Think back to high school for a moment; or to middle school, for that matter. Think back to gym class and lockers, to Nirvana t-shirts and trapper keepers, to Jansport backpacks riddled with initials and band names written in white-out. If your school was anything like mine (or even if it wasn't)-hell, if you went to middle school in a different decade-one of the most prominent white-out scribbles would be that of Pink Floyd.

One of the most strangely prolific bands of all time, Pink Floyd (Syd Barrett, David Gilmour, Nick Mason, Roger Waters and Richard Wright) has been decorating the illusions of grandeur of potheads, air-guitarists, music fans and its cult-following alike for over 30 years now. Their trademark prog-rock sound is often wistful, often thunderous and always highly ambitious-and even after falling apart (the band still reunites once in a while in various permutations, often involving Waters and a giant inflatable pig), they continue to produce music in some form or another.

It was not until this year, however, that the remaining members of this dynasty of dreamscapes got together to offer a "definitive" best of album. "Echoes: The Best of Pink Floyd" is a two-disc, 26-track collection spanning the band's oeuvre, a veritable catalogue of hits from many of their major (and some of their not-so-major) albums.

The collection moves through the band's history in no discernable order-beginning with the early psychedelia of "Astronomy Domine" (from "Piper at the Gates of Dawn"), moving through the obligatory most well-known tracks of "The Wall" and "Dark Side of the Moon," touching on some other major tracks from the hyper ear-friendly "Wish You Were Here" and "Meddle" and winding down with some lesser-known offerings from various other albums.

Now, here's the thing.

I'm not going to argue that Pink Floyd doesn't deserve to put out such a collection; on the contrary, Pink Floyd was definitely scribbled all over my black Jansport and they've been one of my top five bands ever since I first acquired a tape player. The "thing," as it were, is this: some groups don't translate very well into the world of "best of." As it would be an egregious error to rely on Cliffs Notes (come on, admit it and stop being a wimp) for a term paper or to try to learn Russian via a while-you-sleep cassette tape, it is equally as ludicrous to try and capture a band such as Pink Floyd on a "best of" record.

We're not talking Mamas and the Papas here. Pink Floyd is a band which has made its name from producing fantastically complex concept albums-albums which make about as much sense as cyrillic once gutted and laid down into a collective mish-mash of 30 years of a band's history.

While I applaud the effort of producers and band members alike in preserving their legacy, I'd be remiss to not point out that this project shot a little too far-perhaps onto the wrong side of the moon.