The Madcap Laughs

Weird as expected but it's weak and tossed off. Just sounds like demos out to disc. Needed a little less acid and a little more discipline.

He truly was mad.

This is one of those one word reviews: amateurish. Ok. I'll keep going. There is something compelling, I know, about including little mistakes on a piece of art. And then there's including so many mistakes that your audience can only assume that you never got enough good takes out of a song to compile something worth listening to. There are some nice sections to this, but if I had a dollar for every time Syd accidentally mutes his guitar strings when he doesn't mean to, or doesn't switch to a chord when he should, or screeches through a complicated melody instead of singing it gracefully, I'd have a million dollars. It isn't unlistenable. But it also isn't very good at all. Pretty emblematic of an album that only earns - TWO STARS

Maybe drugs are bad after all

Ich weiß nicht. Hat ein paar Momente und lebt sicher von der starken Eigenwilligkeit. Ist aber stellenweise auch echt sperrig. Ich geb mal 3/5 und muss das sicher nochmal hören.

Das hat mit leicht genervt. 1 Stern noch nicht, aber kurz davor.

Olipahan kuollettavan tylsä tämäkin. Roskiin.

Joo en tiiä. Periaatteessa tässon hyviikin settejä välissä, mutta monelta osin jää aika RAAKA (ei raju vaan paistamaton) kuva. Tyhmähän se on tuotannon perään itkee, mut itken varmaan nyt enempi sen säv.sov. homman perään. Jää viilinki, että on pitänyt kutoo palasista kokonaisuus ja osa biiseistä on sit vaan mitä on. Kuiteskii oon tämmösen raakile-ilmasunkin ystävä niin ei tää nyt niin kamalaa ollut ja varmaan kunnon jyystöllä vois yhtyä frusiantteihin ja coxoneihin ja sanoo että IHANAA PARRETTI IHANAA.

No oli kyllä ensisijaisesti ihan hemmetin tylsä levy. Ei huono, ei hyvä - ainoastaan ihan saatanan tylsä.

Look, just because you used to be in Pink Floyd and took a lot of drugs, doesn't mean you can make good music. Shite.

Veldig glad i det her. Feel og If It’s in You høres rett og slett uferdig ut. Dem skal æ aldri høre igjen.

Mitgründer von Pink Floyd. Rausgeflogen wegen seiner psychischen Probleme, verstärkt durch seinen Drogenkonsum. Klingt wie ein Demoband.

Not a great album at all. Not a lot of substance there and pretty boring. I would choose this album over Trout Mask Replica but that isn't saying a lot.

Dude just doodles on guitar for a bit

I found this album to be incredibly dull - fair play to those that like it, but 37 minutes of it felt like two days.

Donovan-ish, a little beatles-ish.....

This record has a gloriously authentic, unhinged nature, and for good reason. It might be morally questionable to say this, but if Syd Barrett hadn't succumbed to his lifestyle choices in quite the way he did, this album wouldn't be half as good. As it is, for better or for worse, it feels like a genuine snapshot of an extraordinary but troubled life. The meandering, poetic, circus-like psychedelia feels entirely natural, effortless, and utterly uncontrived. It's part of a much bigger, and very sad story, but in isolation, this record is a thoroughly absorbing delight.

Isto dosta dosadan album, ali bar nije neslušljivo kao mnogi drugi tu. Zapravo solidnih 2/5, 4/10

O sea, no se cual es el trasfondo del disco, pero la verdad que es duro de escuchar por tramos. Entiendo las letras, la disonancia del sonido y los sonidos casi folk psicodélico que forma, pero realmente lo hacen complicado. Entiendo que puede gustar y entendiendo el contexto crece, pero no así cuando lo escuché 2,5/5.

3/10 Alguien que le enseñe a afinar a ese tipo por favor

Would not be on my list. His was a tragic life. Music to hear once.

To answer the review before mine: Syd Barrett was a genius. To my mind, nobody in British rock has quite matched the way he paired the dark, psychedelic despair of modern life with the whimsical, almost childlike melodies of nursery rhymes (OK, except maybe David Tibet). Anyone who has doubts about the ethics of releasing this album should dig a little deeper, because the story surrounding Barrett at the time of these recordings is, well, complicated, to say the very least. There are differing theories about what caused his mental state to deteriorate. Heavy LSD use and the pressure of becoming famous so young clearly played a part, and according to Irwin Chusid’s Songs in the Key of Z, his home was constantly full of guests taking drugs. Chusid also points to childhood trauma that his bandmates believed would catch up with him one way or another: his father died when he was 15, and his mother was both a constant source of stress and someone who pampered him. Whatever the cause, his increasingly erratic behavior on stage and in the studio led the band to essentially drop him and replace him with his longtime friend David Gilmour. What I didn’t know is that FIVE different producers worked on the sessions behind this album, its follow-up Barrett and the later outtakes collection Opel. It began because Pink Floyd’s managers at the time, Peter Jenner and Andrew King, split from the band to stick with Barrett after he was quietly pushed out. Convinced he could still make great music on his own, they persuaded EMI to let him record the songs he had ready. After a false start in 1968, EMI’s Malcolm Jones revived the project a year later. The sessions went well for a while, until it became clear they were anything but. Barrett was allowed to mix tracks on his own despite warnings that he shouldn’t be left in the studio unaccompanied, and the Soft Machine members brought in to back him couldn’t figure out what he was doing, among other problems. Eventually, Gilmour and Roger Waters stepped in to finish the album, fearing it would otherwise be shelved. In essence, this album is as good as it could have been, given Barrett’s mental state and the strain on everyone involved. This was the late ’60s. People didn’t understand mental health the way we do today, and I feel everyone involved genuinely hoped to give Barrett and his career a boost, seeing him not only as a talented songwriter but as a friend. The more you unravel the story, the sadder it gets. So, my opinion? I love it, but it’s so frustrating to listen to. Frustrating because these songs are so dark, melodic, experimental, unnerving and creative yet sloppily put together. Frustrating because they feel like demos rather than polished masterpieces, and we’d never get anything better. Frustrating because it makes me think of everything he could have written afterwards and never did. Whether it’s the hair-raising folk ballad “Terrapin”, the tragic “Dark Globe”, the brutal cacophony of “No Good Trying”, the hesitantly pretty “Golden Hair”, the noisy folk rock of “Long Gone” or even the garbled start of “If It’s in You”, every one of these songs pulls an emotional response out of me. It’s a hard listen, but an essential one. I'm so glad this list included one of THE most well known outsider albums of all time. The death of the ’60s rocker has never been better documented than here. Give it the attention and love it deserves. 4.5 stars.

Was Syd Barrett really a genius? Or was he mythologised because of his status as an acid casualty who never realised his full potential? Pink Floyd’s seminal albums came after his involvement ceased and based on the evidence here it appears that Gilmore, Waters and Wright as a collective are a far superior songwriting team. There were a couple of decent melodies but they are ruined by shoddy playing and poor production, overall I kept thinking of Listen to The Flower people by Spinal Tap who clearly took inspiration from this and albums like it. 1.8

Awful. Not way would this have made the light of day if it wasn't for him being in pink floyd.

I can't really put into words what I like about this album. All I can say is that I thoroughly enjoyed it. Favs: No Man's Land, Here I Go, Octopus

Ridiculous ramblings of someone who's head is blown up from ass kissers telling him he's some kind of genius.. I work with someone like this and this album sounds like something he would make.

Essential primarily as a cautionary tale. Drugs are bad, kids. Don't waste your potential by forgetting to drop in on reality every once in a while. Maybe have some friends who aren't on acid give you some feedback on your new music before you release it.

This album perfectly captures a sadly unraveling mind - from the weirdness of the music, it's mad variety, the great album cover; it's a nice little package of strangeness. You can also definitely tell Robert Wyatt was involved with some of the childish sounding music, but it really fits. I can understand why some people might despise this record, but in its context it's a great snapshot of Syd Barrett.

a bit of a tough listen. theres a lot of good here, but some of it makes you wonder if the people who gave it the green light were also suffering a mental break.

At its best, this album sounds like the Beatles if they were kinda bored and making music just for the paycheck. At its worst, it sounds like your coworker drunkenly doing karaoke in a shady basement bar on a Wednesday afternoon.

decent

pouco inspirado, bem superficial, sem alma mesmo e, quando tenta aprofundar, parece bobo, fraco.

Favorite lyric: “Oh baby, my hair’s on end about you” I came into this thinking “well this might be a struggle,” having not heard it in a very long while and remembering all the sad stories about Syd Barrett. What I thought I’d remembered from hearing this in the 70s was that it was like some of the songs on the early Pink Floyd records that I used to skip in order to listen to stuff like “Astronomy Domine” over and over. But this seems more spare, with odd little lyrics and weirder, occasionally arrhythmic arrangements. At times it feels like a stripped-down Neutral Milk Hotel. I didn’t come into this expecting to give it a 5, but here we are; I really enjoyed it.

Most one star albums are failures of ego or talent. This album is a failure of those around Syd. It’s painful to listen to at times. It is the sound of Syd Barrett coming apart and it probably shouldn’t have been recorded or released.

Nope

Naw, not feeling it

Worth a listen simply for the story of who he was. Even though he was a founding member and principal writer/singer, PF’s best work came after he departed. Was he crazy? Probably. Something sad about this silly work here, but oddly appealing too. Shine On!

It's stylistically reminiscent of the Beach Boys or the Doors, slowed down and casually sung over, with minimal production and an overall unpolished vibe. There are glimpses of brilliance here, snatches of lyrics or chord progressions that surprise and delight, but it never quite coalesces into something more. The second half starts to degenerate into less organized songs, half-composed fragments, studio outtakes, and badly-sung stuff that should probably never have been released. (Parts of "If It's In You" sound like stuff that was cut from "This Is Spinal Tap" for not being funny.) It's a cliché to say it, but if Barrett had been able to maintain some mental stability he probably would have been a hall-of-famer.

Cool that this is the lead singer of Pink Floyd

Yeahh I’m not surprised all of Pink Floyd’s good music came into existence after this guy left the band I can see some unique ideas in here, and honestly there’s parts that sound pretty damn solid. Guitars and bass are great and I think some songs are just weird enough to work. The production talent of most of the rest of Pink Floyd is absolutely working overtime There’s some real bad stuff about this. I think it’s pretty boring at times and there are some truly abhorrent tracks on this (listen to If It’s in You). His vocals are not great, and absolutely bring this one down. Long story short I just don’t think there’s any genuinely good songs on this one I think this could absolutely be cool with some smarter design choices, but this one definitely fails a bit. The whole story with Syd Barrett’s pretty sad, but I’m not factoring that into my rating at all. Without the bad songs this would be closer to a 3 but I can’t ignore them

I haven't really listened to the older Pink Floyd works and I can't comment on what he did for the band, so the troubled-but-talented mad genius angle is lost on me. It's just nonsense music; disjointed snippets of a guy going through it. It's the same thing with Wish You Were Here where Syd Barrett's psychotic breakdown has become a romanticized part of Pink Floyd mythos. It's troubling to me on a conceptual level, and audibly, it also really sucks.

Not great. I'm a Pink Floyd fan, so I wanted to like this, but didn't.

This album and Syd Barret in general has it's/his own genre and own time signatures and special chord structures which makes it really unique to listen to. Really enjoyable stuff and wacky enough to really separate it from anything else. It's kind of hard to rate this with the same standards as "normal" music, but in it's own category it's perfect 5/5 album!

This album is on this list only because it's Syd Barrett. Boring album.

terrible

#493 / 1089 Heard before? ❌ Revisit? ❌ I've heard Syd's music before, but have not actively listened to a full album before. It was what I expected, but not as weird as I remembered. He has a style that doesn't really work for me too well, feeling I had before playing this one and this just reinforced it. Not for me, sadly 2/5

This a truly awful. Feels ghouish to listen to it.

Syd Barrett was a genius, and his story is tragic. What might the great band Pink Floyd have achieved if Syd had been able to stick with them? On the other hand, that tragedy also influenced the band’s work. It’s all very speculative. In any case, I was looking forward to the album. You can hear echoes of the early Pink Floyd in some places. Unfortunately, the album ends up being a bit disappointing. Even the contributions from Waters and Gilmour to the album couldn’t change that. 3/5

Occasionally the sound is on par with early Pink Floyd, but more often the songs feel unfinished, both in writing and arranging/recording. I can’t help but wonder what this album could’ve been if Barrett was in a healthier place mentally.

Pretty weird. I know the rock scene at the time had a lot of space for stuff like this though. This isn't so far off of the Lou Reed stuff around the same time.

Disappointingly little laughter.

most of it i could listen to in the background - and wouldn't be too bad at that since it is fairly laid back - but some of it has some... questionable vocals that pop out a bit too much for me

Started strong, but got repetitive. Liked the first 3 songs

This wasn’t good (maybe for sad reasons?)

Honestly feels a little unethical at points, especially the second side but what it mainly exposes is Syd’s singular genius. He basically created a whole style of songwriting, but never really got to revel in any of the success of his talents.

This album is worth a spin because it represents a moment in time where a genius delicately balances on the edge of the knife that is sanity. At its best it is an album of ideas some fully realized, such as on the track Octopus, and others still somewhat incomplete, such as Feel. It is evident that the patchwork of sessions created some inconsistency but as a whole songs like Terrapin, Golden Hair and Dark Globe are genuinely good tracks. On this listen, not thinking about the comparisons available from and of the time period or the context surrounding this album, it is solid but not an outstanding album. You enjoy the experience but after you can’t recall much of what you heard. 3/5

Sorry Syd. I know you had issues and really do hope you got the help you needed but this is not good. It’s okay being whimsical, irreverent amd pretentious but it does not mean it makes good music. Sadly the only understandable explanation for releasing thisis exploitation of a vulnerable person.

not really my jam

Yes, he was connected into Pink Floyd. No, that doesn’t mean he will automatically create good music on his own. Exhibit A is this crap record. Not sure why this is on here.

I feel like you have to be a pretty big fan of Pink Floyd to enjoy this. I am not a fan, so it fell flat for me.

610/1089 - He has a very dull voice and the music matches. He's also a competent musician and has good background players.

Not a fan

Ugh

It is an interesting decision to keep so many of the false starts and studio background elements in this album. Is it exploitative or just a unique album? Probably both. Is it good? Not in the way that good music usually is. It's more something you listen to a friend play in their garage while you're both feeling fucked up about life and love.

As someone who enjoys the outsider music of Daniel Johnston, I expected to enjoy this a lot more than I did. There is something beautiful in art made with a lot of heart and not a whole lot of technique. With Barrett sometimes struggling to sing and featuring studio chatter, this feels like a sketchbook of Barrett's ideas. This feels unfinished and messy. The songs that do feel more complete feel like your bog standard psychedelic folk music of the time.

Eihän tää oikein lähteny. Syd Barret cmon

Vähän random, muutama hyvä ja entuudestaan tuttu kappale mutta ei kyllä säväyttänyt odotetulla tavalla.

I don't want to shit on this record that crazy because the guy was clearly suffering from mental disorders. However, this is not a good record by any means. It has snippets, concepts, and pieces of songs. No concrete musical ideas. Might be the worst record on here. RIP SYD

Curious at first but less interesting the deeper you get

This record makes me wonder why one has to apologize when critizising a highly acclaimed artist. Syd Barrett may have been influential as part of Pink Floyd, he may have had drug issues, but this doesn't change the fact that this guy doesn't manage to hit the notes. His singing is dreadful. I found this record almost imbearable to listen to, yet another downright awful contender in the 1001 list.

Can confirm that Syd Barrett was not the part of Pink Floyd that I liked.

Not a big fan of this. A lot of it felt like demo takes instead of finished songs.

sometimes it was ok and sometimes it was annoying.

Sounds like an album someone made in college in one sitting while high. It's not terrible I just don't understand the appeal and don't enjoy it.

This does nothing for me despite repeated efforts. People will see some kind of genius in Barrett but I can't see it.

Good

2,1 Highlights: Terrapin, Here I Go

I have a thing for 1960s folk-rock-pop-psych records and if I had found this during my college years I would have really loved it.

crazy stuff

I can glean the rationalization for entry of pretty much every single one of the albums included in the 1001 I've reviewed so far. I haven't enjoyed them all, but the context of their importance on a genre, cultural impact, or collective popularity makes them viable candidates. Syd Barrett's first post Pink Floyd album is the first one to make me take pause and question why it's here. As a long-time Pink Floyd fan it feels voyeuristic, like slowing down and rubber necking at a car accident. The Madcap Laughs was Barrett's attempt to show that he was fine, hadn't had an LSD induced psychotic break, and that the joke was on you, the listener (his madcap laughs at your expense for believing such). The music tells a different story than the one intended, with Syd's sketches of songs being a pale imitation of anything he'd produced for Pink Floyd. Instead of offering up humor and psychedelic whimsy, The Madcap Laughs is a sad reminder that the Syd Barrett of Pink Floyd is nothing but a memory. What we are left with is a shell of that magical majesty, replaced with an album that could've been made by anyone with a beginner's ability to play an acoustic guitar. The fact it exists at all is a kindness from David Gilmour, Roger Waters, and The Soft Machine who pieced together the fragments of what Barrett created and made them into the album we now discuss. My point being, including it in the 1001, even as a historical document, feels wrong and makes me sad. Barrett should be remembered for being the driving force in one of the greatest bands that has ever existed. Shame on Robert Dimery (writer of the 1001 book) for shining a light on his lowest point instead.

Pretty good but a couple songs were awful

Another fine album that unfortunately didn't grab me especially.

What is this album? It's sort of composed like a shade of the Beatles (which makes sense for the era), but instead of being a composition of several members, it appears to be the brainchild of a single person, which is a big time negative. Songs aren't really cohesive, and nothing really sticks out as superlative. I think the biggest detriment here might be the engineering of the album. Syd's voice is BY FAR the loudest element on any song, and it's just bad. Guitar solos are hidden by low volume. Bass is off meandering somewhere, but its hidden. Drums are there. It's poorly worked, featuring WAY too much vocals. Speaking of vocals, it's not good. He's not a good enough singer to warrant such vocal featuring. I don't know anything about the lyrics, and nothing about this album makes me want to dig into it to find meaning, because I have a feeling it'll be gibberish regardless.

Needs a further listen….

This was a good time

So this is where Jeff Mangum lifted his schtick from! It wasn't bad, but after a few songs I was starting to lose interest.

How did they survive without him….

I didn't get the chance to listen too heavily but it was interesting 70s background music. I know there is more lore to it but I didn't have the chance to give it my full attention I'm sorry D:

Love this record, really really genuinely strange and weird, quite dark but with these really great melodies and sweet songs at the core. Big time favourite

Are you referring to the orange tyrant?

A little off beat at first but it grew on me

First listen Saved 0/13

1. "Octopus" 2. "Feel" 3. "Terrapin"

you're not the Beatles and you shouldn't try to be

I already knew Syd barret by name but i dont remember from where. It was a great listen but i get that people dont find his voice that compelling.

This was okay, I guess. I thought it was pretty boring. It was very 60's. It was very British. I know he was a part of Pink Floyd, but this didn't sound like Pink Floyd to me at all. I got some Kinks vibes early on in the record, but not so much by the end.

If Syd's mental health wasn't in jeopardy and he continued with Pink Floyd, they'd be 1000% less famous but 1000% more interesting. I love this album. Maximum creativity.

Syd’s story is quite a sad and strange one. It seems like he was widely misunderstood with a number of mental health difficulties. I wanted to like this more than I did, but it grew on me with repeat listens. It largely plays out like the ramblings of a madman but then so does a lot of early Pink Floyd to be fair. A number of songs are quite good fun when a melody emerges from the chaos, albeit not always cohesively or for very long, but it doesn’t help that his voice can be painful to listen to at times. I did find it all quite charming in its own way.

Thank God this guy was booted out of Pink Floyd.

I was not high enough for that album, it was just depressing.