01. Astronomy Domine
02. Lucifer Sam
03. Matilda Mother
04. Flaming
05. Pow R. Toc H.
06. Take Up Thy Stethoscope and Walk
07. Interstellar Overdrive
08. The Gnome
09. Chapter 24
10. The Scarecrow
11. Bike
hmmmm boss.... you seem to start this for every album now. Wouldn´t it be better to start a "Discography" section on the forum? I fear a lot of threads will get lost if we have one like this for every album in the Floyd/Gilmour/Waters/other subforums... maybe something like the year by year section...
This album still sounds fresh to me, even more so than Sergeant Pepper, much as I love the Beatles. There are a couple of tracks I could easily skip though, Pow R. Toc H
and Take Up Thy Stethoscope and Walk and I've never really been too impressed with Interstellar Overdrive apart from the one in the London '66-'67 DVD or whatever it's called.
Although I still rate this as a good album, I have always found the Syd Barrett mystique a bit of a nonsense that gets in the way of being able to call a bad song bad. However, I have never really got into all that psychedelic 60's stuff anyway, not having been around at the time (although I realize that this is not a prerequisite).
For me, the jamming stuff is great, as are the songs in the first half. However the second half does go downhill pretty rapidly having heard enough nursery rhymes. Personally, I don't think I would have ever listened to Pink Floyd in retrospect had they kept this sound. Nor would I have ever purchased this album has it not been Pink Floyd.
However, I do think that the 2007, 40th edition remaster is brilliantly engineered and that it is much better surrounded by the songs Arnold Layne and See Emily Play, both of which are better than much of the rest of the album.
A brilliant start. One cannot help but wonder what would have happened had Barrett not lost his mind. Who knows what kind of magic Barrett/Waters/Wright would have crafted down the road. Then again, perhaps the band would have gone nowhere and Gilmour never would have hit it big either.
Tis an album of two halves...first half is great stuff altogether. After Interstellar Overdrive though, it goes downhill. I don't care much for the songs about scarecrows, gnomes or bikes. Chapter 24 commits the worst crime of all by being boring. It's a showcase for Syd's talent. Throw in the singles he wrote (which are bundled with the special 40th anniversary reissue) and it brings into focus what a talent he was and what a shame things went the way they did.
I dislike the album version of Interstellar Overdrive. For the Barrett era, I usually find myself listening to London '66-'67 rather than this. It is much more interesting, and doesn't suffer from dodgy production values to the same extent.
Absolutely brilliant and always a fresh and riveting listen. They say there is a fine line between genius and madness and part of what makes this album so (sadly) compelling is the feeling that Barrett's psyche is dangerously close to unravelling here. Alternately charming, childlike, spooky, and sinister. How many stars for arguably my favourite album of all time? Five of course!
I meant with a mental illness. I said I was sick when they found out I was mental ill. I think the term "gone mad" is rude to those that suffer mental illness.