I spent the past week listening to the solo work of original Pink Floyd singer/guitarist/songwriter SYD BARRETT (The Madcap Laughs, Barrett, Opel and The Best Of Syd Barrett: Wouldn't You Miss Me?) and wrote a post about those records at my blog:
http://kamertunesblog.wordpress.com/201 ... d-barrett/

Pink Floyd is probably my 2nd favorite band of all time, behind only Led Zeppelin, and I've been a huge fan of the brief Barrett-era for a long time. Although I've enjoyed his solo recordings since I first got them 20+ years ago I never fully embraced them until now. I'm very curious to find out how others feel about these albums.

[For those of you who don't know me, I'm revisiting the complete catalogs of artists in my music collection, and posting my thoughts on a few albums at a time. Instead of focusing on my favorites, I've been choosing artists whose catalogs I own but haven't played as frequently as I'd like. So far I've covered Van Morrison, Talking Heads, The Band, Roxy Music, Paul Simon, Joni Mitchell, Television, David Bowie, Nick Drake, Black Sabbath, Big Star, Tom Waits, The Beach Boys, Foo Fighters, Uncle Tupelo, PJ Harvey, Neil Young, Alice Cooper, XTC, Metallica, The Jayhawks, The Kinks, The Stooges and Al Green (plus "Compilation Or Catalog?" posts on The Commodores, Montrose, Jimmy Buffett, Echo & The Bunnymen and The Cure). If you'd like to know more about me and the reasons for starting the blog, check out the "About" page here]:
http://kamertunesblog.wordpress.com/about/

Thanks for indulging me in another round of shameless self-promotion.

When I first started getting into music and was reading as much about it as I was able, you'd have thought that Syd's solo recording were the worst pile of unlistenable shit ever committed to tape. I don't tend to pay much attention to reviews though and made up my own mind. His solo stuff is pretty good. I wouldn't place it on the same level as early Pink Floyd, but there's a lot of good and enjoyable music. He's in my regular rotation.

Thanks for the feedback, Larry. I don't remember ever reading such harsh reviews of his solo material but I'm not surprised that some critics & fans with closed minds (and ears) would come to that conclusion if they didn't listen to his music enough...or in the right frame of mind. I agree that the solo albums aren't as good as his work with PF, but they're not far behind (especially The Madcap Laughs).

Syd's solo work might have rivalled or surpassed Piper had he been able to get himself together. What we're hearing are more like demos than truly finished tracks. On several of the songs they'd get a mostly coherent performance out of him, then dub in all the instruments after the fact. Some of the results were out of time, out of tune, messy, thin ... the BBC sessions give a better idea of what Syd really intended, I think.

Thanks for posting that, Linda. I've read the story numerous times about how Gilmour (or one of the other producers) would have to follow Syd around with a microphone, trying to get whatever guitar or vocal performance they could capture onto tape, and then overdubs would be added later. The combination of drugs & mental instability definitely undermined a really talented guy. You can hear some guitar work on the albums that was definitely Syd and it's impressive stuff, but that didn't last. It's amazing how relatively coherent & listenable the albums are in spite of the fractured nature of the sessions.

One of the saddest wastes of talent in music. Syd could write amazing music but he had lost it. Even the few fragments that made it on the 2nd album A Saucerful Of Secrets were stunning. If anyone gets a chance to hear the unreleased single Floyd did with Syd called Vegtable Man plus another outtake Scream thy last scream are masterpiece Floyd from 1967.

A friend played me "Vegetable Man" & "Scream Thy Last Scream" several years ago on a crappy sounding bootleg. I don't remember much about them other than they were two more examples of Syd's awesome one-of-a-kind weirdness. Was hoping they would be available on YouTube but the Floyd guys obviously keep an eye on what's out there. There are a couple of "Vegetable Man" videos but the audio has been removed from both.