When did you last listen to a Syd Barrett solo album?

[Keith Jordan]

I am just about to whip out the Syd Barrett Crazy Diamond box set of his work and have a ruddy good listen to it and remember just how unusual his music was/is. I haven't allowed myself the pleasure of listening to one of his albums for probably over 2 years for some reason!!

So... when did you last listen to a Syd Barrett album??

http://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B000 ... B000008D8N

[my breakfast.]

Curiously it was around the last time me ears bled....

[snifferdog]

I can't remember. I like some of his songs but listening to a whole album in one go is a big ask.

[ddebil]

I've never been tempted.

[30yrsydfan]

Two nights ago, listened to Barrett LP on great old sony stereo/turntable. My 16 month old son was dancing the whole time.
Syd Barrett=quality family time.

[my breakfast.]

I don't see how Barrett fans can approve of the ethics of the solo albums in all honestly. Use your ears. Listen to the outtakes or whatever. The whole thing stinks of a barely functioning man being frog-marched into the studio to make some sellable product.

Listen also to the tracks with the Soft Machine playing in the background. The Soft Machine were pro musicians who really knew their instruments and could play complex jazz music. So how come they were thrown off by Syd's "music"? Its because its structureless shit. I've met a lot of "musicians" who imagine they can play a lot better than they really can. Syd clearly could play, somewhere between the sweaty noise jams of the 1967 live gigs and the meticulously polished studio work of Piper. However in the solo albums he never developed the songs beyond the basic skeletons of chord progressions. Soft Machine clearly get lost as Barrett decides to change the structure ad lib. Its like a whole album of Have You Got It Yet frustration coming from an ill man.

All in all I think the whole thing has a stench of Emperor's New Clothes about it. If Piper had not existed, and we just had these fragmentory and jarring acoustic-leaning albums nobody bar the most self-righteous indie hipsters *cough* *Thurston Moore* *cough* would honestly still give a damn about that garbage.

[David Smith]

Not listened to a full abum for a very long time, but do listen to a few tracks of The Madcap Laughs every so often or the first half of Barret

[Stephen]

Quite a while ago. I too like a few of his solo songs but I'd say that Piper was most definitely when he peaked.

[30yrsydfan]

I've never been tempted.

You have no appreciation or sense of quality. In essence you are cheap. Sad.

[danielcaux]

However in the solo albums he never developed the songs beyond the basic skeletons of chord progressions. Soft Machine clearly get lost as Barrett decides to change the structure ad lib.

The simplicity of the songs, their loosness and randomness are also part of their charm. It's almost like an "anti-Floydian control freakness" artistic statement.

Its like a whole album of Have You Got It Yet frustration coming from an ill man.

I'm pretty sure the frustration was coming out from the band and not from the ill man.

Anyway, Have You Got It Yet was one of his more interesting conceptual ideas, it could have been developed into somekind of chaotic "Heisenberg Rock".

[Damn!t]

I've never been tempted.

You have no appreciation or sense of quality. In essence you are cheap. Sad.

What a dumb comment.
Did you think about the quality of your post before you posted it?
You dont know him at all, so how can you say something like that?

[David Smith]

I've never been tempted.

You have no appreciation or sense of quality. In essence you are cheap. Sad.

That is the worst post i've ever read on here for so many different reasons.

[my breakfast.]

You have no appreciation or sense of quality. In essence you are cheap. Sad.

Does somebody need a hug?

[30yrsydfan]

yeah sorry about that.

[ddebil]

No probs mate. I took it in the spirit in which it was intended.