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Rating:
THE REVIEW
This double disc, released in November 2001, is a good way to listen to Pink Floyd for the first time, but nevertheless not a good collection, especially regarding the order of the tracks. There are many pros and cons to this CD.
First of all, to make a complete collection of Pink Floyd, two CDs wouldn't be enough; perhaps you'd need five. The entire "Dark Side Of The Moon" is fantastic, so you can't choose which track is better and which is worse: they should all be included. Oh well, I'm not saying the entire "The Wall" as well, but certainly the most important pieces, and then it should be without cuts, something that in this double CD has unfortunately been done for several songs, even for the reason that they've been mixed together (still, it seems very unfair to cut "Marooned" from 5 minutes to 2 minutes (!)). Moreover, many tracks were not included due to space, such as "Brain Damage, Dogs, Interstellar Overdrive", and many others. As I mentioned earlier, I don't like the track order: it was right to put "Astronomy Domine" and "See Emily Play" as the first songs, but right after there's "The Happiest Days Of Our Lives", followed by "Another Brick In The Wall", making a 12-year leap (!), thus jumping from the Syd Barrett era immediately to the much later Roger Waters period, before jumping eight years back (1971) with "Echoes", where Gilmour sings (!!!).
Another example: on the other disc "Us And Them" appears before "Learning To Fly" (jumping from 1973 to 1987), so you go from the success of "The Dark Side of The Moon" to the much-discussed "A Momentary Lapse Of Reason" (where unlike Dark Side, Waters is absent and Wright appears only as a session-man). All this creates a lot of confusion. Roger Waters had also suggested inserting the songs in chronological order, and his suggestion was good, but then, for some reason, this wasn't done. Waters himself also proposed the title for this collection.
Nonetheless, this album isn't entirely dismissible: there are "Arnold Layne, See Emily Play, When The Tigers Broke Free", songs never released on an album, there's the extended version of "Comfortably Numb" and "Bring the Boys Back Home", there are many songs that made Pink Floyd's history: I'm talking about "Money, Another Brick In The Wall, Echoes, Hey You, The Great Gig In The Sky, Shine On You Crazy Diamond, Time, Comfortably Numb, One Of These Days" (well-known in Italy for being the theme of Dribbling), "Us And Them", "Wish You Were Here", and many others.
There's also an excellent cover, created by Storm Thorgerson, 1/4 of the legendary graphic studio Hipgnosis, which designed many covers for the Floyd. It references many Pink Floyd albums and songs, notable even for those who don't follow them closely.
And then there's also a nice mini-site that I link on this page. A beautiful artwork has also been made.
To this album, I give a 3 for the reasons mentioned above:
NO: Track order and cuts; YES: Unreleased songs and very famous songs.
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Summary by Bot
This review covers Pink Floyd's compilation album 'Echoes: The Best of Pink Floyd'. While it praises the inclusion of iconic and unreleased tracks, it criticizes the poor track sequencing and shortened song versions. The reviewer suggests a chronological order would have been better, as proposed by Roger Waters. Overall, the album is a decent introduction to Pink Floyd, but not a definitive collection.Tracklist Lyrics
Pink Floyd
Pink Floyd formed in London in 1965 and became a defining force in psychedelic and progressive rock. The classic lineage spans Syd Barrett’s founding vision, Roger Waters’ conceptual leadership, Richard Wright’s harmonic textures, Nick Mason’s pulse, and David Gilmour’s arrival in 1968, shaping their signature sound.237 Reviews
Other reviews
By pier_paolo_farina
"Try making simple, quiet or rather you could say sluggish music seasoned with effects big and small, and manage to get it across to EVERYONE, even my mom."
"For the lovers of Floyd (the majority, myself included) 'Echoes' is a blast, perhaps the favorite piece. For the detractors, a notable boredom."
By Il Tarantiniano
It’s impossible to come across a perfect Greatest Hits, also because anyone can criticize the absence of essential tracks from an artist’s career.
'Echoes' is a best of that can undeniably be a starting point for those wanting to get interested in this band, but I highly recommend studying the tracks you are listening to before pressing play.
