ECHOES - THE BEST OF PINK FLOYD

The making of this album was not particularly agreeable to the individual members of Pink Floyd, but the knowledge that all contractual obligations would be fulfilled with EMI if they proceeded, they reluctantly agreed to it.

Daid will say : "Our engineer chap, James Guthrie does all the actual putting-together. He talks to Roger and he talks to me and he tells me what Roger has said, and he tells Roger what I have said, and that's how we communicate. That's been going on for quite a long time. It got to the point where it was getting difficult to sort out."

"If Roger and I had been able to reach an agreement then that would have been fine. But Roger was being his usual self and being difficult about certain things, mentioning tracks that really didn't seem to me representative. Of course, all our views are bound to be subjective, but I had views on what I thought were popular and iconic tracks and should have been included."

And finally : "I sent a letter with a list of every track on every album, and my reasons for what I thought should be on the record, and I sent copies of this letter to Rick Wright and Nick Mason. We then set ourselves to voting because time was running out. We are four shareholders and directors of a company that is Pink Floyd."

Roger tells us : "I resisted being involved at all for a long time, its very frustrating being involved in something you have no power in, and I have no power in that. The decisions about what goes on a best of Pink Floyd record are nothing to do with me, cause the power resides in a company called Pink Floyd Music Limited and there are a number of shares and a number of votes, like there are four votes and I only get one, well if I only get one, there must be three others, so I have no power, so, you know, I have nothing really, I don't have any seriously negative feelings about that".

Still some numbers definitely do not deserve to be on a "Best Of" from the Floyd. These are : "The Happiest Days Of Our Lives" (although it serves as a launcher for "ABITW - Part II), "When The Tigers Broke Free" (from the movie "The Wall"), "Jugband Blues" and "Bike". This for a total of less than twelve minutes.

Still, about "Jugband Blues" Nick says : "That was a good example of something that was discussed at some length. But the feeling was it was such a powerful farewell from Syd. The lyrics there stop being abstract and become as sad and down and wistful as anything Roger wrote, very personal again. In a way, what one wanted to do was to put across a bit of the range of Syd's writing. 'Jugband' is a wonderfully tragic piece. It is very poignant, that is the word I am looking for."

Except these ones, the tracklist here is rather spectacular. Of course we have little from their early works (but "Relics" did the job already).

Since both "Ummagumma" studio album and "AHM" were not the band preferred ones (and they have my full support, I share their views 200%).

We are brought straight into "Meddle" with the best tracks : "OOTD" and a very nice editing job with "Echoes" (still peaking at almost seventeen minutes). It is one of my two all time fave from the Floyd. The "spacey" part has been cut slightly as well as a section of the finale; but it was the price to pay to get such a track on a compilation effort (if you compare to a few Tull ones in which we have a three minutes rendition for "Thick" or "ATT" this is not bad at all).

The best numbers from "DSOTM" are all there. From "WYWH", my only complain would be that "Welcome to the Machine" would have fit perfectly if we could have got rid of those useless 11'40".

My second all time fave form the band underwent a small surgery as well : SOYCD Part 1 - 7 : again a very good compromise. It allows almost eighteen minutes of this FABULOUS number to sit here. Who will complain ?

"Animals" being reduced to "Sheep" only ("Dogs" is such a great track !). I guess that from "The Final Cut" onwards, the band try to get a concensus and therefore very little of these works will be available here.

Honestly, only eleven poor minutes out of more than hundred fifty-five is not really bad. Is it ? Ok, songs could have been ordered differently. Ending this compilation with "Bike" is quite ridiculous but we'll have to live with it.

Since it might be the last Floyd album ever (although I'm sure they will release something special for their forty years anniversary). Maybe a quad live CD boxset ? Who knows ?

This put an end to my Floyd album reviews (still have some work with VHS/DVD releases). I would like to sincerely congratulate each member of this wonderful band. So many beautiful moments (and a few others...). Thank you very, very much David, Roger, Rick, Syd and Nick. I'll still be travelling with you for the next forty years (if life allows). Four stars.

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