Rethinking Echoes

I didn't notice this so much before, but Echoes has 5 post-Roger songs on it, which is way too much. They should have nixed "Marooned" and "Keep Talking" in favor of maybe including "Mother" or "Free Four." I'm not too crazy about the generous supply of Syd songs either. 4 Syd songs would have been adequate. "Jugband Blues" simply doesn't belong here (despite being Syd's last song and all). "Two Suns in the Sunset" should have earned a place on this disc as well. Anyway, this is useless criticism since I suppose we can all make our own Best Of with CD burners and all, but these are just my thoughts.

The purpose of Echoes was to span the band's entire career. And since it was put together by the entire band, which (whether or not you are aware of it) included four people that weren't Roger Waters, I think it's only reasonable that it should represent each stage of their career equally. The last thing we need is a compilation that only recognizes the seventies anyway.

I agree with the first Anonymous user. Look at the band's fame throughout the years. Under the leadership of Syd Barrett, they would have remained an seldom known experimental rock band. Roger brought the band to fame and held it there for numerous years. The band got pissed about that and ousted Waters. They managed to ride on their fame for a little while, but after creating nothing even coming close to the music created with Waters, the band faded into a memory, while Waters put out three solo albums and toured in 1999. Sure, it would be more "fair" to include songs before and after Waters, but personally I think it brings down the quality of the entire album.

If you only care about the seventies, get In the Flesh or Pulse. I won't bother mentioning that Roger left himself (he was in complete control of the band by that time, so he was hardly "ousted"), that the band was about as popular as it ever would be by the Division Bell period (probably not because of Momentary Lapse of Reason, but not because of the Final Cut either), or that Roger alone sort of sucks (i.e., he didn't make the music worth listening to himself), 'cause that's trivial here.

(insert Radio K.A.O.S. joke here)