#62

Red Box. I think The Circle and the Square is brilliant; the other two albums are as dull as ditchwater.

#63

I’ve been thinking about this and it’s probably Harmonicraft by Torche. Now, I love Torche, but I pretty much rinse Harmonicraft by them and nothing else, not that the other albums aren’t any good, just I love this one a lot. FOr me, it’s the right mix of huge stoner riffs and pop-rock. Also, the artwork is beautiful.

#64

Never managed to get more than a few songs in. As dull as Be Here Now to me.

#65

Piper at the Gates of Dawn by Pink Floyd.

If you accept my argument, which is that there are actually three bands called Pink Floyd (Barrett, Waters and Gilmour versions), then I guess it’s not really saying much, because their only other album, A Saucerful of Secrets, is a jumbled mess, the only noteworthy track being ‘Set The Controls for the Heart of the Sun’, which is largely due to the fact that although he was technically involved, Syd’s contribution was minimal. I still maintain that if the band had any decency they would have renamed themselves after Syd’s departure, but they didn’t so here we are.

If I’m forced to admit that Pink Floyd are in fact the same band throughout their 30-odd year history, then I would also have to admit that I do occasionally revist ‘Meddle’ and concede that it is really quite good. I also like bits of ‘Obscured By Clouds’ and ‘Ummagumma’, but everything from ‘Dark Side…’ onwards leaves me cold. And it’s not just a matter of taste, it’s the stench of guilt which hangs over work of this bunch of careerists, examples being the hypocritical lyric to ‘Money’, the cringworthy reference to ‘the lunatic’ in ‘Brain Damage’, and in particular the nauseating ‘Shine On You Crazy Diamond’. Obviously we now live in a much more enlightened age in terms of how we talk about mental illness, nevertheless when Syd was at his lowest point and desperately in need of help, they chose to instead to turn their backs and go for the money.

And yet, I would still consider myself a fan, and ‘Piper…’ is the sole reason why.

#66

I prefer Peace and Truce. And How to… is pretty amazing too.

#67

I disagree with some of your opinions on the music, but it’s a matter of personal taste and you are entitled to them.

However… I do take issue with last sentence in the second paragraph. They did not “turn their backs” on Syd. They did not kick him out, they kept on with Gilmour as a replacement but with Barrett still in the lineup and sometimes joining in, until the situation became untenable. After he became incapable of musically contributing to the band, requiring a permanent replacement, Gilmour and Waters helped out on his solo album; they continued to support him emotionally and made sure that he got all the royalties to which he was entitled. Moreover they have never failed to acknowledge Syd as the initial spark behind Pink Floyd. I don’t agree that the lyrics of Dark Side of the Moon and Wish You Were Here were exploitation; I think of them as homage to their former mentor, especially the second of those two, given the album title.

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#68

The problem is that I don’t think the band have ever been challenged on the ‘poor old Syd, it’s sad but there was nothing we could do’ narrative. While your counterargument is factually correct, I believe their motivation was guilt because they knew that what they’d done was wrong, plain and simple.

#69

So what did they do? Or what should they have done, that they did not?

#70

Van Morrison. He has released umpteen albums, but I only own Inarticulate Speech of the Heart.
The reason? I really don’t like his voice or his singing style. On that particular album, about half the tracks are instrumentals, and on those where he does sing, he manages to keep his rambling bluesy style more or less in check.

#71

British Sea Power with their debut. The others all have their moments, but nothing comes close to the brilliance of Decline, with the one they put out last year probably coming closest.

I’d also make a case for The National with Boxer, though mainly because it’s just so good. Alligator is great but not as cohesive, and the last couple are a bit ploddy as albums, despite some great songwriting.

#72

Well there were probably several courses of action available to them, the best of which would either have been to put the band on hiatus while Syd got the help he needed, or to formally disband and then after a respectful interval reform under a new moniker. What they did, namely cut Syd out of the band without even telling him (they’ve admitted as much by saying that they just stopped inviting him along to practice sessions), was, from a moral point of view, one of the worst courses of action available. As I said before, those were different times, and the band were quite young and probably naive in certain ways. But Syd wasn’t just a bandmate, he was their friend. And obviously my belief that they were motivated by guilt is pure speculation, but as I said, the band’s narrative has never been adequately challenged, certainly not by the rock press who are notoriously bad at that sort of thing, rather they have continued to proliferate the myth of the Mad Genius, and sadly not by Syd himself, who never told us his side of the story.

#73

and that’s my point. Without evidence, you assume the worst. It seems to me they were motivated by, for want of a better word, pity.

#74

They stopped inviting him to their rehearsals and carried on as if he didn’t exist - that’s pretty cold. At least I’m crediting them with having some remorse for what they did, even if they’ve never admitted any fault.

#75

I only like the one Four Seasons album: “Who Loves You”. While talented, they were a bit too poppy and lovey-dovey for my tastes; I might enjoy hearing individual singles, but couldn’t imagine buying an album of those singles. However that album seems to have a different feel to it.

I’ve heard their so-called “progressive” album, “Genuine Imitation Life Gazette”, which was supposed to be their counterpart to the Beach Boys’ “SMiLE”. While there are a couple of really nice songs on it, overall it did very little for me - unlike SMiLE.

#76

It’s a bit of a weird way to look at it. Syd’s example is more extreme than others but plenty of bands have found it impossible to work with members but also, due to the history, haven’t found it easy to part with them. And that’s because they were great friends, not in spite of it.

Having personally ‘lost’ a very good schoolfriend to mental illness (he took a trip aged about 17 and developed schizophrenia after) I can tell you it’s really not remotely easy. Lots of guilt, yes, but not really of the sort you should be haranguing people for: sorrow for the person you’ve lost who you were great friends with, anger at this happening to them, fear/anger at them for being a stressor in your life and then guilt that you feel that way. (Yes, he was his old self generally when on his medication but he really hated it and so it still made it hard for him to reconnect with his normal life. There are other aspects to his character and his home life that meant he lacked both the ability to make good decisions for keeping on his medication and lacked a support network.)

And yeah, Floyd’s members were 10 years older than I was so should maybe have been better at dealing with this but equally it seems inaccurate to think that Floyd were out there trying to become a band of the size they did after Dark Side of the Moon. It never seems like they (particularly Waters) were entirely in a fit state for that level of fame. Seems more likely to me they found something they all really loved doing and wanted to keep doing it. It just so happens their job was doing that but you’re coming close to saying that people shouldn’t do a job they love because their best mate can no longer do it.

They probably had their own demons too. Waters certainly did thanks to never knowing his father due to World War 2. Again, this isn’t the same for every person but the same happened to my own father (who was born in '42 and actually at school with Mason) and he still finds it impossible to listen to The Wall without being brought to tears thanks to the emotional parallels.

#77

I hear what you’re saying, and I freely admit that I’m putting forward a contrarian view, but I stand by my main point, which is that the band let Syd down at his time of greatest need. I actually don’t think that the band members are solely to blame for the way he was ejected from the band, I suspect there were pressures from other sources, not the least of which would have been their label, the once-mighty EMI. Undoubtedly they failed in their duty of care, but then they probably considered that their only real duty was to deliver a profit to their shareholders (the corporate mindset remains largely unchanged today).

Of course we’ll never know, but I believe there was every chance that Syd could have made a meaningful recovery (ie. returned to making music, possibly with Pink Floyd) had he received the help he needed in a timely fashion. I mourn for those lost Floyd records! Instead we ended up with several albums-worth of dull, mostly 4/4 plod.

To take a more recent example, Britney Spears seems to have made a recovery from her well-publicised mental breakdown, and from some accounts this was in spite of those around her at the time. Syd had the bad luck to have found fame before rehab clinics like those that helped Britney recover even existed, and at a time when there was still a stigma around drug abuse and mental illness (not that this has gone away entirely today). But Floyd had the means at their disposal, and so I think it can still be argued that they didn’t do enough. Of course they were entitled to pursue their career, but they did so in what appears in retrospect to be a quite ruthless manner, to the detriment of their former bandmate. I read a recent interview with Nick Mason where he said that he recalled this as being a happy time for the band! You’re right to say that there was no way they could have plotted success on the scale they later achieved, but I do think that there was probably a streak of ambition driving the band (particularly Waters) after their early success.

#78

Silent Alarm
100 Broken Windows

#79

I don’t think there’s anything useful to be gained by comparing two different people’s apparent breakdowns, separated by 30-40 years. I mean the only thing Spears and Barrett have in common is they were both in the music industry. There’s nothing else similar and we cannot armchair diagnose anyone’s condition.

I don’t think there’s any doubt that the band aren’t particularly nice people on some level: the stuff with Waters when they broke up and the treatment of Wright by Gilmour and Mason show pretty unkind sides to them. That doesn’t mean Syd was any better though. By all accounts he doesn’t seem to have borne a grudge against his former bandmates and he lived a life that it sounds like he enjoyed.

#80

I prefer ‘Tim’, despite the awful production.

#81

Cymbals Eat Guitars, ‘Lose’. Not really that bothered by any of their other albums.