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Browsers of Sunday morning’s Best Buy circular might have been surprised to find Pink Floyd Sampler pictured among the long-awaited titles arriving Tuesday as the first salvo in EMI’s Why Pink Floyd? reissue series.  Though the electronics retailer is also offering both the Discovery (single-disc) and Immersion (4 CD/1 DVD/1 BD) box set editions of Dark Side of the Moon (1973) as well as the Discovery box set collecting fourteen remastered albums from the classic rockers, the Best Buy-exclusive Sampler, priced on sale at $9.99, receives the most prominent position in the advertisement.  (For those wondering, the 2-CD Experience edition of Dark Side is absent from the ad.)

Priced at $9.99, the Sampler promises “early access to re-mastered [sic] and unreleased Pink Floyd songs,” according to the sticker on the CD’s packaging.

So what does that mean, exactly?

Unsurprisingly, Best Buy’s own website offers little to no additional information on the release at the time of this writing, though the site is accepting orders for it!  But The Second Disc is on the case.  You’ll find an update below.  But first, it’s important to understand the three-tiered program launching on Tuesday. 

The Discovery discs offer Guthrie’s 2011 remasters of the original studio albums with no additional audio content, although each adds a new booklet with complete lyrics. Designer Storm Thorgerson, of course, is responsible for new artwork. These albums are available separately or in a box set collecting them all.

Experience editions expand classic Floyd albums in digipak format with second discs of unreleased archival material, plus the customary expanded booklets. Three albums will be presented in this format: The Dark Side of the Moon (1973), Wish You Were Here (1975) and The Wall (1979). And those same three albums will be available in Immersion editions: 29 cm square boxes containing extra remastered, previously unreleased and audio-visual material, plus reproduced memorabilia, brand new graphics, art prints, collectors’ items, lavish booklets and more. More titles in these two deluxe formats may be confirmed in the future by EMI and the band.

So, what is the Best Buy-exclusive Sampler?  Hit the jump for more!

As November 7 will bring A Foot in the Door: The Best of Pink Floyd, a single-disc compilation of tracks newly remastered by James Guthrie, it’s unlikely that the Sampler will be anywhere near as exhaustive as that 16-track collection (if any 16-track compilation of Pink Floyd music can be called exhaustive!).  It’s possible that, like A Foot in the Door, Sampler will indeed just draw on the remastered tracks (available on each album in the Discovery series) but offer a different line-up than the Best Of, perhaps including more offbeat album tracks.  But then there’s the promise of “early access to re-mastered and unreleased Pink Floyd songs.”  The plot thickens.

Best Buy has, in the past, used the “early access” designation for releases packaged with unique codes redeemable for access to online features, so it’s another possibility that the Sampler will draw on the 14 Discovery titles for the physical CD and then offer an online code which would direct redeemers to a site streaming currently-unreleased material from the upcoming Experience and Immersion editions of Wish You Were Here and The Wall.

Most enticing for collectors and fans might be the scenario in which the Sampler previews, on the actual CD, unreleased tracks from those forthcoming deluxe editions alongside the expected tracks from the Discovery album series, making for a true sampler and overview of the entire reissue program with early access to tracks not due for months; the Experience and Immersion editions of Wish You Were Here don’t arrive until November, and The Wall follows next February.

UPDATE: The following track listing has been verified.  The Sampler is truly for “completists only,” offering a mere six tracks, only two of which are not yet available on other releases.  It’s packaged in a simple digipak with no booklet, and a single-page insert advertising the other titles in the Why Pink Floyd? campaign.

Pink Floyd, Sampler (EMI, 2011)

1. Money (2011 Remaster)
2. Wish You Were Here (2011 Remaster)
3. Another Brick In The Wall Part 2 (2011 Remaster)
4. Us And Them (Live At Wembley 1974)
5. Have A Cigar (Alternate Version)
6. Another Brick In The Wall Part 1 (Demo)

Track 1 currently available on Dark Side of the Moon: Discovery, Experience and Immersion Editions
Track 2 currently available on Wish You Were Here: Discovery Edition
Track 3 currently available on The Wall: Discovery Edition
Track 4 currently available on Dark Side of the Moon: Experience and Immersion Editions
Track 5 previously unreleased, from the forthcoming release Wish You Were Here: Experience and Immersion Editions
Track 6 previously unreleased, from the forthcoming release The Wall: Experience and Immersion Editions