Syd Barrett The Madcap Laughs

Wisely, The Madcap Laughs doesn't even try to sound like a consistent record. Half the album was recorded by Barrett's former bandmates Roger Waters and Dave Gilmour, and the other half by Harvest Records head Malcolm Jones. Surprisingly, Jones' tracks are song for song much stronger than the more-lauded Floyd entries…

Wisely, The Madcap Laughs doesn't even try to sound like a consistent record. Half the album was recorded by Barrett's former bandmates Roger Waters and David Gilmour, and the other half by Harvest Records head Malcolm Jones. Surprisingly, Jones' tracks are song for song much stronger than the more-lauded Floyd entries. The opening "Terrapin" seems to go on three times as long as its five-minute length, creating a hypnotic effect through Barrett's simple, repetitive guitar figure and stream of consciousness lyrics. The much bouncier "Love You" sounds like a sunny little Carnaby Street pop song along the lines of an early Move single, complete with music hall piano, until the listener tries to parse the lyrics and realizes that they make no sense at all…

Wisely, The Madcap Laughs doesn't even try to sound like a consistent record. Half the album was recorded by Barrett's former bandmates Roger Waters and David Gilmour, and the other half by Harvest Records head Malcolm Jones. Surprisingly, Jones' tracks are song for song much stronger than the more-lauded Floyd entries. The opening "Terrapin" seems to go on three times as long as its five-minute length, creating a hypnotic effect through Barrett's simple, repetitive guitar figure and stream of consciousness lyrics. The much bouncier "Love You" sounds like a sunny little Carnaby Street pop song along the lines of an early Move single, complete with music hall piano, until the listener tries to parse the lyrics and realizes that they make no sense at all…

Wisely, The Madcap Laughs doesn't even try to sound like a consistent record. Half the album was recorded by Barrett's former bandmates Roger Waters and Dave Gilmour, and the other half by Harvest Records head Malcolm Jones. Surprisingly, Jones' tracks are song for song much stronger than the more-lauded Floyd entries…

You know the situation is getting desperate when a compilation recycles material from an outtakes collection released a decade prior. Such is the case with The Best of Syd Barrett: Wouldn't You Miss Me?, a package that basically combines the best of Syd Barrett's two proper albums, The Madcap Laughs and Barrett, with a number of previously issued outtakes and a straggler from producer and Pink Floyd bandmate David Gilmour's vaults ("Bob Dylan's Blues")…

The Madcap Laughs is Syd Barrett's first solo album after being replaced in Pink Floyd by his old school friend David Gilmour. The title of the album comes from a line in the song Octopus. After leaving the group, Barrett began recording sessions with former Pink Floyd-turned-Syd Barrett manager Peter Jenner in May 1968. Although the sessions were brief, and they produced some fine material, the project was abandoned for almost a year while Barrett spent much of the year as a recluse.

You know the situation is getting desperate when a compilation recycles material from an outtakes collection released a decade prior. Such is the case with The Best of Syd Barrett: Wouldn't You Miss Me?, a package that basically combines the best of Syd Barrett's two proper albums, The Madcap Laughs and Barrett, with a number of previously issued outtakes and a straggler from producer and Pink Floyd bandmate David Gilmour's vaults ("Bob Dylan's Blues"). But to be perfectly fair, the now-recycled outtakes release in question, 1989's Opel, was a rare instance where such a release lived up to the quality of the artist's proper studio albums.

A three-CD box set that enshrines Barrett's complete recorded legacy as a solo artist. Besides including his two 1970 albums, this collection includes the 1989 compilation of unreleased material, Opel. The chief attraction of this set for Barrett fans is no less than 19 previously unreleased alternate takes from throughout his quite brief solo career. All of those alternate takes, it's important to note, are alternate versions of songs that appear on the three previously available albums; no entirely unheard compositions were unearthed. Nonetheless, these alternate takes are more interesting listening than you might expect, for a couple of reasons.