The Best of Syd Barrett: Wouldn't You Miss Me?
Pop culture's fascination with the psychically damaged has inspired a  pantheon of cult heroes, fromBrian WilsonthroughSky Saxon,Roky Erickson, andKurt Cobain, whose  enduring--if troubling--appeal could give a cultural psychologist a life's worth  of study.Pink Floydfounder Syd Barrett has long been one of the most obsessed over. Listening to  this first-ever distillation of the "best" of Barrett's brief post-Floyd  recording career (which essentially ended in 1970), it's not hard to understand  why. Barrett's childlike side (displayed here on such Lewis Carroll-esque fare  as "Octopus," "Terrapin," and "Effervescing Rhino") and almost painfully  innocent love songs sometimes feel like the lost blueprint of alt rock, while  his space-case vocal delivery and distinctly surreal sense of timing and rhythm  give each cut a hypnotic sense of intrigue. It's all a far cry from the  intricately baroque pop psychedelia of his brief tenure in Pink Floyd. Something  (LSD? Insanity? Both?) clearly shattered Barrett's consciousness between the  band's debut albumPiper at the Gates of  Dawn(he left the band shortly afterward) and the spare, shattered  acoustic ballad poems from his first solo album  (The Madcap Laughs)  featured here. The more accessible, pop-conscious ethos of its follow-up,Barrett(highlighted by  "Baby Lemonade" and the amusing "Gigolo Aunt") were largely studio illusions  conjured up by sidemen such as Floyd'sDavid GilmourandRichard Wright. Barrett  fans should also note the presence here of the previously unreleased "Bob Dylan  Blues," a wry, talking blues parody of the great Zimmerman and allegedly one of  Barrett's earliest compositions.--Jerry McCulley