Both meaning music, style, verse and a bit of appeal (being needed).
The moment lasts for two albums, Madcap Laughs and Barrett, neither too noticeably dissimilar, nor two sharply alike. The juicy idea is that Barrett is, individually, the great and fascinating music talent, while his moment away from Pink Floyd hasn’t got the slightest of a blur and a smirk: it’s exciting and fun, it’s consistent and stylishly abiding, it’s elegant and interesting, it’s deep and woozy. The Pink Floyd approach is both consumable (two of his colleagues are present, as guests) and straightened away, given that Barrett influenced tremendously (with what he had as authentic writing, singing, playing and envisioning) the psychedelic debut of the great band (and it’s best, Saucerful Of Secrets), yet didn’t stay long in the great pink atmosphere, neither thrived on the same level as Floyd into his own doing. Pretty close to the idea, Syd Barrett isn’t doing his plain private records he’s having his most powerful freedom of expression. But for that misstep, however, The Madcap Laughs is a surprisingly effective record that holds up better than its "ooh, lookit the scary crazy person" reputation suggests.Barrett’s solo work is not (truly) a matter of albums, discs and spins it’s a full, short and rarely demanding moment of music and sheer taste. The album falls apart with the appalling "Feel." Frankly, the inclusion of false starts and studio chatter, not to mention some simply horrible off-key singing by Barrett, makes this already marginal track feel disgustingly exploitative. Honestly, however, the other solo tracks are the album's weakest tracks, with the exception of the plain gorgeous "Golden Hair," a musical setting of a James Joyce poem that's simply spellbinding. The solo tracks are what made the album's reputation, though, particularly the horrifying "Dark Globe," a first-person portrait of schizophrenia that's seemingly the most self-aware song this normally whimsical songwriter ever created. Like many of the "band" tracks, "Here I Go" is a Barrett solo performance with overdubs by Mike Ratledge, Hugh Hopper, and Robert Wyatt of the Soft Machine the combination doesn't always particularly work, as the Softs' jazzy, improvisational style is hemmed in by having to follow Barrett's predetermined lead, so on several tracks, like "No Good Trying," they content themselves with simply making weird noises in the background. The downright Kinksy "Here I Go" is in the same style, although it's both more lyrically direct and musically freaky, speeding up and slowing down seemingly at random. The much bouncier "Love You" sounds like a sunny little Carnaby Street pop song along the lines of an early Move single, complete with music hall piano, until the listener tries to parse the lyrics and realizes that they make no sense at all. The opening "Terrapin" seems to go on three times as long as its five-minute length, creating a hypnotic effect through Barrett's simple, repetitive guitar figure and stream of consciousness lyrics. Surprisingly, Jones' tracks are song for song much stronger than the more-lauded Floyd entries.
Half the album was recorded by Barrett's former bandmates Roger Waters and Dave Gilmour, and the other half by Harvest Records head Malcolm Jones. Wisely, The Madcap Laughs doesn't even try to sound like a consistent record.
0 kommentar(er)
