Like their contemporaries Fleetwood Mac, to examine Pink Floyd's career in one fell swoop is an often bewildering experience. Just how did this bunch of middle-class middle Englanders go from being cutting-edge purveyors of psychedelia to stadium rock behemoths churning out concept albums laden with Second World War and Orwellian imagery?
'Echoes' provides some of the answers, although by being sequenced non-chronologically the listener is flung from echo-laden 60s psychedelic pillar to ornate, lyrically obtuse 80s post. Yet while the double set covers the band's entire career from their 1967 debut 'The Piper At The Gates Of Dawn' to 1994's 'The Division Bell', the spectre of their original "target for faraway laughter" (cf. 'Shine On You Crazy Diamond') Syd Barrett hovers over much of the material, whether it be the band's early trippy sound experiments or their later tributes to his genius.
From the earliest lyrical whimsy of the singles 'Arnold Layne' and 'See Emily Play' through their full-blown, acid-enhanced trips to psychedelic heaven ('Astronomy Domine', 'Set The Controls For The Heart Of The Sun'), the Floyd had a quintessentially English take on the art of rock. Indeed, they began to turn rock into art what with their stunning album covers and their pioneering idea of extending their albums into theatrical live shows that related the story through sound and vision.
1973's monster-selling 'Dark Side Of The Moon' made the band a household name and contained some of their most pointed writing, with the gently scathing 'Money' and the anti-war 'Us And Them' imbued with a directness of sentiment that slowly became obscured in trite metaphors as the decade wore on. There were still moments of brilliance, notably the soaring Barrett tribute 'Shine On You Crazy Diamond' and the mostly amusing man-as-animal imagery of 'Sheep'. Then Waters disappeared into a fog of overblown ideas and undercooked songs.
1979's 'The Wall' was either a magnificent artistic statement or a good idea stretched way beyond the boredom threshold, depending on your viewpoint. However, the inclusion of the best tracks (the sweeping 'Comfortably Numb' and the playground anthem 'Another Brick In The Wall (Part 2)') shows there were some concessions to simplicity. After Roger Waters' acrimonious departure, the three surviving members produced a pair of polished if unspectacular albums that were at least less convoluted lyrically if not shorter in length, as proved by the Stephen Hawking-sampling 'Keep Talking' and the nostalgic 'High Hopes'.
To dismiss the Floyd for their grandoise nature would be to miss the point, though. Though rightly often ridiculed for the duration of their solos and the pomposity of their stage sets, in Dave Gilmour they possess one of the finest guitarists of their generation and Roger Waters' always thought-provoking lyrics were a welcome change from much of the vapid prog rock of the 1970s. And the Syd Barrett era arguably has influenced as many of today's musical pioneers as punk. No, things were never simple in the world of Pink Floyd.
