Barrett - Syd Barrett

This album, Syd Barretts second (third if you include his album with Pink Floyd) and final record is the sound of a man on the edge of madness- held together with a controlled production. Whereas on his first solo record, there was little production to hide the fragile state he was undoubtedly in, on this record, all the rough edges have been hidden, and whether you think this is for better or for worse, it certainly gives the record a unique sound. One often overlooked element of this album that is a vast improvement on his previous work, is the lyric writing. Where his lyrics had always been witty, and often humourous, here they are much more ...

Slightly mad ex-Pink Floyd frontman Syd Barrett has left a strong legacy on generations of musicians that might be hard to understand when first confronted with his whimsical ballads of gnomes, scarecrows and mice named Gerald, but there's a great poetic simplicity in his minimalist ditties that was captured excellently (so I hear) on his post-Floyd debut 'The Madcap Laughs,' and slightly less well on this immediate successor before he gave up songwriting altogether, perhaps only for the satisfaction of confounding and upsetting the general public. He seemed like quite a fun man. Many of Barrett's songs are so simple and throwaway that it's occasionally a ...