His traumatic breakdown was both the breaking and the making of Pink Floyd, his subsequent alienated state the inspiration for so much of the band’s later and greatest works.īarrett’s departure, after just one album, robbed the Floyd of its star and songwriter.
And for a band that prided itself in anti-star anonymity, the original Floyd frontman Syd Barrett was a poster-boy for acid rock and, later, a textbook freak-scene casualty. There’s merit in all three perspectives.īut first impressions stick hard, and for some Floyd remain the first and last of the great European psychedelic acts – house band at UFO in ’67, and the inspiration for numerous Kraut- and space-rockers. Today, they’re more likely regarded as the mature listener’s Radiohead. To a generation that went pop with The Beatles, they’re archetypal muso pioneers who elevated rock into a refined late 20th century art form.
Drummer Nick Mason once described Pink Floyd as “the last of the gifted amateurs”.
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