Echoes: The Best of Pink Floyd explained

Echoes: The Best of Pink Floyd
Type:greatest
Artist:Pink Floyd
Cover:Pink Floyd Echoes-300.jpg
Caption:Cover used on the original UK & European vinyl copies
Released:5 November 2001
Recorded:1967–1993
Genre:
Length:155:23
155:13 (vinyl version)
Producer:
Prev Title:Is There Anybody Out There? The Wall Live 1980–81
Prev Year:2000
Next Title:Oh, by the Way
Next Year:2007

Echoes: The Best of Pink Floyd is the fourth compilation album by the English rock band Pink Floyd, released on 5 November 2001 by EMI internationally and a day later by Capitol Records in the United States. It debuted at No. 2 on the Billboard 200 album chart on 24 November 2001, with sales of 214,650 copies.[1] It remained on the chart for 26 weeks.[2] The album was certified gold, platinum and double platinum on 6 December 2001 in the US by the RIAA. It was certified triple platinum in the US on 8 January 2002, and quadruple platinum on 10 September 2007.

Contents

The compilation spans the career of Pink Floyd from their first single "Arnold Layne" in 1967, through to "High Hopes", the final track from their 1994 studio album The Division Bell. Original frontman Syd Barrett is featured on six of the album's 26 tracks, providing lead vocals on five. Four of the band's albums—More, Ummagumma, Atom Heart Mother and Obscured by Clouds—are not represented, though multiple tracks from Atom Heart Mother[3] and Ummagumma were planned to appear on the compilation. Each of the 26 tracks fades from one to the next with no break in the music, courtesy of longtime producer/engineer James Guthrie, to help recreate the concept album feel of the band's mid-period work. All 26 tracks were newly remastered specifically for this compilation and are not sequenced in chronological order. The compilation opens and closes the same as the band's first album The Piper at the Gates of Dawn, with the tracks "Astronomy Domine" and "Bike" respectively.

The band's longtime guitarist, David Gilmour, said of the process of compiling the tracks themselves:

Roger Waters's main contribution was the name of the compilation. "I had to, because the name the boys came up with was so awful. What was it? 'Sum of the Parts'. See what I mean?"[4]

Cover

Storm Thorgerson, who had done the majority of album covers for Pink Floyd, did the Echoes art which features recursive windows in an infinite regression as a nod to his own cover for 1969's Ummagumma, and the objects on each landscape refer to the Pink Floyd discography. For instance, the man on fire from Wish You Were Here, another wearing the Delicate Sound of Thunder lightbulb suit, dolls of the Atom Heart Mother cow and the Animals pig, a bike and both a brick wall and the hammers from The Wall. Eventually Thorgerson opted to make two images, with another used for the back cover. To create the idea on a photograph, various walls—which had varied measurements and angles to ensure that "nothing seemed to fit other than by eye through the lens."—were built and put in a country landscape in Sussex. Actors, props and fittings were set in and between those walls.[5] The original design was one of two sketches submitted for Dream Theater's 1997 album Falling into Infinity, with the original being framed and hanging in the home of Dream Theater drummer Mike Portnoy and is pointed out by Portnoy in his Hudson Music instructional drum DVD In Constant Motion.[6]

Release

Echoes is Floyd's first album to include "When the Tigers Broke Free", from the film version of The Wall (the song reappeared on a 2004 rerelease of The Final Cut in a slightly remixed form). It was their first compilation to include songs from The Final Cut, A Momentary Lapse of Reason and The Division Bell and is the only one to include "Echoes", from 1971's Meddle.

With first-week sales of 215,000—beating their previous first-week peak of 198,000 for Pulse—the album hit number two on the Billboard 200, behind Britney Spears' Britney (746,000).[7] In 2001 the album was the 16th best-selling album globally, selling 4.8 million copies.[8]

A week after the band's one-off reunion at Live 8 in 2005, HMV said sales of Echoes rose by 1343%.[9]

Track listing

CD version

Disc two

Vinyl version

Rejected songs

According to James Guthrie, the following songs were considered for inclusion:[10]

Personnel

Pink Floyd
Additional personnel

Charts

Weekly charts

Chart (2001–2002)!Peak
position
Portuguese Albums (AFP)[11] 1
Spanish Albums (AFYVE)[12] 6

Year-end charts

2001 year-end chart performance for Echoes: The Best of Pink Floyd!Chart (2001)!Position
Australian Albums (ARIA)[13] 59
Austrian Albums (Ö3 Austria)[14] 54
Belgian Albums (Ultratop Flanders)[15] 61
Belgian Albums (Ultratop Wallonia)[16] 49
Canadian Albums (Nielsen SoundScan)[17] 25
Dutch Albums (Album Top 100)[18] 55
German Albums (Offizielle Top 100)[19] 71
Swedish Albums (Sverigetopplistan)[20] 26
Swiss Albums (Schweizer Hitparade)[21] 44
UK Albums (OCC)[22] 25
Worldwide Albums (IFPI)[23] 13
2002 year-end chart performance for Echoes: The Best of Pink Floyd!Chart (2002)!Position
Austrian Albums (Ö3 Austria)[24] 46
Canadian Albums (Nielsen SoundScan)[25] 92
German Albums (Offizielle Top 100)[26] 80
Swiss Albums (Schweizer Hitparade)[27] 64
UK Albums (OCC)[28] 146
US Billboard 200[29] 44

External links

Notes and References

  1. Web site: Britney Spears Upsets Michael Jackson . Stephen M. Silverman . Stephen M. Silverman . 15 November 2001 . . 25 November 2009.
  2. Joel Whitburn Presents The Billboard Albums, 6th Edition, Joel Whitburn, ed., 2006, p. 820.
  3. Web site: Have Pink Floyd Split Up?. Mojo Magazine. October 2001. 16 August 2010. https://archive.today/20120909210351/http://www.pinkfloydfan.net/t1456-david-gilmour-have-pink-floyd.html. 9 September 2012. dead.
  4. Web site: London Times Interview . Rogerwaters.org . 2001-11-09 . 2017-07-09 . 27 January 2015 . https://web.archive.org/web/20150127090151/http://www.rogerwaters.org/30/timesint.html . dead .
  5. Web site: The Visuals . Thorgerson, Storm . Pink Floyd . 2007-02-07 . unfit . https://web.archive.org/web/20070207144122/http://www.pinkfloyd.co.uk/echoes/ae/index.html . 7 February 2007 .
  6. Web site: Mike Portnoy: In Constant Motion DVD. Hudson Music. 8 August 2011. https://web.archive.org/web/20120321094438/http://www.hudsonmusic.com/hudson/products/in-constant-motion/?s=inconstantmotion&st=shopp&searchsubmit=Go!. 21 March 2012. dead.
  7. 'Echoes' to be Floyd's final cut?. Classic Rock #36. January 2002. 15.
  8. Dido, Linkin Park Lead the Global 20 of 2001. White. Adam. February 16, 2002. May 13, 2022. Billboard. 0006-2510. 42. 114. 7.
  9. Book: Manning, Toby. The Rough Guide to Pink Floyd. 2006. Rough Guides. London. 1-84353-575-0. 150. 1st. Which One's Pink?.
  10. Web site: James Guthrie: Audio: Building A Compilation Album. Guthrie. James. Pink Floyd. 17 June 2013. https://web.archive.org/web/20100602090835/http://www.pinkfloyd.co.uk/echoes/ae/james.html. 2 June 2010.
  11. Web site: Music & Media, vol. 19, issue 48. November 24, 2000 . April 21, 2021.
  12. Book: Salaverri, Fernando. Sólo éxitos: año a año, 1959-2002. 1st. September 2005. Fundación Autor-SGAE. Spain. 84-8048-639-2.
  13. Web site: ARIA Top 100 Albums for 2001. Australian Recording Industry Association. 10 May 2021.
  14. Web site: Jahreshitparade Alben 2001. austriancharts.at. 10 May 2021.
  15. Web site: Jaaroverzichten 2001. Ultratop. 10 May 2021.
  16. Web site: Rapports Annuels 2001. Ultratop. 10 May 2021.
  17. Web site: https://web.archive.org/web/20031212202406/http://jamshowbiz.com/JamMusicCharts/200-1_2001.html. 12 December 2003. Canada's Top 200 Albums of 2001 (based on sales). Jam!. 26 March 2022.
  18. Web site: Jaaroverzichten – Album 2001. dutchcharts.nl. 10 May 2021.
  19. Web site: Top 100 Album-Jahrescharts. de. GfK Entertainment. offiziellecharts.de. 10 May 2021.
  20. Web site: Årslista Album – År 2001. Sverigetopplistan. sv. 10 May 2021.
  21. Web site: Schweizer Jahreshitparade 2001. hitparade.ch. 10 May 2021.
  22. Web site: End of Year Album Chart Top 100 – 2001. Official Charts Company. 10 May 2021.
  23. Web site: Top 50 Global Best Selling Albums for 2001. IFPI. https://web.archive.org/web/20081117003957/http://www.ifpi.org/content/library/top50-2001.pdf. November 17, 2008. February 1, 2023.
  24. Web site: Jahreshitparade Alben 2002. austriancharts.at. 10 May 2021.
  25. Web site: https://web.archive.org/web/20040812030723/http://www.jamshowbiz.com/JamMusicCharts/200-1_2002.html. 12 August 2004. Top 200 Albums of 2002 (based on sales). Jam!. 24 March 2022.
  26. Web site: Top 100 Album-Jahrescharts. de. GfK Entertainment. offiziellecharts.de. 10 May 2021.
  27. Web site: Schweizer Jahreshitparade 2002. hitparade.ch. 10 May 2021.
  28. Web site: UK Year-End Charts 2002. UKChartsPlus. 10 May 2021.
  29. Top Billboard 200 Albums – Year-End 2002. Billboard. 10 May 2021. 2 January 2015. https://web.archive.org/web/20150102235025/https://www.billboard.com/charts/year-end/2002/top-billboard-200-albums. live.

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