A COLLECTION OF GREAT DANCE SONGS

In 1971 Pink Floyd issues their first compilation cd, "Relics", to sum up the singles from 1967-1969. This was a brilliant album as it had great familiar songs but also had lots of songs that floyd fans weren't familiar with upto this point, making the album a worthy purchase for a whole bunch of good songs, including unreleased tracks.

"A Collection of Great Dance Songs" is a similar idea except it fails completely. Although the songs here are excellent, summing up the 1971-1979 era, as a compliation this seems completely random and utterly pointless. It is a good to see another compilation for fans to have these great songs on one vinyl but it was totally not worth the money its sold for. There are no new songs, the compilation doesn't flow very well and it's obvious its not been thought out very well and is just a cash in. You might as well get the actual albums the songs are on, that would be money well spent.

The songs on here have actually been re-recorded completely but the differences are so subtle that nobody will notice. This album is for collectors only. I have 18 Pink Floyd albums so far and i'm dreading having to buy this one. The only album this is for is completionists and fans of Storm Thorgersons artwork. It's even worse than "The Final Cut", "The Division Bell", "Works" and "A Momentary Lapse of Reasons". This was probably Pink Floyds first official stinker!

Not sure what this was about apart from raking in the dollars. Relics worked as a great compilation and it had something unique about it but A collection of Great Dance songs is a waste of time. Pink Floyd doing best of or compilations just does not make sense to me. Best leave this one well alone.

"A Collection of Great Dance Songs" is good as an introduction for the uninitiated to FLOYD. But the choice of tracks are not entirely representative of FLOYD's impressive discography. I mean who really needs/wants yet ANOTHER chance to hear 'Money' and 'Another Brick In The Wall'? Just go turn on your local FM Classic Rock station, and I guarantee within a few hours you will hear one of these songs.

Also some of the tracks included on this little compliation are not the 'true' versions of the original songs. 'Another Brick' is the single (edit) version with a slightly different intro. 'Shine On You Crazy Diamond' has been completely skewered and compressed into a much shorter 10 minute version. SACRILEGE! 'Money' is totally reworked by Gilmour, and for this reason makes this album a necessary buy for completists only. A great example of Record Companies exploiting fans. "ACOGDS" is not worth acquiring. 2/5 stars

"Works" and "A Collection of Great Dance Songs" follow the same formula: songs put together totally out of context from the albums they are on and joined by a "rare" track. In "Works" we had "Embryo", and here we have this Dave solo version of "Money". Both those "rare" performances aren't worthy of buying an album just to listen to them, and both of these awful compilations cost too much for my taste and don't have any content that would tempt me to buy them.

I also don't know where they got the idea of naming "A Collection Of Great Dance Songs" an album containing dark and beautiful songs like "Shine On You Crazy Diamond" and "Wish You Were Here". There may be a positive point in this: many people who aren't into PINK FLOYD in the first place only know the "hits" such as "ABITW pt2" and "Money", and they may be feel like getting this album to have these two songs and the well-known "Wish You Were Here" thinking the FLOYD is only that. But they will eventually face a ten-minute version of "Shine On You Crazy Diamond" and have contact with FLOYD's magnum-opus (though it was grossly edited here). Who knows? Some of them won't like it because it is "too long", "the intro is boring", etc etc, and they will come back to the 6-minus minutes tracks, and the FLOYD fan will prefer to listen to those songs on their respective albums, on their proper context.

So, avoid this. Both your wallet and conscience will thank you in the future.

In fact all progheads should buy this CD as a tribute to the splendid, very cynical title that refers to the fact that progressive rock is so often considered as clinical and non-rhythmic music! The track list is remarkable because at least half of the tracks are, how ironical, the more groovy and swinging pieces from Pink Floyd like "One of these days", "Money" and "Another brick in the wall, Part II"! So have a great dance on these songs...

So many years I'm listening to this Pink Floyd compilation. I grew up with this one! Had it once on MC, now bought the CD format.

All the six tracks are of a remarkable importance and goes from 1971 (One Of These Days) to 1979 (Another Brick In The Wall, Part II). I hugely love the re-recorded version of Money that seems to me, musically, more complete than the original DSOTM recording! I allow myself to say that with all the respect to that album which, by a die hard fan as I am, is considered the blood that feed all the good prog lovers! The cover art is nice.two stiff dancers holded up by a narrow plot of ropes!...agree with Erik that there's something ironic about the tradition to consider prog rock as a non- rhythmic music!

From my infancy.4 stars and high recommendations!

A totally worthless compilation that served no purpose other than extorting more money from the fans in the wake of the great commercial success of "The Wall" and the lack of new PF recordings. For FLOYD completist only, with alternative and dull re-make of "Money" included!

This compilation is not worth collecting for two reasons: 1. It does not give a full picture of Pink Floyd music starting from its inception with psychedelic style (Syd Barrett era) until later album "Division Bell". 2. I don't think bands like Pink Floyd, Yes, Genesis, ELP are suitable with compilation CD. So it's not worth at all spending your dollar on this compilation. I'd rather recommend you purchase each individual album of the band starting with "The Dark Side of The Moon", "Wish You Were Here" and "Animals". If it fits your taste, you might explore with other albums.

Don't get me wrong, all songs featured here are great ones. The problem is if you enjoy this compilation you don't get a grip on the nuance of Pink Floyd music in its full form album like "The Dark Side of The Moon" where all songs are connected seamlessly. This compilation was released I think for commercial purpose to get people like dance music where by some tracks are actually upbeat. If that is the purpose, definitely one song "Shine on You Crazy Diamond" wouldn't fit into the said purpose. So it confuses me on the purpose why this compilation was ever made. Keep on proggin' ..!

Peace on earth and mercy mild - GW

This is another compillation, im not sure if it could be named as "The best of", because it has only 6 songs, for some strange reason this album was namd "A Collection of Great Dance Songs"( the cover art is nice IMO, of course you wont dance when you listen to "Sheep" for example, but anyway the nameis not that important.

I have read the reviews of this album, and despite the most of them talk about it as a worthless compillation, and gave it only 1 or 2 stars, it has not changed my mind, so i feel the need to do this reviews in my particular point of view.

One thing that i am sure, is that the songs included here are maybe the most well known and commercial of them, tunes that you can listen in any radio station or with a friend i dont know, anyway a commercial or well - known song is not a BAD song, so im glad to have this album compillation, because i like all the songs here and i enjoy it every time i listen to it. I want to clarify, that im agree in the way that this is not the best album, not the best compillation, not the best of, there are some beautiful and best songs, but here you can enjoy "Shine on "...what a song no?

This album starts with the instrumental bass oriented and atmospheric "One of These Days" which is a great song, immediatley after the finish the bass tunes of "Money" starts, i know you maybe hate that song because it is so overplayed, anyway i love it,"Sheep" is maybe the lesser known, from "Animals" a 10 minute great song, "Shine on you Crazy Diamond", i dont have anything to say about it, you already know the beauty of it, "Wish You Were Here" a hymn, a beautiful song, and finishing this compillation "Another Brick in the Wall", musically maybe not the greatest, but good.

After that points, here youcan enjoy 40 minutes of great Floyd tunes, so i think it deserves at least 3 stars, because t´s good, but of course non - essential.

This compilation reflects the band's work from 1971 ("Meddle" to 1979 "The Wall"). So, of course you won't get the full picture of the Floyd's work (we'll get closer with "Echoes" - the compil of course). I have to admit that the title is quite a mystery for me (I didn't find any info on why they had chosen such title). So, if one of you does, please forward the info to me. Based on this, I can hardly criticize the track list. Let's hear :

"One Of These Days" is the second best one from "Meddle" but the only possible choice for a single LP compilation effort.

"Money" is the most commercial number from "The Dark Side". It has never been my fave (I would rather have preferred "Time").

"Sheep" is the best track from "Animals" (on par actually with "Dogs").

"Shine On You" is the best track from WYWH (and probably one of the all time best from the band).

"Wish You Were Here" is in terms of music, the weakest track of the WYWH album; but probably the strongest one, emotionally. I guess that it is therefore that we have two numbers from the same album here. A tribute to Syd.

"Another Brick In The Wall (Part 2)" is, again, the most commercial number from "The Wall". I would rather have gotten "Comfortably Numb". It is their first single brought on the market for twelve years (at least in the UK), so this effort can hardy be compared to "Relics" which was mostly a collection of A and B sides.

OK, most of the numbers are edited and shortened slightly. But not that much after all. Most of this was done for rights issues. The original "Money" for instance could not be released in the States due to contractual problems. "Another Brick..." is also edited. Due to contracts, different versions were issued for Europe and America.

All in all some tracks are great : "One Of These Days", "Sheep", "Shine On You...", to good ("Money", "Wish You Were Here" and "Another Brick..."). The editing does not hurt me either. This is of course more for a newbie to the Floyd (but I guess there aren't so many on this site) than for a veteran fan. A present to offer maybe ?

Still, a veteran will rate this one with three stars.

Absolutely wonderful music on one of the most pointless, inane, ludicrous compilations ever made. These songs are intended to be heard in the context of their albums and if the Floyd agreed to this they really deserve some ridicule for it.

Complete bunk intended to enrich the bottom line. Avoid at all cost.

Someone gifted me this CD thinking that I would probably reach the clouds with such a supercalifragilistic release. These are the misfortunes of revealing to neophyte circles of close and related people that you like prog-rock; one connoisseur will always spot with a superior grimace: "I have all Pink Floyd albums and I can copy some for you!" - it means that this particular person probably has only DSOTM, WYWH and "The Wall" and believe he/she knows everything about PF or prog-rock, dooohhhh. In the past, I stayed silent but nowadays I go further and accept the offer replying: "Ok, could you find me a copy of "A Man & The Journey", I'm very interested in getting it?". The normal answering is some unintelligible blabbing that ends in Frank Sinatra or Bee Gees.

But returning to the subject, I didn't get the title here since I don't think any of the album tracks are danceable or is there some irony or enigma not grabbed with my little comprehension of the English language trifles? Also I'll pretend that I didn't get the reason behind this release: in fact, a shameless coin-picker. Anyway, if you're not into the prog-rock mood and want to know a bit about the genre and its most popular band, it could be more or less tangible to purchase this one - are there any non-prog-rockers visiting the Archives and eventually reading this review? If 'yes', you may go and get it, although I advice previously that you'll find a basket of much better options to feel the genre, with FLOYD or another band but if 'not' (I presume the most common case): stay away!

Songs are those well known for a die-hard FLOYD fan and also for the average prog-fan even not being a great appreciator of their work. The arrangement proposed to "Another brick part II" will be certainly the only one where you may feel a slight desire to shake the skeleton. My recommendation: keep cool, the desire will soon pass by.

That said, I have to unfortunately inform that, after 120 reviews, this will be my very first to receive the dubious 1-star award - a compilation only for completionists (sic).

This compilation followed on the coattails of the success of The Wall album simply to make a few extra bucks, most likely taking advantage of newcomers unfamiliar with Pink Floyd's catalogue prior to The Wall. To entice older fans into buying it, they included a re-recorded version of Money where David Gilmour plays all the instruments. It's not as good as the original. The selection is weird and no, you can't dance to any of these with maybe the exception of Another Brick in the Wall, Part 2. Shine On You Crazy Diamond is poorly edited so as to keep the LP short. Other than making money, what was the point? Why not just buy the studio albums? Two stars, collectors only.

6 Reasons why not to buy this album:

Number 1: This complilation is replete with Pink Floyd songs that we all own, so why would anyone buy this? The cover is appalling too so thats no reason. If you are new to Floyd skip straight to Echoes - Best Of - its a masterpeice in comparison to this.

Number 2: The tracks are admittedly great but true fans own them anyway. One Of These Days is the bonafide classic from Meddle - If you want to hear great Floyd get that album, don't settle for one track.

Number 3: Money is a new version for some reason where Gilmour plays all instruments - The Dark Side of the Moon version is streets ahead of this effort. Though perhaps this is one reason to buy this. You get a new version of Money - Nah, sorry, its not that good...

Number 4: Sheep is from Animals and you must hear that album in its entirety to gain full value.

Number 5: Shine On You Crazy Diamond is from Wish You Were Here and its much better in the full version. Wish You Were Here is too of course but we all own that.

Number 6: Another Brick In The Wall, Part II is the single from The Wall. Every PF fan owns it or he/she is not a fan.

So in conclusion steer clear of this album. I can give you more reasons not to buy it, but i think 6 is enough. New to Floyd? Ok, then you may not have these tracks but they are presented on heaps of other compilations better than this lacklustre money grabbing attempt.

'A Collection Of Great Dance Songs' - Pink Floyd (Compilation)

I am bemused over this compilation. I ask myself, 'what's the point?' and I am greeted with no proper answer. The music on this CD is great, to be certain. But, as is fatal with so many prog compilations, wouldn't it be better to listen to the music in the context it was written into? For the same amount of money, one could buy an actual Pink Floyd CD, and get much more enjoyment out of it than this.

Even a 'best of' compilation would make more sense, even if it was only for the 1971-1979 era... But this seems a bit random. If this is a 'best of,' than where's 'Comfortably Numb' or 'Have A Cigar' or anything? There's certainly room for them to go on the record... Hell; these songs don't even have anything to do with each other!

Another testament to why record companies should be put to death. Pure commercialism, and naive commercialism at that.

At this point, it appears that the members of Pink Floyd were so disgusted at what the group had become, as well as the interpersonal conflicts, that they really let their guard down about maintaining the band's legacy. In hindsight, none of the bandmembers post-break-up really seemed to care that much about the band's legacy. Regardless of the circumstances of its release, this album is a sad sight for most Floyd fans.

Even as a dense 10-year old, I could get the attempt at humor in the title. In other words, if even I got the attempt at a joke, then it was way too obvious, and by extension not nearly as clever as whoever came up with it thought it was.

And then we have the songs. If simply unedited, this would simply be a subpar compilation. But with some of these edits, things take a turn for the very worst. For example, chopping up Shine On like that should be an arrestable offense. This bothers me even more than those terrible edits of Who songs for the rotten CSI TV shows, which is on the same irritation level for me as jock itch and mosquito bites.

On the plus side? Hmmm...well...I suppose the album art is unobjectionable. In fact, it's downright minimally acceptable. At least something about this project is.

This is not even for completionists. This would be only for those who would in all seriousness ask "Which one is Pink?"

Besides the odd song here and there, this was my introduction to Floyd. When I was about 10 years old I listened to my uncle's vinyl copy of DSOTM. I thought the music was too mellow, had too much sound effects and generally didn't care for it. When I was a teenager a friend lent me their copy of this compilation. I was more prepared at that point. Floyd is first and foremost an album band. Their music does not benefit from compilations and this one is no exception.

"Money" and "Another Brick...2" were the only songs I was familiar with. The version of "Money" here is a re-recording from 1981. As would be expected, it's not as good as the one on DSOTM. "Another Brick In The Wall Part II" is the single version which starts with a drum beat. "Shine On..." is an edit of the whole suite focusing on the vocals parts. The majority of the instrumental parts are left out.

The two songs that really caught my attention and made me want to dig further into their discography were "One Of These Days" and "Sheep". It's strange how "Money" is a new recording yet the Meddle version of "One Of The Days" is used. I guess Columbia could only get the rights to use OOTD but not anything from the sacred DSOTM(the band's last album for Harvest). I had never heard anything like OOTD before. It began with two basses and no drums (!!!). The only vocals were a weird sounding voice in the middle. I had to hear more music as crazy as this. The vocoder part in "Sheep" also made me curious as to other music that was similar.

The best thing about this compilation, other than indirectly introducing me to 'prog', is the wonderfully ironic title. These guys never had a compilation that did their music justice. They even have two box sets which feature whole albums. Definately a band that needs to be listened to album by album. Even if some of their best albums have some filler on them. Really only for completists but it got me into Floyd. 2 stars.

Probably the most unnecessary compilation album ever. The only reason you might want this is for an alternate take on "Money", which sounds a bit slower than the original version. Honestly, six songs for a compilation from a band with a ton of albums under their belt? What was Columbia Records (Floyd's American label since Wish You Were Here) thinking? Probably trying to reach the audience who only became aware of them thanks to their (then) latest album The Wall. You get "Shine On You Crazy Diamond", "Wish You Were Here", "Another Brick in the Wall", the alternate version of "Money", "Sheep" and "One of These Days", the only pre-Dark Side of the Moon song included here. That's it. That sounds to me like a big rip off. Of course there are much more comprehensive Pink Floyd compilations out there which are recommended much more than this one.

Personally I would never have bought this, but my father bought this LP back in the 1980s when I was a kid so I'm quite familiar with it. As a kid I remembered really enjoying "Sheep" and "One of These Days", since my father never owned Meddle or Animals, albums I later acquired in my late teens, albums so glad I finally got to own.

I do love the irony of the album title. Yes we all realize we can't dance to Pink Floyd, they're not considered head music specialists for nothing. But for this album, it's easy to pass on this and buy a better, more comprehensive compilation album or their regular studio albums.

"A Collection of Great Dance Songs". A funny title for a compilation album from a band which obviously didn't record dance songs, and with also a funny cover design from Hipgnosis. Released in November 1981. A strange compilation, I think. I don't know the real reasons why this compilation was released then. Maybe it was to make time between the release of "The Wall" (which was released in November 1979), the release of "The Wall" movie (in 1982), and the release of their next album, titled "The Final Cut" (a thing which happened until March 1983). (Bands in those years were expected to release new albums every year or at least every two years). Anyway, by late 1981 maybe Rick Wright's status in the band was still of an ex-member who was recruited to play in "The Wall" shows in 1980-81, or maybe by the time this compilation album was released he really was not associated with the band in any role anymore. At the time this wasn't known yet for the general public. It was until the release of "The Final Cut" that it was known that he wasn't in the band anymore.

So, the band released this compilation album in late 1981. The selection of the songs for this compilation is not bad, but it has a bias, at least in that of the six songs which were included, three of them ("Money", "Another Brick in the Wall Part Two" and "Sheep") were composed alone by Roger Waters, who since 1977 became the main songwriter in the band. And it was later known that those times were not very happy times for the band, with increasingly strained personal relationships between the rest of the members of the band which in late 1985 led to Waters to leave the band and to the legal battles for the name of the band in later years.

This album has the next songs:

"One of These Days" (from the album "Meddle", 1971): it sounds like being the same version from that album.

"Money": a then new version of this song which was originally recorded and released in their "The Dark Side of the Moon" album from 1973. This new version was recorded in 1981, by David Gilmour playing all the instruments. The reason given for this new recording was for copyright reasons in the U.S. Apparently Capitol Records didn't want to license the track to Columbia Records. But "One of These Days" also was originally released by Capitol in the U.S....so? Maybe the real reason was to give to the fans a new "rare" track to buy this compilation album (a marketing trick, maybe), and with Wright being out of the band by then and with the internal tensions between the rest of the musicians Gilmour took the task to record a new version of the song alone, with only Dick Parry appearing again on sax solos.This new version has the same sound effects from the original version. But it is clear for me that Gilmour, while still being a very good guitarist and lead singer, couldn't play the drums as well as Nick Mason or the keyboards as well as Rick Wright. So, this new version is not as good as the original version, in my opinion.

"Sheep" (from the album "Animals", 1977): it sounds like being the same version from that album.

"Shine on You Crazy Diamond" (from the "Wish You Were Here" album, 1975): shows several edits which are very clear for the listener. It sounds well, anyway, for a compilation album like this.

"Wish You Were Here", from the album of the same title, 1975: with also some edits done for this compilation album, it also sounds well.

"Another Brick in the Wall, Part 2": it also sounds like being the same version from "The Wall" album from 1979, but also with some different edits.

Maybe with the passing of time this compilation now could be considered as not as relevant as it maybe was in 1981. But the selection of songs is not bad, and if some of the most dedicated fans of the band still want to listen to some different edits of these songs or to the then new version of "Money", it maybe could work very well for them. It is maybe a good "sampler" of some songs of the band from the seventies. The album as a whole sounds well despite the songs were taken out of context from the original albums. It was done in a good way, and it is a good compilation from that period of the band.

Shall we dance?

Wo wo wo... Let's calm down and analyse this weird title word by word.

Collection: Is PINK FLOYD a band suited for compilations and best-ofs ? That's a question we'll try to address in this review.

Great: Without a doubt when you're a Floyd fan like me. Although short, the track list is not too bad regarding variety and representation however there are 2 major issues. First, the songs have been edited down, which would not be too disturbing as far as it mainly concerns only intros and outros, but much more problematic for epics, such as "Shine On You Crazy Diamond", whose parts have simply been been cut down or removed! We the begin to perceive the second issue with Floyd compilations: Pink Floyd are an album-oriented band, whose songs are supposed to be listened to continuously in the context of a whole album, without interruption.

Dance: The adjective here is intentionally humorous, as PINK FLOYD's songs, and prog tracks in general, are not known to be really dance-able... or are they? "Another Brick in the Wall - Part 2", featured here in radio version, has a cool disco rhythm, and "One of These Days", was used in 1971 by choreographer Roland Petit for his "Pink Floyd Ballet".

The only interest of this release lies in David Gilmour's re-recorded version of "Money", unique to this compilation. The guitarist did almost everything, with the participation of Dick Parry on saxophone. The result has only a few tiny differences with the well-known classic track: sax and guitar solos last a little longer and sound quite nice, however the whole song sounds a bit more flat than the original, due to the lack of nuances in the drumming.

As a conclusion, would you buy "A Collection of Great Dance Songs" to discover the band? As you understood, my answer is negative: the track selection is short, the songs have been cut down and above all PINK FLOYD is not suited for best-ofs and compilations, their songs are inseparable from the studio albums.

If you want to start your PINK FLOYD journey, "Dark Side of the Moon" should be your first destination...