Pink Floyd - Echoes - The Best Of

[my breakfast.]

Echoes was good I think. It got me from liking Ummagumma to liking the rest of their work. Actually I remember going into my local library and filling out pesky CD request sheets to order up all of Pink Floyd's albums one after another from other libraries in the same council region. Good times. 50p and a disk that always had the risk of being too scratched to work. I think DSOTM had been sprayed down with perfume. I could not keep that disk in my room, it smelled so strongly.

Echoes made sense as the tracks still flowed, or were editted down to blend into eachother. I prefer now the shorter Echoes without Gilmour's pointless slide solo before the first verse. Did give me a shock when I got the Pompeii VHS though.

Not sure why Pink Floyd have rushed out another compilation with less tracks and less focus towards anything Syd end.

[Jimi Dean Barrett]

Well I've just come across the tracklisting for "A Foot In The Door" and er... suddenly "Echoes" looks like the greatest collection of all time.

[snifferdog]

You're right there. I think, for all its flaws, that if I was to suggest an album that would give someone a rough guide to all eras of Pink Floyd, Echoes does a pretty good job. Some of the songs are so long that shrinking them down to a double album is a bit of a test at the best of times. Will this be deleted when A Foot in the Door comes out?

[my breakfast.]

I hope it doesn't get deleted, its the better compilation of the two.

Its annoying that it appears to be a prerequisite that Storm has to design tonnes of enigmatic Floydy artwork for any Pink Floyd release.

[Idisaffect]

Storm, like the rest of the band, has been coasting for 2 decades.

That new "best of" does make Echoes look a little better. Is there anyone besides Waters who really thinks Fletcher Memorial Home is one of pink floyd's best songs? I like it but there are at least 4 other songs from TFC that would stand alone on a compilation much better.

[snifferdog]

That's true. Oddly too, unlike most other Pink Floyd songs, the Fletcher Memorial Home has aged horribly because of the lyrics. References to Reagan, Thatcher et al just don't seem relevant today.

[Idisaffect]

Exactly. It's such a topical song.

On the other hand, the title track is timeless. It's really personal yet it is expressing things that are universal. I would even say that leaving the song The Final Cut off of these 'best of' collections is the single biggest missed opportunity for turning casual fans on to an overlooked/underheard gem.

[danielcaux]

The funny thing about Fletcher is that by including it on THE "Best Of" compilation they turned what was once a rather obscure track into a kind of "popular" PF song. It was a real surprise, when I was at one of Roger's DSoTM 2007 shows, to hear a bunch of young girls around me singing all the lyrics to it! But they didn't sing a single word from "Have a Cigar" or any of the songs that were not included on Echoes!

[my breakfast.]

...the Fletcher Memorial Home has aged horribly because of the lyrics. References to Reagan, Thatcher et al just don't seem relevant today.

Yeah, but Pink Floyd are not 'relevant' today. They stopped the viscious social observations a couple of decades back. At least you can maybe interpret it as Pink Floyd giving credit to their past awareness raising by putting old badly dated songs on their records. If they no longer view themselves as a 'current' band they might be more willing to release archive material.

[Idisaffect]

The funny thing about Fletcher is that by including it on THE "Best Of" compilation they turned what was once a rather obscure track into a kind of "popular" PF song. It was a real surprise, when I was at one of Roger's DSoTM 2007 shows, to hear a bunch of young girls around me singing all the lyrics to it!

That's sort of my point about The Final Cut song. If people like Fletcher because it's on Echoes, think how much more they'd like TFC if that was included. It's one of Water's greatest songs. I think it would turn a lot more people on to TFC album than Fletcher would. And it's got a beautiful guitar solo.

Songs like SOYCD should be left off the comps. That song should be available only on WYWH. Best of collections are like starter albums. This new one has 3 of the 4 songs from WYWH, albeit one is abridged. Certain fans wont even buy WYWH now because they have this new comp and figure they don't need WYWH just for Welcome To The Machine and the weaker parts of SOYCD that have been edited out of this comp. Same goes for Echoes. It should be heard in it's entirety on Meddle.

Also, Hey You>Emily>Happiest Days>ABITW2? That's just lame sequencing. 3 Wall songs with a Barrett tune in the middle. It's like having SOYCD parts 1-3>Bike>SOYCD 4-5. It makes no sense.

Perhaps the next pink floyd best of that comes out will be called:
The Fletcher Memorial Home-The very best of The Pink Floyd featuring side one of DSOTM with Fletcher placed between Time and Breathe reprise. Storm could do a cover with people standing in a green field flying huge pink kites while children on Dr Seuss -type bikes ride around them blowing bubbles.

[J Ed]

I dont see a problem with Fletcher referencing specific politicians from a specific time
the whole album is about that specific moment in time (the Falklands war and Thatchers first term in office) and reexamining the memories of another war from another point in time ... its about having a sense of history and understanding how the present fits into that history

so is the Neil Young song Four Dead in Ohio dated and irrelevent because its referencing a now obscure action during Nixons regime? hell, Nixons also namechecked in Fletcher, as is the even ancienter Senator McCarthy
I think the Neil Young song I mentioned is cool because it does give incentive for younger listeners to learn about what was going on before they were born, and it would be cool if these teenage girls sitting next to Danielcaux felt curious enough to learn about Thatchers regime and how the world was changing at that time and why

that said its not nearly the best song off its parent album and I would have voted for the more universally accessible message of the Gunners Dream

[Idisaffect]

My complaint with Fletcher is not so much the dated subject matter but the fact that it's not that great of a song- vocally, musically, whatever. Gunner, TFC, Two Suns and even Possible Pasts are better songs. Waters voice is at it's most grating on Fletcher.

I never cared for CSNY's Ohio, either. I don't suppose the parents of the slain children really like to listen to that song. Too painful. I could be wrong.

[Hudini]

Its annoying that it appears to be a prerequisite that Storm has to design tonnes of enigmatic Floydy artwork for any Pink Floyd release.

I'd rather say "apparently enigmatic". He seems to have lost his edge somewhere around "P.U.L.S.E." and all of his subsequent work for Pink Floyd was full of tiny details that would be incomprehensible by anyone who first encounters Pink Floyd, but at the same ultimately predictive and boring by anyone who has already encounter them. Being that Pink Floyd were around for about 45 years now, out of which at least 38 years globally recognisable, it's hard to believe a lot of people would find new Storm's work for Pink Floyd enigmatic, and by that really good.

[moom]

Only gripe is, some of the abridgements are unnecessary.

[Nicholas]

I've been listening to it a lot lately so have to give it 5 for that reason alone. However the absence of tracks from four of the studio albums does suggest there should be a sister companion. David's solo tours have included forgotten gems from the archive so it would be nice to have a 26 track compilation that features tracks from the post Syd/pre Dark Side material.