In February 1991, ahead of The Prodigy's first gig, at the Labyrinth Club (formerly known as the Four Aces) in Dalston, they were asked by the venue's owner what sort of band they were. "We said we wanted to be like one of the greats like The Pistols or The Clash or Pink Floyd," Keith Flint recalled. If comparisons to two of England's greatest punk bands started to make sense around the release of 1994's defiant Music For The Jilted Generation, the impact of the world's most famous progressive rock band on The Prodigy remained less immediately obvious. But the Essex band's musical mastermind Liam Howlett has always been happy to acknowledge Pink Floyd as one of the bands who changed his life.
In 1993, interviewed by MT (The Music Technology Magazine), Howlett was asked to name his favourite musical pioneer. His answer was "Pink Floyd". That same year, interviewed by Melody Maker for the magazine's 'Rebellious Jukebox', wherein artists were asked to nominate records that changed their lives, Howlett selected Animals, Floyd's tenth studio album, released in 1977, punk rock's banner year, and Echoes from Meddle, the band's sixth album, released in 1971.
