Pink Floyd

In the beginning, there was Pink Floyd. This unassuming bunch of Brits pretty much invented psychedelia, prog, and space rock, and Floyd’s footprints can even be found at the core of techno. Their founding frontman, Syd Barrett, was wired differently from most, and he led rock’s charge into the unknown with the funhouse-mirror freakiness of skewed psych-pop milestone “See Emily Play” and the spaced-out swoops and swells of interstellar expedition “Astronomy Domine.” Even after Syd steered off into the cosmos alone, Floyd pushed further away from earthbound sounds with rock’s most beloved concept album, Dark Side of the Moon, and “Brain Damage” showed that they learned a lot about finding the melody in madness from their former leader.

Pink Floyd plays it cool and quiet, with classic results, in Next Steps.

Even though Pink Floyd has a well-earned rep as rock’s first and foremost intergalactic adventurers, there was a sweeter, softer side to their sound that’s too often overlooked. “If” opts for simple statements from the heart over poignant acoustic picking, for an emotional impact that belies its warm, whispered tones. Setting a sunny scene on “Green Is the Colour,” Floyd frames a pastoral, poetic moment that could have emerged from the pages of Shelley or Keats. Sometimes the band even hid its most heavenly moments away on B-sides, like the fragile, feathery “Julia Dream,” with magical Mellotron moving flute-like around David Gilmour’s hushed, creamy croon.

Go from Pink Floyd to Punk Floyd in three simple steps in Deep Cuts.

Sex Pistols provocateur Johnny Rotten once found it fashionable to sport a notorious, homemade “I hate Pink Floyd” t-shirt, but many are unaware that along with their other innovations, Floyd also managed to prefigure punk rock! As early as the Barrett era, they were churning out chomping, sinister-sounding rockers like “Lucifer Sam,” later covered by a raft of young post-punk bands. In retrospect, Dave Gilmour’s roaring riffs and guttural growl on 1969’s “The Nile Song” sound like a premonition of the sound The Stranglers would serve up in the ’70s. And Roger Waters’ black-humored lyrics on the fondly fatalistic “Free Four” are as merrily morbid as anything from the catalogue of the Cramps or the Misfits.

Pink Floyd were among rock’s first real superstars, and have remained a classic-rock cornerstone for decades. The definitive stadium-rockers, they were among the biggest-selling artists ever, but their roots were planted proudly in the paisley-patterned soil of the ’60s psychedelic underground. Over the course of their long reign, the Rock and Roll Hall of Famers wore many hats: cracked-but-crafty pop purveyors (“Bike”), wild-eyed sonic saboteurs (“Careful With That Axe, Eugene”), ethereal astral navigators (“Set the Controls for the Heart of the Sun”), wily electronic wizards (“On the Run”) — these are just a few of Floyd’s many faces. We’ve covered every Floydian phase, from the acid-rock inspiration of the ’60s to the new beginnings of the ’90s, drawing all the most dazzling moments together right here. See you on the dark side of the moon . . .