RELICS

One of two Floyd compilations that are worth buying (except of course for completionists, who already have the albums). It successfully takes a time period (early Floyd), and gives a good representation not only of the songs, but also the evolution over time. Of course, few could have seen what the band would deliver 10 years later with The Wall, for better or worse.

The added advantage is that this really gives you much of the best (not all, as Astronomy Domini and other notables are excluded, for example) of what spans a lot of albums (and, to be honest, an excruciating amount of poor to average music...that is, unless you are really into unstructured psychadelia and simplistic singles). For example, with Relics, you have The Nile Song and Cirrus Minor from More. I recommend that you needn't listen to anything else off of that album, it's so poor in places. Thus, Relics becomes a very convenient, and affordable, workaround. It also achieves the purpose of teasing a bit, by only giving a taste for those crave more (and thus go out and buy the albums).

As a side note, I owned the cassette version, which had the same cover as the American LP, with the big-lipped, double-eyed bottle opener head. That cover would seriously freak me out...it would give me nightmares. I would avoid the drawer where I kept this tape just to not see that awful head staring back at me. Perhaps others had a similar reaction, thus hampering US sales. The CD cover, on the other hand, which consists of a fairly neutral Nick Mason-designed gizmo, is much less disturbing.

Overall, Relics can be a worthwhile toe-in-the-pool test of early Floyd, which may be helpful in deciding whether to take the chilly and sometimes unpleasant dive into their early discography.