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COMMENTS
There
are those who regard Pink Floyd's debut album as the band's best album.
It is so far removed from 'Dark Side...' and
'The Wall' that it is hard to believe
that they were recorded by the same band. Indeed, in many ways, they
weren't; the manic, erractic, unpredictable and unreliable Syd
Barrett was clearly their leader and, unlikely as it may now seem,
Rick Wright was the second most
dominant force musically. For a record that is every bit as much a product
of the swinging Sixties as any of its comtemporaries, it is remarkable
that 'Piper...' hasn't dated anywhere near as much as its vintage would
suggest. No doubt the absence of "Make Love Not War" and drug
themes plays a large part in this. The
front cover was an embarrassingly gimmicky group photo, taken with the aid
of a multi-image filter. Barrett designed the better, Rorschach inkblot-like
group silhouette on the rear of the slleve. The
album's producer, Norman Smith, was best known as the engineer on every
Beatles album up to and including 'Rubber Soul', and it was only his work
with Pink Floyd that kept him working on 'Sergeant Pepper', which was being
pieced together in an adjacent studio at Abbey Road. The
title of this album is taken from a chapter of Kenneth Grahame's 'Wind
In The Willows', which is required reading for all Barrett fans. Barrett,
his mental state deteriorating by the day as the pressures of stardom, and
no doubt his copious intake of LSD, took their toll, was notoriously difficult
to work with, changing tunes and lyrics between - and during - takes.
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