Floyd have issued earlier compilation albums, but not on a double CD. A single LP was never going to do adequate justice to the band, even though they attempted it with the COLLECTION OF GREAT DANCE SONGS. But no collection could sincerely claim to be the best of the Floyd without including, say, all 23 minutes of 'Echoes', and that blows half an LP right away.

This album contains almost all of 'Echoes', together with almost all of almost every other Floyd that one would expect to hear on a 'Best of' collection. I say almost all, because the tracks have been judiciously segued into each other, in most cases just before the fade-out on the original. To some, it may seem sacrilege to interleave DARK SIDE tracks such as 'The Great Gig in the Sky', 'Money', 'Time' and 'Us and Them' with other Floyd classics, but believe me, it works. The only classic which I'm disappointed not to see here is the opening track from OBSCURED BY CLOUDS.

There can be few Floyds fans who don't have the classic sequence of four albums from the 70s -- MEDDLE, DARK SIDE OF THE MOON, WISH YOU WERE HERE and ANIMALS. But there may be many who, like me, have never bought a Pink Floyd album on which Syd Barrett played. The early stuff -- for instance, 'See Emily Play', 'Arnold Layne' and the glorious 'Bike' -- has been ingeniously blended into the meld, despite the production standards of the period appearing primaeval compared to Alan Parsons' engineering work on DARK SIDE.

It's a wonderful, wonderful collection. I re-purchased my Floyd albums on CD too early -- i.e. before they were re-mastered. The tracks chosen here are from the re-mastered CDs, and it's frankly a relief that I cannot tell the difference in sound quality between these remastered versions and my acoustic memory of my CDs. That's a small fortune saved!

The CD inlay booklet is up to the usual Floyd standard, with a cover reminiscent of UMMAGUMMA. We get the lyrics to every song -- I don't believe that all the original LPs disclosed these -- and we get the info on who-played-what. Floyd have even taken away that second notch on the transparent CD case which makes the inlay booklet so difficult to remove. This is the early Xmas present you need to give yourself.

Not even a double CD can come close to getting the complete "best" of Pink Floyd, and for a band whose music translates so well as complete albums (Dark Side, Animals, The Wall), some purists will bristle at this collection of singles. Also, while fans will be pleased to see so many albums represented, the selection of songs is sometimes curious. But beyond that, ECHOES is a welcome collection of 26 tunes with a real unique arrangement that hops around from 1967 to 1994 almost at random... and yet really well. Check out, for example, the psychedelic (yet relatively innocent) chords of See Emily Play as they fade into the trademark helicopter sounds of Happiest Days... or the back-to-back instrumentals of Marooned (obscure even for a Division Bell inclusion, but neat) right into the classic Great Gig... ECHOES has a great ability to showcase the three periods of Pink Floyd: pre-Dark Side, the "fab four" of Dark Side, Wish You Were Here, Animals and The Wall, and then the two excellent Roger-less albums, Momentary Lapse and Division Bell. Even the normally-ignored The Final Cut gets a nod with Fletcher Memorial (why that song, and not the more digestible The Gunner's Dream or Not Now John?). The inclusion of When the Tigers Broke Free, alone, (from the movie The Wall), makes Echoes an absolute MUST have for fans, even if the set does force feed us Barrett/pre-Dark Side era songs apparently at random like Jugband Blues (why two songs from Saucerful of Secrets??) and Bike (available on the extra CD in the 1992 Sine On boxed set). Still, it is such a treat to pop Echoes in and just hear what comes next as the songs jump from the 60s to the 90s to the 70s to the 80s. The album does a good job of getting plenty of must-haves in, like Comfortably Numb, Money, One of These Days, Wish You Wer Here, and Another Brick 2... though putting these Floyd 101 tunes on the same album as Astronomy Domine (great open) and Sorrow (great close to CD 1) is a real enjoyable culture shock varying from overplayed to rarely-heard tunes. Everyone will have their list of "What about?" songs missing from the set (my list includes Take it Back, One Slip, Welcome to the Machine, Green is the Color, and Run Like Hell). The amazing Animals set is once again represented by the time-efficient Sheep, (as on A Collection of Great Dance Songs) but Dogs is better! Still, after 7 years without a studio release from these guys (and nearly 10 years without a new Waters album), it was great to something Floyd on the shelves, and nice to even HAVE a new set list to debate. With a band like Floyd and their large arsenal of great music, not even a double CD will please everyone perfectly. Yet this is all timeless music, and therefore, even the scattered arrangement gets my highest rating.

I'll admit I was a little hesitant about this so-called "Best of" compilation...given the fact that nearly all of Pink Floyd's albums rely on the interweaving of songs to create an album long song-piece. To take these songs out of context (and out of time) for a compilation seems like an exceedingly bad idea, one created in the back rooms of a record studio looking to further cash-in on one of the best selling bands in history.

However, this album does come together on several different levels, and is about as perfect as a two-disc anthology of Pink Floyd could possibly be. It isn't really a "Greatest Hits" since numerous radio standards have been left off, including Breathe, Brain Damage/Eclipse, Welcome to the Machine, Have a Cigar, Mother, Young Lust, Run Like Hell, and On the Turning Away. And it isn't necessarily a "Best of" either, with the inclusion of the instrumental Marooned and The Fletcher Memorial Home and the seldom heard When the Tigers Broke Free instead of numerous other choices.

A more appropriate album title would have been The Pink Floyd Story, because what Echoes really attempts to do is document the various and distinct periods of the band, from early Syd Barret material, through the band's 1970s creative peaks, and then when the band was essentially a solo vehicle for Waters and then Gilmour. But the underlying theme through all the music is Barrett, and the inclusion of five tracks off of Piper at the Gates of Dawn and Saucerful of Secrets is much more than giving his tunes equal time as a tribute, it shows how much his legacy affected and was ultimately responsible for the greatness Pink Floyd achieved. And so it is extremely appropriate that as Disc 2 winds down, we are returned to one of Pink Floyd's ealiest tunes, Arnold Lane. Wish You Were Here follows as the band's tribute to Syd, but then Jugband Blues appears with Syd singing the bittersweet lines "It's awfully considerate of you to think of me here." Pink Floyd would have never existed if it wasn't for Syd, and he serves as the inspiration for most of the band's great works, so it is quite appropriate that he is represented so strongly on this set.

So in short, if you're looking for a comfortable, greatest hits package, this isn't it. But if you really want to know what Pink Floyd was all about, this is the place to start.

Pink Floyd has released several hits compilations, but Echoes is the first to span the entire Floyd catalog. From the Syd Barrett led days to the more recent Roger Waters less incarnation, all their eras are representing including a previously unreleased song, "When The Tigers Broke Free" which is from The Wall movie. What makes the album extremely interesting, especially for Floyd fans who have these songs already, is the sequencing of the music. Not following the traditional greatest hits album track listing in chronological order, songs are sequenced to seamlessly flow into one another creating the effect of one long song suite per disk. All four band members were heavily involved in the song selection and sequencing, but unfortunately they never got into the studio together. Echoes is a great way for Floyd neophytes to be introduced to the band and for long time fans to get a new track and hear the music in a new and different way.

I can't speak to the hardcore Floyd-fans, here. I mean, I thought I was a devoted follower, but some people here lament the trimming down of songs (specifically the title track) and argue that this disc set is a waste of time and money. I suppose, if you are a die-hard enthusiast for this group, what you have here isn't altogether new. And what IS new (namely, the manner in which the songs have been mixed and blended) may, in fact, be a nuisance to you.

Speaking as one who loves the group (but isn't IN love with the group), I found this collection to be remarkable. It is a rare thing for me to feel compelled to simply sit and listen to a CD straight through without doing anything else (ah, we, the generation of the multi-taskers), but this album hooked me as soon as the first song slid gracefully and seamlessly into the second. They have taken Floyd's typically powerful music, it's sub-sonic lyrical genius, and remastered it into what almost sounds like one long (and moving) song.

The operatic quality of this product is in no way heavy-handed or ponderous, and it's amazing to me how the set manages to stir together polar sounds (the puppy-dog-playfulness of See Emily Play wades seamlessly into The Happiest Days of Our Lives, with its satisfying frustrations -- I love it when Floyd gets angry). This mix and match approach to the band's oeuvre is not disillusioning, nor is it disorienting. On the contrary, it highlights the brilliance of the music.

Like I said, given the tone of the rest of these reviewers, nit pickers might want to step aside -- the songs have undergone some tinkering, and purists might not be pleased. But for those of you looking for some great, time-tested songs (and even a few surprises) that'll give you a good excuse to sit still for two hours, this is your album.