey, eventually turning left once they reached the dark side of the moon and burning up on re-entry, crash-landing on every earthlings' home hi-fi with the imperious but seething embitterment of their (or more pertinently, Roger Waters') pomp rock; the sociological (Animals), totalitarianism (The Wall) and World War (The Final Cut). And it's all here--30 years of the Floyd's awesome back catalogue trimmed down to two handsome CDs. It is worth reiterating that, despite a fondness for pyrotechnics (and fittingly--and perhaps deliberately--the album was released on November 5th), Pink Floyd were never a prog-rock band. Sure, some of their songs were a bit long, and they never released singles (at least not for 11 years), but the same could be said for Led Zeppelin. Clinically devoid of the cod-classical overtures and vainglorious musicianship of that era, Pink Floyd were a pole apart; Meddle's epic maritime tone-poem "Echoes" remains The Floyds' apogee. But here, on this collection, "the albatross" which "hangs motionless upon the air" has had its wings clipped--seven full minutes are missing, but you'd never be able to tell. The sonar bleeps, the screeching seagulls, the howling winds are all retained and whoever wielded the editorial axe did so carefully, Eugene. Interestingly, the non-chronological track listing works--the summery, childhood enchantment of "See Emily Play" timetabled right next to the square-bashing school discipline of "Happiest Days Of Our Lives"--and at least this way no-one will switch off when material from "A Momentary Lapse in 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" (conceived as an attack on disc jockey Jimmy Young), to the pop operatic "Great Gig In The Sky" and the genius silvery fluidity of Dave Gilmour's guitar work. This is timeless, as many members of Sigur Ros, Radiohead, Blur, Beta Band etc will no doubt testify. --Kevin Maidment

CD Description
This release is a comprehensive retrospective of Pink Floyd's studio output between 1967 and 1994. It features materialfrom their psychedelic early days with Syd Barrett, right through to the modern rock sound of 'The Division Bell'. The no.1 single 'Another Brick In The Wall (part 2)' is also included.

Customer Reviews

A timely Pink Floyd compilation which gains high marks
Compilations are often so dry and boring, with their carelessly-written biographies and their tedious chronological tracklists. This album is remarkable for both its musical strength and (being a Pink Floyd album) its sleeve design.

The main risk with producing a Pink Floyd compilation CD is that the band produced so many really long tracks. How could these favourites be included on a CD without being murdered by editors or left out altogether? Yes, some tracks have indeed been edited ("Shine On You Crazy Diamond", "Echoes", "Marooned"; but not obviously (though the crucial Part 9 of "Shine On" and much of "Marooned" have been cut out). Yes, some wonderful lengthy tracks have been omitted ("Atom Heart Mother", "Dogs"), but you can't have everything. Not without buying the original albums, anyway.

Notwithstanding the above, the wonderful feature about this album, which far outweighs the edits, is the way in which the tracks have been sequenced. Each track is carefully segued into the next, and the result is incredibly good - it sounds like a true Pink Floyd album. For example, the link from "Marooned" into "The Great Gig In The Sky" into "Set The Controls For The Heart Of The Sun" is seamless - the former two are merged by a B minor chord that effectively makes them the same track! The trademark Floyd wind sound effect links many of the tracks of Disc 2, as it did on the albums "Meddle" and "Wish You Were Here".

The sleeve artwork is, as you would expect, impressive. Every feature of every Pink Floyd album cover of the past has been incorporated into a new selection of intricate photographs, reminiscent of the "Umma Gumma" concept.

The album is a musical delight, and has a variety of music wide enough to satisfy Barrett, Waters and Gilmour-era fans. Of course, the old adage that Floyd songs should be listened to in the context of the rest of the album (particularly from "Dark Side Of The Moon" through to "The Final Cut") holds true.

Still, it's a good entry-level album, and even if you own all the Floyd albums, this compilation is a fascinating album to listen to, and a must to buy.

Done with time and a lot of thoughts
The point that prompted me to buy this album is the fact that it has a rather unusual track-running order and includes every type of songs Floyd has ever done (except for the noise-collages), including every style, some of the longer pieces, experimentals, popsongs from the Post Waters Era and it mixes up short psychedelia like Jugband Blues with intuitive rocksongs like High Hopes and what can I say: it works! Somebody (I don't know who exactly compiled the songs) mixed the tracks regarding mood, tempo, general atmosphere, style, rhythm and even key (!) in a very well thought manner. They paid attention to a lot of details like the sonic depth finder at the beginning of echoes with the same sound returning in the following track Hey You. Its even lyrically coherent (Sheep from Animals following Keep Talking or High Hopes being surrounded by youthful tunes from old friend Syd Barrett). They are always keeping a consistant stream of atmosphere like the overwhelming triple Marooned, The great gig in the sky and Set the controls for the heart of the sun. Some of the songs are edited to fit into the concept like the shorter version of Echoes and the 17 minutes version of Shine on you crazy diamond spanning about 3/4 of the whole original masterpiece from Wish you were here with Parts One and Two mixed together. When the tigers broke free from The Wall-Soundtrack is included and the ending of Us And Them is newly mixed. The latter facts guarantee that the tracks on the CD are in a unique mix eliminating the possibility to use software at home to clone the compilation from the Floyd back catalogue.
The songs are wisely chosen representing everything the Floyd has done and exactly that point makes it a very good compilation only for Pink Floyd devotees. The casual listener will be put off by at least one of the styles. To develop enthusiasm for Keep talking, Shine on you crazy diamond AND Arnold Layne you have to be somebody who admires the band as a whole for its progression and musical creativity throughout the career. For me the CD is an exciting musical journey and the compilation kinda refreshed my enthusiasm for Pink Floyd having a quite rare appearance in my CD player the last years. Its a pleasure to hear their creative output in such a skilful compilation of well chosen tracks.

155 minutes of classic Floyd -- extraordinarily good value
Floyd have previously issued a compilation, but not on a double CD. A single LP was never going to do adequate justice to the band, even though it was attempted with the earlier COLLECTION OF GREAT DANCE SONGS. No collection could claim to be the best of the Floyd without including, say, all 23 minutes of 'Echoes', and that blows half an LP right away.

This album contains almost all of 'Echoes', together with almost all of almost every other Floyd that one would expect to hear on a 'Best of' collection. I say almost all, because the tracks have been judiciously segued into each other, in most cases just before the fade-out on the original. To some, it may seem sacrilege to interleave DSotM tracks such as 'The Great Gig in the Sky', 'Money', 'Time' and 'Us and Them' with other Floyd classics, but believe me, it works. The only classic which I'm disappointed not to see here is the opening track from OBSCURED BY CLOUDS.

There can be few Floyds fans who don't have the classic sequence of four albums from the 70s -- MEDDLE, DARK SIDE OF THE MOON, WISH YOU WERE HERE and ANIMALS. But there may be many who, like me, have never bought a Pink Floyd album on which Syd Barrett played. The early stuff -- for instance, 'See Emily Play', 'Arnold Layne' and the glorious 'Bike' -- has been ingeniously blended into the meld, despite the production standards of the period appearing primaeval compared to Alan Parsons' work on DSotM.

It's a wonderful, wonderful collection. I re-purchased my Floyd albums on CD too early -- i.e. before they were re-mastered. I assume that the tracks chosen here are from the re-mastered CDs, and it's frankly a relief that I cannot tell the difference in sound quality between them and my memory of my CDs. That's a small fortune saved!

The CD inlay booklet is up to the usual Floyd standard, with a cover reminiscent of UMMAGUMMA. We get the lyrics and we get the info on who-played-what. This is the early Xmas present you need to give yourself.