What people search:
 | Title : Echoes: The Best of Pink Floyd
Author : Pink Floyd
Release Date : 20011106
Binding : Audio CD
Regular Price : $29.98
Amazon.com Price : $18.87
(37
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Editorial Reviews :
Echoes is a double-CD collection of some of Pink Floyd's best songs. It's also a fascinating document of the band's history. They began life as Syd Barrett's phantasmagoric plaything before clasping the wings of Icarus and ascending toward the sun on an epic space-rock odyssey, eventually turning left once they reached the dark side of the moon and burning up on reentry, crash-landing on every earthlings' home hi-fi. And it's all here--30 years of the Floyd's awesome back catalog trimmed down to two handsome CDs. It's worth remembering that, despite a fondness for pyrotechnics, Pink Floyd were never a prog-rock band. Sure, some of their songs are 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 faux-classical overtures and vainglorious musicianship of that era, Pink Floyd were a pole apart; Meddle's epic maritime tone poem 'Echoes' remains the Floyd's 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, Eugene, did so carefully.
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.
Buyer Reviews :
Echoes (also the name of a track which originally was going to be used for the final sequence in the movie classic '2001: A Space Oddisey') is a very good compilationof Pink Floyd material from all their musical periods: with Syd Barrett (their founder), pre-Wall and even post-Wall/post-Roger Waters (there's 'Sorrow' and 'Marooned' to account for their last two studio albums). Plus the album comes bundled with lyrics packaged in a very artful cover designed by Storm Thorgeson (does the name Hipgnosis sound more familiar maybe?)
As with all great musical acts, it's extremely hard to come up with a compilation of Pink Floyd's best material without leaving out things that will be considered essential by someone. And though this album attempts to be all things to most people, the fact that some of their long songs have been edited down so that more material can be fit in the discs, and that not even one new song has been included in it, explains why a compilation of works from such a great band falls short and currently only averages four stars in the reviews of their fans here.
However, having said this, if you have absolutely NO Pink Floyd material in your music collection, this double-album will expose you to all their musical periods (with a little more emphasis, perhaps, on their initial stages) so that you can then go out and start your Pink Floyd collection.
(by MANUEL J HERNANDEZ)
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