Pink Floyd - Echoes: The Best of Pink Floyd
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Free Music Notes for Echoes: The Best of Pink Floyd
Free Music Review: Widely divergent styles, but an essential collection
Hit: 5 Stars
Echoes is a compilation that attempts to span a career that is difficult to summarise succinctly. British band Pink Floyd is an entity not unlike fellow rock time-travellers Fleetwood Mac or Yes in that it has been around since the heyday of British psychedelia in the late 60's ,has had several lead vocalists, many changes in artistic style, and many different eras. Today, Pink Floyd appears to be a defunct band, but it enjoys a vast legacy of lifelong fans with fond memories, critical acclaim and a back catalogue that continues to win new fans amongst today's generation.
The result is a disparate collection of best tracks. Some of this is magnificent and unforgettable musical magic, while some is not that wonderful. But if you know the Pink Floyd story , it all makes sense.
The early stuff from the Syd Barrett era (circa 1966-68) was new to me when I bought my copy of Echoes in 2002. I don't care for this music much, but then I wasn't around in the late 60's, at which time it may well have found favour with the avant garde/ chemically-enhanced set that were in vogue at the time. So I'm not the best judge. See Emily Play is OK , and was a 1967 UK hit at a time when Pink Floyd was a somewhat trippy art-pop group in London.
The next era of Pink Floyd featured more experimental stuff, which was taken from a bunch of early 70's albums. Echoes is a multi-themes epic that here is cut down to 16 minutes. It's really good. One Of These Days is a groovy instrumental that shows the band learning a few studio tricks. By now, the creative core of bass guitar player / songwriter Roger Waters and guitar player / singer David Gilmour had assumed co-control of the band, along with Richard Wright on keyboards, and drummer Nick Mason.
Pink Floyd however remained on the fringes of popular recognition with their music appealing mainly to what would now be termed an "indie" audience of rock listeners in the early 70's and their songs bypassing radio as they refused to issue radio-friendly cuts.
In 1973 , this changed irrevocably with their undisputed masterwork Dark Side Of The Moon. This is a touchstone of our collective popular culture, as its themes of time, money, death, madness and conflict are universal, and their realisation as classic songs has seen this become an all-time favourite album of millions of people. Us And Them is magnificent songcraft with soft verses and loud choruses, and deals with fighting. Time hits the mark exactly with its commentary on the modern rush of progress leaving us all "hanging on in quiet desperation" , while Money tackles the other side of the equation with its biting lyrics exposing the greed that drives our overconsumptive society.
The Wish You Were Here album of 1975 was dominated by the title tune - another melodic classic with great lyrics by Waters. Shine On You Crazy Diamond appears here as an epic 7-part piece. It's about the psychosis of their former bandmate Syd Barrett.
Animals (1977) is represented by the 9-minute track Sheep, which is not a favourite of mine, but which I know many other reviewers like. Pink Floyd had become giant-sized stadium concept rockers by this time, and alienation, excess, and fame pressures took an emotional toll on Roger Waters (and presumably the others too). Waters made up the idea for The Wall (1979) - an ambitious psychodrama that Pink Floyd did as a double album of closely-linked songs, that became a vast touring show in 1980 and an unsettling, vivid feature film in 1982. The Wall has some awesome songs on it, along with the sort of narrative song-fragments that link together musicals and operatic projects. This set excerpts their best track Comfortably Numb - an amazing performance on guitar by Gilmour and shared vocals with Gilmour and Waters makes this tale of mental disturbance/delirium mixed with reverie perhaps the defining Pink Floyd song for me. The anti-authoritarian chant of Another Brick In The Wall (part 2) demanded single release in 1979 and reached #1 on the pop charts. It appears here with the prologue Happiest Days Of Our Lives (not!!), while the minor-key song Hey You wonderfully conveyed feelings of isolation and disconnection from the world.
Roger Waters contributed the autobiographical piece When The Tigers Broke Free (about his father) and the satirical The Fletcher Memorial Home before departing in acrimony after 1983's The Final Cut album and taking with him the vein of misanthropy that had begun to creep into their last two studio projects.
David Gilmour thus assumed creative control, and from then on we have tracks from 1987's A Momentary Lapse Of Reason and 1994's The Division Bell. I do like High Hopes, which is ominous, sad and rather beautiful , and Learning To Fly - a rock radio hit. These latter-day records are sonically grand and of high quality , but again represent a distinctively-different era of the band, with Gilmour singing almost every song. My favourite song from this era is the beautiful humanitarian ballad On The Turning Away (1987), but it's not on this set.
An uneven set then , but unquestionably brilliant at times, thought-provoking and intelligent rock music. It's the best thing to buy if you want an overview of all Pink Floyd's best-known pieces.
Highly Recommended!!
Free Music Review: An excellent introduction to a great band.
Hit: 5 Stars
As an avid classic rock fan, I'd had a minor interest in Pink Floyd by the time this collection was released. My friends all said things such as "WHAT!? I can't believe you don't listen to Pink Floyd, you'll love them." Two months into my freshman year of college, a friend played me the Dark Side of the Moon album. I wasn't that nuts about it, but I liked it enough to borrow it. The more I listened to it, the more I liked it. Not long before this, I saw the ad for this album on the TV and was thrilled to see that Pink Floyd had a best-of. I asked my parents to buy it for me for Christmas, which they did. That Christmas Day 2001 would change my life.When I first listened to it, it wasn't the greatest thing I had ever heard, but enjoyed it enough to continue listening to it. It wasn't long before it became one of, if not the most frequent visitor to my CD player. Soon, I could take no more and started buying the albums. It is now the beginning of 2003, and I am a Floyd-head for life.
One thing my friends said was "don't get the best of, get the albums to understand them, the albums have a flow, this won't, etc, etc, etc..." I ignored them because I wanted to sample Pink Floyd in the best way I could, and that was with this collection. And what I thought would happen did; I fell in love with this and with Pink Floyd, and started buying their albums.
Speaking from experience, this IS an excellent introduction to Pink Floyd, and made me fall in love with the band. Pink Floyd's career pretty much in its entirety is represented here. Though the soundtrack albums (which I haven't heard yet) and Atom Heart Mother are ignored completely, this will still give you a good idea of what the PF catalogue is like. Contrary to what hardcore fans said before hearing this, the tracks DO in fact have a flow to them. The songs were wisely selected and sequenced, and as always, Pink Floyd uses excellent studio trickery to make the songs flow from one to the next, which they do flawlessly. Another thing that some people complain about is that some of the songs were edited. For the most part, some must be to fit all these songs onto 2 CDs. The longer ones like "Echoes" and "Shine On" were edited from 23 or so minutes down to 16 or 17 minutes. The shorter songs for the most part have been left alone, with a minor cut out here or there. The only complaint I have now is that the incredibly beautiful "Marooned" from the Division Bell album is not only edited, but only the beginning is used. That didn't bother me then, because I didn't know. Other than these things that new fans won't notice, this is an enjoyable collection and a great introduction to one of the greatest bands of all time.
Syd Barrett here is represented quite well, with "Astronomy Domine" and "Bike" from Piper At the Gates of Dawn, "Jugband Blues" from Saucerful of Secrets, and two non-album singles (which I believe can be found on the Relics comp) "Arnold Layne" and "See Emily Play." Most of the essentials, such as "Money," "Time," "Comfortably Numb," "Wish You Were Here," and "Another Brick In the Wall Pt. 2" are here. Fans may be complaining about the omissions of some songs, but you can't put everything on a best-of. Believe me, after some time with this, you will want to buy the albums that have the songs you like, and then more, more, and more. You will become hooked for life.
Also awesome is the cover art by Storm Thorgeson, who is also responsible for many other Pink Floyd covers (and the cover of Audioslave's debut, BTW). You will also become a fan of Storm Thorgeson, as I have. That aside, the music here is truly stunning and serves as a great doorway to the wonderful world that is Pink Floyd. As I bought more albums, this has become the least listened to CD in my Pink Floyd collection, because the albums are simply better than the comps, as it is in any case. However, I still dig it up occasionally and listen to it.
One warning: You may not like this CD that much upon first listening. But trust me, the more you listen, the more you will like it. Soon you will depend on this music like a drug. I know, because I'm speaking from experience. Check out this album, then buy the albums as you like. In the long run, you will be glad you did. I know I am.
5/5
Free Music Review: ALL SONGS SEGUE
Hit: 5 Stars
This album isn't a true "best of" as Pink Floyd has too many good songs to fit onto only 2 CDs. What this is is a well thought out CONCEPT album. The concept is to have all of the songs segue into each other and create a continuous musical statement. This is why some songs, which are not big hits, are included at the expense of others - choices had to be made for the overall sound and FEEL of the collection. The sequencing is not chronological so the tunes could be arrange to merge as seamlessly as possible and to show them off in there best light. Some songs have been edited to keep things interesting. The song Echoes is only 16 minutes here, down from 23 on the Meddle album. Shine On You Crazy Diamond doesn't include Parts 8 & 9 (the end of Part 7 fits nicely with the opening alarm clocks of Time which is the next song on the disc). I'll listen to the original albums to hear the regular versions and original sequencing; I don't need it here.
Song selection is from the Syd Barrett era (5 Syd vocals)and the classic 70's albums and beyond. The early albums More, Ummagumma, Atom Heart Mother, Obscured by Clouds do not have any tracks on this collection.
One thing that I am really glad about is that the producers haven't used too many songs from any one album. They could have easily included the songs Welcome To The Machine and Have A Cigar but, that would have been the entire Wish You Were Here album (and what's the point of that?). I wouldn't even mind if the song Wish You Were Here hadn't been included, thereby making Shine On You Crazy Diamond the only song off of that album, and replace it with, say, Childhoods End from Obscured By Clouds. This compilation would still be great and I could listen to Wish You Were Here anytime I wanted to hear the 'missing' songs.
It would have been cool if the producers included the rare version of Pigs On The Wing that features Snowy White playing the middle solo linking Parts 1 & 2 of the song (this is the only Floyd studio recording that White appears on).
Echoes is produced by Pink Floyd and James Guthrie. The over all mastering is probably the best of all the recent floyd re-masters (kudos to Gutherie and Steve Sax, for the great work they've been done with their catalogue the past few years). This compilation shows how much work they put into producing this project. I give this 5 stars for what it is and don't subtract stars for what is missing or has been edited because the overall CONCEPT of the project works for me.
If you are new to Pink Floyd this is a good place to start. After this (or before) you can pick up the staples of their catalogue: Meddle, Dark Side of the Moon, Wish You Were Here, Animals and The Wall.
I HIGHLY RECOMMEND the live version of The Wall entitled IS THERE ANYBODY OUT THERE? The Wall Live 1980-81. I have never liked the studio version of The Wall and never bought it on CD after I upgraded my album collection. This live version, however, is brilliant (just re-released in 2005 with a new remaster by James Gutherie). This represents one of those rare times when a group of hand picked, well rehearsed, talanted musicians help the core band add that elusive 'something' to the music and give it the passion and power not found on the studio release. This show was so complex (and things had to be timed just right) that the band couldn't improvise much (lest they throw someone off and screw everything up), so the songs are very faithfull to the original recordings - only better.
To digress further... Sometimes I find I don't like a groups best selling, most popular, chart topping album. I seem to prefer their more 'obscure' albums: Supertramp's Crisis, What Crisis? over Crime Of The Century, Santana's Caravanserai over Abraxas, Bowie's Hunky Dory over Ziggy Stardust, Wings Wild Life over....etc, etc.... In Pink Floyd's case Obscured by Clouds is the album I like over all the other 'must haves' - I like the unpolished sound to it. Wish You Were Here is a close second.
Free Music Review: Essential!!!
Hit: 5 Stars
Many groups around Christmas time release a quick buck Greatest Hits package.Now it seems some groups are using this as a way to sell their latest single.Some groups are even releasing greatest hits packages even though they've only 2 proper albums.After 34 years of being in the business Pink Floyd have finally released a greatest hits package-but this isn't your average collection.I suppose Pink Floyd were never your average group.Slipshod collection this isn't.Firstly the group has taken particular to sequence these songs so that it seems like you're listening to a proper album and not just a few tracks selected from some 11 albums.Each track leads into the next one with consumate craft and skill that this group are renowned for.Secondly even the album cover has managed to incorporate little snippets from each of the previous albums and it must represent one of the very best greatest hits album covers of all time.Thirdly even though Syd Barrett may have alienated himself from the rest of the group,he is still given the honour of his songs opening and closing the album.
It's impossible to pick out favourite tracks on this album.People will have their own favourite Floyd albums and I suppose it is representative of their most popular albums that "Dark Side..." and "The Wall" are the 2 dominant albums on this c.d."Wish You Were Here" may only have 2 tracks but considering one of them is the 17 minutes of 'Shine On You Crazy Diamond',you'd have to say that this album is well represented too.If I were to pick a fault it would be that 1 track from Animals is not enough and yet 3 tracks from Division Bell may be a bit excessive.But there is no way with a back catalogue like this group have that you could please everyone.
I suppose there has come a stage in every music fans lifetime when the music of Pink Floyd will touch you and bring back very special memories.Instrumentally they were relaxing,they were melodic,they were brilliant musicians,they brought you to places you never expected to really get to.Lyrically they were humorous,thought provoking,angry and mellow but most of all they had a sophistication that make many groups now seem almost illiterate.You never described Floyd as having 'songs'-they're always a 'tracks' group-but tracks like 'Another Brick In The Wall' or 'Wish You Were Here' are truly memorable songs that we've all sung along to at one stage or another.
C.D. 1 is excellent-from the psychedellic haze of the opening song-to the sixties moog Doors meet The Kinks sound of the second song-when you hear tracks from Division Bell you see how much this group have evolved.What soon becomes obvious is that Roger Waters was at the heart of Floyds most interesting period.This side also features two of the best tracks 'Money' and of course 'Brick In The..'.It also features the wondrous 16 mins of 'Echoes' taken from the '71 album Meddle.'Sheep' the only track from the amazing "Animals" c.d. features on this c.d. also.
The 2nd c.d. to me is simply sensational.'Shine On You Crazy...' is represented in one memorable chunk here as opposed to the album proper where it's broken up into 2 sections.It's 17 minutes of ambient,dreamy melodic bliss.This surely was Dave Gilmours finest guitar moment.Then we go into Dark Sides other most memorable track 'Time'.The hard hitting totally 80's lyrics of track 3.Then it mixes in to 'Comfortably Numb' my favourite moment from "The Wall".The amazing instrumental track 6 taken from '71's "Meddle"-in production stakes alone this group were light years ahead of the rest.Then their best track(and probably their most commercial) from the 80's-'Learning To Fly'.Finally the contrast of the last 2 tracks-high-tech,crisp,pessimistic sound of '94's Division Bell to the folksy,optimistic quirkiness of Barrett's 'Bike' from '67.What a finale!What a history!
Free Music Review: THE CONCEPT TO END CONCEPTS?
Hit: 5 Stars
Pink Floyd's new compilation may be the fullest realisation of post-modern art yet to hit the world of rock music. The essence of the post-modern or "po-mo" movement in the arts is that it doesn't know quite what it is, but it knows what it likes. It's the sort of art that gets created when art-critics get fed up with being critics and start trying to be artists in their own right. They decide on the sort of statement they want to make, then they pick over their own favourite influences extracting a bit here and a bit there to fit the statement. The point is that placing familiar elements in a new context should bring out new truths in service of the artist's own agenda.
The weird thing about "Echoes" is that the Floyd never openly declared or traded on their influences. They were simply themselves. To the extent that they had major influences, these were mostly outside rock - in the fields of avant-garde (Cage, Stockhausen), late romantic tone poets (e.g. Bartok), music hall and nursery rhyme. Above all they were sincere. They wrote their lyrics from the heart and aired their joys and sorrows as a band in public. In other words, no band could have been further removed from the cold, calculating, distanced, ironic world of post-modernism.
AND YET here are the Floyd now, seeming brazenly to reinvent themselves, to distance themselves from their own creative muse. The approach for "Echoes" seems to have been almost calculatedly to place their most famous songs in a (some have said jarringly) different context. And by taking bits out of seamless concept albums and reintegrating them more or less seamlessly into new surroundings, they are (intentionally or not) making a new, distanced statement. "This is what we were....look how we did this.....see the effect we were aiming for here....see how we changed...." People think they are buying a greatest hits collection - I'm not sure that's what this is about. Half the statement of the original albums was in an album-length flow of ideas. Change that, and you change the meaning.
But there's a further level to this. Most of the Floyd's best work, right through from "Piper" to "Bell", was pure pop music rather than progressive rock in the usual sense. And what made it deep, of course, was the way the cheerful pop flavour was subverted by all those lyrics about obsession and insanity, and all those disturbing sonic undercurrents that have been boosting headphone sales for the last thirty five years. But in a retro project like "Echoes", how would you go about providing a fresh jarring element - the shock of the unexpected that was always an essential part of listening to the Floyd? How do you give a fresh jolt to jar the perceptions of people who have been listening to some of these tracks every day for 30 years? I would suggest that the Floyd's controversial remixing of some of their most time-honoured compositions has been carried out in precisely that spirit.
So does the issue of a Pink Floyd greatest hits album, featuring songs lifted out of context from some of the most seamless concept albums ever released, imply that the concept album is dead? Hardly! I think the chopped-out bits and mixing tricks may be the central conceptual flourish of a new concept album - perhaps the most radical concept album of the band's career. That the concept comes down in the end to nothing more substantial than "We Can Be Post-Modern Too!" doesn't really matter. And to my own surprise, I think the new album works. It contains most of the Floyd's best tracks and a few others, superbly remastered and at an appealing price. Over time, the new sequencing may even start to take root and yield connections that were not there in the original setting.