What's in the Box?

 I've always loved CD boxed sets. They're a great way to take a deep dive into an artist's or band's catalog—more than one would get from a 'greatest hits' CD—without having to buy every album. Most also come with a booklet that goes much more in depth than an album's liner notes, along with other occasional bits of memorabilia. Some box sets, such as the Who's Thirty Years of Maximum R&B, provide a mix of singles, album tracks and rarities, while others like Citizen Steely Dan, comprise the entire contents of all their studio albums. 

I recently acquired a nine-disc boxed set from Pink Floyd called Shine On that presents repackaged and remastered versions of their popular albums—A Saucerful of Secrets (1968), Meddle (1972), The Dark Side of the Moon (1973), Wish You Were Here (1975), Animals (1977), The Wall (1979), and A Momentary Lapse of Reason (1988), along with a bonus disc of early singles, a collection of postcards of the album cover graphics, and a 112-page hardback book.

I remember when this set arrived in record stores in 1992. It was frightfully expensive at around $200. I paid less than a third of that for my copy and felt like I got a good value for the money, considering I only had two of those titles already in my CD collection. The titles included in Shine On bring together Pink Floyd's most commercially successful albums, offering a solid collection of 'must-haves'. 

For some buyers, it might well represent just about everything by Pink Floyd they're familiar with, but there's more Floyd to be experienced, especially their early material, which is given somewhat short shrift in this collection, especially the contributions of founding member Syd Barrett. His work is most heavily represented in their first album, Piper at the Gates of Dawn (1967), which is not part of the set. Barrett's presence in Shine on is limited to a couple of tracks on A Saucerful of Secrets and the bonus disc.

Shine On omits most of Pink Floyd's output from the 1969 through 1972, including More (1969), Ummagumma (1969), Atom Heart Mother (1970), and Obscured by Clouds (1972). The next few albums after Saucerful are considered by many to represent an extended transition period from the Syd Barrett period to their classic progressive/stadium rock era. More and Obscured by Clouds are both movie soundtracks, created to fit the themes of their respective films, while Ummagumma and Atom Heart Mother are both interesting experimental efforts, but for whatever reason, they were not well liked by the band's members. Also, Ummagumma is part studio album and part live album (one disc of each), The live portion revisits Barrett-era material, while the studio portion is essentially a collection of solo efforts by the four principal members. This combined dynamic may have technically disqualified it from consideration as a studio album.

The other conundrum is the omission of The Final Cut (1983). A follow-up and thematic extension to The Wall, it was bassist/vocalist Roger Waters' final album with Pink Floyd and the band's only album without keyboardist/vocalist/arranger Richard Wright, who had left the band after The Wall tour, but would return for its later projects, initially as a session player, but eventually as a full member. Wright and the remaining band members, David Gilmour and Nick Mason, may have concluded The Final Cut was essentially more of a Roger Waters solo album and thus disqualified it on those grounds.

All that said, the inclusion of A Momentary Lapse of Reason might seem as an odd a choice as the exclusion of its predecessor, being as as it is the sole representation of the post-Waters Pink Floyd. Then again, it was their only post-Waters studio album at the time. Although Waters was angered that his former band mates chose to continue Pink Floyd without him, instead of ceasing as a band as he would have preferred them do, Gilmour, Mason, and eventually Wright, saw it as a continuation of what had come before, just as the band had continued without Wright on The Final Cut. 

What also has continued is box sets. After Shine On, Pink Floyd put out two additional box sets, both consisting of all 14 remastered studio albums, called Oh, By the Way (2007) and Discovery (2011). But having Shine on in my collection, I don't feel the need to own either of those larger sets; instead, I may just grab a copy of Atom Heart Mother at some point down the road and call it a day. 

UPDATE--As it turned out, I ended up acquiring all of the remaining Pink Floyd albums I was missing, and now have the complete Pink Floyd discography in my collection.