Major Pink Floyd campaign offers reissues and box sets

EMI have done it again: On September 27, EMI will start a major series of reissues from Pink Floyd. The campaign, titled Why Pink Floyd, will unveil new reissues and box sets that boast unreleased material. It took me a while to totally understand how it'll be broken down but here it is.

The Main Box Set, or Discovery editions

The box set, Discovery, will feature all 14 studio releases by the band. All of the albums have been digitally remastered and will have new packing, compared to the 1994 issues that are out now. All the releases will be sold individually as well. The albums include The Piper at the Gates of Dawn, A Saurcerful of Secrets, More, Ummagumma, Atom Heart Mother, Meddle, Obscured by Clouds, Dark Side of the Moon, Wish You Were Here, Animals, The Wall, The Final Cut, A Momentary Lapse of Reason, and The Division Bell.

These will all be released on September 27.

Experience Editions and Immersion Editions

Along with these reissues, there'll be other releases. For the albums Dark Side of The Moon, Wish You Were Here, and The Wall, they will also be released in a two-disc format (or in the case of The Wall, three). The extra discs will include never before released or heard tracks either live or in the studio. The two disc editions are being referred to as the Experience Editions.

The Immersion Editions are something die-hard fans may want to save up money on. These sets will take the three previously mentioned albums (Dark Side of The Moon, Wish You Were Here, and The Wall) and will be expanded to astounding SIX DISC box sets (for Wish You Were Here FIVE and for The Wall, SEVEN). Now what on earth is on these discs? Amazon will only give information for Wish You Were Here so I'll base everything on that, I guess.

The box sets will all come with the original album and the bonus disc given on the Experience Editions. The third disc is the album on a DVD Audio with a 5.1 mix and even a Quad mix (for WYWH at least). A regular DVD with "audio visual" content will be the fourth disc. The fifth (or last disc. I'm lost at this point) disc will be a Blu-Ray disc with everything the DVD has. Also included in these lavish box sets will be a hardback book designed by Storm Thorgerson with photos, a ticket replica, a backstage pass replica, marbles, coasters, collector's cards, art work from Thorgerson, and even a scarf!


Here are the release dates for all these things...

Dark Side of the Moon Experience and Immersion: September 27
Wish You Were Here Experience and Immersion: November 8
The Wall Experience and Immersion: February 28, 2012

Best of Collection and vinyl

A new compilation called A Foot In The Door will be released on November 8. The collection will feature 16 classic by the band.
All 14 of the albums should receive a vinyl release at some point.


This is massive, for sure. Also, I think it says something about EMI and Capitol: they need money...badly. I mean, this is just too much. I've said this before about reissuing: the listeners are not made of money! Just recently I've completed getting 14 of those albums (ending with Lapse and Bell, given they didn't have Roger Waters on them). I did (I'll admit) get Animals on iTunes and when Rick Wright passed, no one would take me out to get a legit version of Dark Side (I had a CD-R) so I got it off of Amazon's MP3 store. Everything else I have from the 1994 CD issues (aside from The Final Cut, Lapse, and Bell). Pink Floyd are my fourth favorite band (with The Who at third, Stones at second, and Beatles at first) of all time but this is ridiculous. Most likely, I won't get any of these because I'm happy with the 1994 issues unless it's given to me as a gift. I would like to check out the Dark Side box set though. Overall, I really see this as the record label's way of taking our money. Also, this was quite random since the band isn't celebrating any special anniversaries or anything. I think this might have been partially  a result from a lawsuit that the surviving members of Floyd  filed a year ago concerning the band's catalog being available on online digital music stores. Also, the tracking list for that compilation is weak. Personally, I think Echoes is the best introduction to the band's career. It worked for me almost ten years ago (has it really been that long?). If you don't have any albums by Floyd for some odd reason, then I guess this is worth looking at.