What would Pink Floyd have been like if Syd Barrett had not did so many

[ArnoldLayne]

Drugs and not have gone insane and he and Roger Waters and David Gilmour had written and created music together. Would we still have got the albums Meddles,DarkSide of the Moon,Animals and last but not least The Wall? Would they have been more pop rock with Syd there or would they have been as progressive but slightly mainstream and as big of a supergroup with Roger and David pushing Syd off to the side letting him contribute a few little fairy tale type little ditties like See Emily Play, Arnold Layne, Flaming, and Bike just to make him happy?

[Lubernaut]

1. They made albums after Syd left?

Hmmmmm.

[ArnoldLayne]

2. I am not sure if my post got through I had an error message come up it said post message

again. I'm not use to posting messages I hope it got through. Thank you Arnold Layne

[harmonicon]

3. it would have been very different, but I think better

I don't buy that Syd Barrett took too many drugs, or that he went insane. It seems that, from what I've heard, he certainly had some mental problems, but lots of people do. They were just handled differently 40 years ago.

Syd Barrett was kicked out of Pink Floyd. He didn't drop out, and wasn't incapable of playing. He did however have little to no interest in pop success. Still, I think he would have been much bigger than Pink Floyd, if the record label had given him the same time and money that they gave to the band afterwards. He wrote some incredible songs and put out some good records, but they weren't given the treatment they deserved during production. His ideas were also not respected. He was an innovator and artistic genius, but since some of what he was doing was "wrong", it wasn't completed or even allowed to happen. Supposedly in some sessions, he was just overlaying tons of guitar tracks, which the producer saw as unusable "noise". Well, it's not unusable noise when Glen Branca and Sonic Youth do it. The poor man really got screwed. He was decades ahead of his time.

Also, if he'd had his way, lots of band members may have left, especially Nick Mason, who seems to have had no respect for Barrett, so the band could have simply ended after Saucer Full of Secrets anyway. Supposedly the three you mentioned did make a bit of music together: David Gilmour has sad that Barrett recorded a lot more of the material on "Saucer..." than he is given credit for.

[JCMach1]

7. I agree Syd was on his own plane musically and lyrically

stream of consciousness and surrealism have been hard sells in any format... When he turned darker and more introspective I seriously think that the music business simply didn't know what to do with him.

Evenually, mentally and emotionally he just gave up...

Syd was Floyd's shadow. His absence was always their presence. I seriously don't think they would have been as good if Syd hadn't drifted away. If he had stayed their would have been a bloody break-up at some point and that would have ended Floyd PERIOD.

[Rabrrrrrr]

4. Probably would have had more punctuation.

[TX Screwball]

5. Genesis.

[mitchum]

6. Arnold, did you have Sarah Palin write that question for you?

:)

[ArnoldLayne]

9. Thanks for the compliment but she did not help me write it I managed to compose

it all by myself, thank you very much if that satisfies your curiousity to some extent.

[mitchum]

10. I never cared for Syd's oh-so-English sense of twee...

so I'm one of those heretics who actually prefers post-Syd Floyd.

He was a pioneer in the use in the use of feedback and delay, though. And I, and many others, will always owe him a great debt for that.

[FKA MNChimpH8R]

8. Syd was a disturbed guy, and all of the acid he did

did not help. According to Nicholas Schaffner (is this right?) his roommates fed him low dose acid every day for a year. He would have burned out fairly quickly in any event. Waters and Gilmour were far more stable personalities and it was that sanity and structure that made Floyd what they became. Vision requires sanity and persistence. Syd had neither, sad to say.

I've always found it weird that Syd's given name was Roger. And Roger's given name was George Roger Waters.

[ArnoldLayne]

11. I wonder if Syd would have been more like Peter Gabriel as a solo artist if

he had remained sane? I read an interview with Roger Waters and he made the comment that Peter Gabriel was to Genesis like Syd Barrett was to The Pink Floyd. Does anybody see any similarities in some respect between Peter Gabriel and Syd Barrett?

[DS1]

12. I don't care one bit for the Syd Barret years of Floyd

Gimmie DSotM