Product Description

When Syd Barrett departed Pink Floyd for a solo career after (minimally) contributing to A SAUCER FULL OF SECRETS in 1969, expectations naturally ran high. Aside from being Floyd's primary songwriter, singer, and guitarist, Barrett had already developed the reputation for being a twisted child prodigy. Taking a turn away from Floyd's complex layered psychedelia, Barrett's solo debut, MADCAP LAUGHS, revealed the singer/songwriter to be a somewhat gentle, reflective poet. Although MADCAP is not as lyrically obscure as most of Barrett'swork with Floyd, the album nonetheless proves that Barrett could mutate a simple love song ("Love You", "She Took a Long Cold Look") past the realm of the expected into something chilling.
The plaintive voice-cracking wail of "Won't youmiss me / won't you miss me at all?" in "Dark Globe" could just as easily have been directed at a departing lover or the fanbase that Syd was separating himself from at the time through chemical abuse and reclusive behavior. The most compelling song lyrics on MADCAP, however, were not even written by Barrett, but by fellow spiritual expatriate James Joyce. The unlikely collaboration "Golden Hair" is among the most haunting songs ever committed to vinyl. MADCAP is a rich distillation of the triumph of creativity over self-destruction.

Track Listing

1. Terrapin
2. No Good Trying
3. Love You
4. No Man's Land
5. Dark Globe
6. Here I Go
7. Octopus
8. Golden Hair
9. Long Gone
10. She Took A Long Cold Look
11. Feel
12. If It's In You
13. Late Night

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #9149 in Music
• Released on: 1994-05-03
• Number of discs: 1

Amazon.co.uk Review
Having left Pink Floyd in 1968 after a daily LSD habit had taken its toll, Syd Barrett's first solo album finally appeared two years later with ex-Floyd sidekicks Dave Gilmour and Rick Wright riding shotgun with him in the studio. The Madcap Laughs is a brilliant but brittle album, with every strum of the electric guitar seeming to take its toll on Barrett's increasingly frayed nerve strings. On songs like "Love You", his state of mind is well concealed beneath the sort of jolly ice cream van jangle-pop Blur would later indulge in. On "Dark Globe", however, the strain is palpable: "Please land a hand ... won't you miss me? Wouldn't you miss me at all?" he pleas, ominously. Best tracks are "Octopus" with all the controlled mania of early Floyd and "Golden Hair", a still moment of musical rapture whose lyric is taken from a James Joyce poem. --David Stubbs

Customer Reviews

genius
syd is my all time favourite artist,you either love him,or you don't.this is a timeless classic,just listen to dark globe,the whole album is clever and funny,bringing you into syd's world of tolkien,graeme and joyce as well as the other 'stuff'!

Poor old Syd
Syd Barrett's mental health problems have been well documented,and sadly the low points on this album are uncomfortable reminders-namely Feel,If It's In You and She Took A Long Cold Look At Me-which make him appear confused,and as such are highly disturbing insights into a troubled mind.Thankfully there are moments of lucid genius everywhere else-Terrapin,Golden Hair,and so on.

Long gone
This is a highly disturbing record. It's the sound of a man having a psychotic breakdown in the studio, recorded with cruel precision by someone who was both trying to help him, but who had also usurped his place in the group that had once been his. Not that it is really possible to condemn Dave (as he was then) Gilmour; Barrett had become impossible to work with in the group context by this stage and this album demonstrates why. Certainly none of these songs could have been recorded by Pink Floyd.

It's difficult to view Syd from this distance in anything other than tragic terms, but some people who ought to know better suggest that he was a tortured genius and some of the songs on this album are masterpieces. They're wrong and these aren't; they're the remnants of a crumbling psyche and listening to them is a bit too close to viewing the madmen in Bedlam for my taste.

"Syd" Barrett left the building a long time ago when his hallucinogen-induced illness overwhelmed his musical talents and now Roger Barrett has followed into that far country where it is always 1967, "See Emily Play" is always in the charts and "Wish You Were Here" is an eternity away.

Rating? Anywhere from 1 to 5; against the pathos of Barrett's decline it's irrelevant.