Syd Barrett - Madcap Laughs
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Free Music Notes for Madcap Laughs
Free Music Review: An Unforgotten Legend
Hit: 5 Stars
Syd Barrett was a poet and genius of the highest order. Fragmented and tattered, the songs on this album lay it all out on the table. This is the reflection of a man who was dying on the inside and who's reality was slipping away literally as he sang.
Songs like the opening Terrapin and the closing masterpiece Late Night seem to speak volumes of the feeling of disassociation he must have felt in his life at the time. And, the truth is, every song in between the two are more than worth the their weight in gold. Jaunty tunes, such as Love You, Here I Go and Octopus, mingle with material that is, for a lack of better words, absolutely soul crushing.
The production is fittingly sparse -- some songs are literally just Syd and his acoustic (Dark Globe, Feel, If It's In You), while many others are filled with small psychedelic flourishes that keep the ambience intact. The only low point on the album exists in the admittedly weak She Took A Long Cold Look. This song would have found a better home on the B-sides collection Opel (ironically, the song Opel would have been a perfect fit). Long Gone is a darkly chilling highlight -- chromatic acoustic scalings, thick harmonies, and dynamically interesting organs make for a particularly sinister song.
Syd's voice is often broken and fragile. On songs like Dark Globe, it is on the verge of sounding tortured. This IS NOT a pop album and it IS NOT an extension of his more whimsical Piper At The Gates Of Dawn album. Be forewarned: this is an album that will haunt you for years to come.
-This review was written in his honor. We will miss you.
So long, Syd. (January 6, 1946 - July 7, 2006)-
Free Music Review: SUCEEDING WITHOUT MEANING TO
Hit: 5 Stars
There is no question that Syd cuts a fascinating figure, full of loss and mystery. But, set the personality stuff aside - something you should do with everything you listen to - and pay attention to the music.
First and foremost, intentionally or not, Syd's lyrics are high art. Not self-conscious, referential and elitist nonsense. These lyrics are poetry, and poetry can only result from experience. We don't need to know or speculate about that experience, we need only comprehend that it somehow resulted in some amazing work.
The music is the perfect match for the words. The feeling of accident, of the joy of finding the right note and the frustration of being just sharp or just flat, a split-second early or a half-second late, is all there to hear. It brings a remarkable one-to-one feel to the music, somewhere between the rehearsed and the improvised, and it never comes off as self-conscious or calculated.
What are the influences? I can't detect any -- short of the James Joyce poem made into the song "Golden Hair". Has anyone else ever given us this specific combination of intent and accident? None that I'm aware of. The Madcap Laughs and Barrett both work because the artist we're listening to is a natural at what he does. Whether the drugs heightened his ability or killed it hardly matters now. The work is still here, still with us and like all lasting art, it resists classification and interpretation. Let's just say that whatever life brought to Syd, his particular nervous system had a singular way of transforming it into the transparent and immediate experience of a music all his own.
Free Music Review: Dark Globe
Hit: 5 Stars
This is an album that I can honestly say, with all sincerity, is not for everyone. It is an intimate, dark, and intensly personal sound eminating from a tortured soul. Though the words are not always revealing, Syd Barrett's emotions are thread-bare on this strangely concieved album.
Long gone are the glorious days of "See Emily Play" when Barrett could simply bop on through a brilliantly concieved mini-orchestra of sound. Now, rellying primarily on the dark canvass of his solo guitar and sparce (but excellently recorded) drums, "The Madcap Laughs" seems like the perfect introduction to the man. But, it isn't where you should start. His madness is at times frighteningly real.
Roger Water's has been accused of sabotaging Syd's work by leaving in mistakes and page turning, but recently people have begun speculating that this was Syd's own idea. The notion that Syd Barrett was deliberately sabotaging his own career was not a new one. He played with his own image as the "Crazy Diamond" until he could do nothing with it, so he left music altogether.
This is easily one of my favorite records ever. I love it more than the Floyd stuff. However, its an aquired taste. Although people have tried to duplicate this intimate sounding record, no one has succeeded. Not really. Only Syd Barrett, with his unique vision could have a achieved something at once so close and yet so far.
Free Music Review: Schizophrenic genius
Hit: 5 Stars
Syd suffered from schizophrenia. Although I have never seen it written in so many words, it seems obvious. Schizophrenics come in many shapes and sizes. Some have loose associations and switch easily from subject to subject. A common characteristic of speech in many schizophrenics is "clanging", making nonsense rhymes like "clang, bang, sang" and the like. There is a certain disorganization of thought that can make conversation with someone with this condition challenging. Often, people suffering from schizophrenia are drawn to hallucinogens, possibly because it can actually make them feel "normal".
I think I just described "The Madcap Laughs" in trying to describe schizophrenia. Associations are loose, rhymes are nonsensicle, flights of ideas spray scattershot around. Like "The Beautiful Mind", the line between genius and schizophrenia is murky. To see the connections that the rest of us are incapable of often takes psychopathology in some form.
One final thought: Did Syd lose it because of hallucinogens? I doubt it. The hints of schizophrenia often appear before the psychotic break, often starting in the late teens to early twenties. He was schizophreniform well before the drugs, as can be seen in earlier Floyd tunes.
PS Syd's diabetes was likely caused by his antipsychotic meds, so the cure for his genius killed him. How ironic.
Free Music Review: Madcap Laughs is brilliant
Hit: 5 Stars
Probably the best Syd solo album and if you're looking to get into more Syd I'd start here. Very different sound and startleingly different from Piper At The Gates of Dawn (of which Syd wrote most of the material for) which let's you know that the scope of vision this guy had was quite broad. This music probably isn't for everyone, but then again if you're a thinking person who appreciates higher forms of art then you probably already understand that most of your tastes lies outside of the mainstream. Also, I can't help but to interject one of my own observations from having listened to a lot of Syd's post Floyd work, which is that his work is highly organized and fantastically brilliant which makes me question how crazy he could have actually have been? I'm sure he was a difficult person to work with, and was very eccentric (as is evident by listening to his work) but the end results are staggering. His works aren't just some arbitrary ramblings of a crazy man by any means. Each of these songs convey a lot of feeling and a profound artistic vision. But then again you hear some of the songs and they sound like a man who's mind is cracking. You get a deep sense of isolation, loneliness, and the feelings of a very emotionally disoriented individual. Like all good art this album will challenge you to think about both the song and the arteur.