Did Floyd make the right decision about Barrett?

Oh, I don't know. Gandalf wasn't all that bad in the lead role. He was at the time a mildly talented, detached rock star in his own right which is all the role really called for. The problem was with Alan Barker's vision for The Wall which generally blew as a whole (and he is a 'hole).

King Only wrote: ExittheLemming wrote: ...anyone culpable in providing Bob Geldof with a mainstream cinema role re The Wall is clearly harboring a war crime against better judgement. I don't think that using Bob Geldof for The Wall movie was Pink Floyd's choice. Roger Waters wanted to play the role himself but either the producer or the director insisted on using someone else instead of Waters.

So presumably, despite holding the rights to the movie, da Floyd, with all the  bargaining cards in their favour, acceded to the view that notwithstanding Geldof's complete inappropriateness for the role, he was the best candidate?

I think that for all his inevitable short lived artistic ripeness, engendered by a precipitous mental fragility, Barrett made the right decision about Floyd. We never had to suffer the pitiful spectacle of his erstwhile colleagues boycott Israel with Floyd albums still mysteriously available in their stores....together with anyone culpable in providing Bob Geldof with a mainstream cinema role re The Wall is clearly harboring a war crime against better judgement.


Edited by ExittheLemming - April 10 2015 at 09:04

Cactus Choir wrote: ^ I read (think it was in the NME Book of Rock) that Barrett turned up at the WYWH sessions and said he was "ready to do his bit" whatever that might have meant. Wasn't he also no longer the original 'pretty' Syd by 1975? They probably didn't want a fat, bald lead singer/guitarist with a penchant for playing one chord at that stage in their career, sad though the situation was. If he was able to produce decent material perhaps he could have written for the band, but again that seems an unlikely scenario.

Well, NME is the worse fact-bending publication that ever existed.

Maybe Syd thought he was still in the band after a "coma" of five years (was he even aware 5 years had gone by?), but if he had made any moves towards being reintegrated, we'd probably have heard it all from the Barrett-lovers and the post-barrett Floyd-haters

highly unlikely

^ I read (think it was in the NME Book of Rock) that Barrett turned up at the WYWH sessions and said he was "ready to do his bit" whatever that might have meant. Wasn't he also no longer the original 'pretty' Syd by 1975? They probably didn't want a fat, bald lead singer/guitarist with a penchant for playing one chord at that stage in their career, sad though the situation was. If he was able to produce decent material perhaps he could have written for the band, but again that seems an unlikely scenario.

sublime220 wrote: When Pink Floyd were in the middle of their WYWH sessions, Syd Barrett made an unexpected visit to ask if he can rejoin the band, but was ultimately declined. Was this the right thing to do and how would it have impacted the bands sound in the later albums? Comment your thoughts.

uh, can you expand, please?

personally, I never heard that this was Syd's goal

I don't think  he was in a state (though I wouldn't know of this since I wasn't there) to ask for that... Most likely, if that was the intent, he was driven to it by someone else (but who?).

As for Floyd making the right choice, would Echoes, AHM, DSOTM, Animals or even WYWH (despite Syd being the inspiration) have been recorded at all.

Don't think it's a question of right or wrong, here... there was a situation to deal with, and it was probably the only realistic exit possible. They didn't give up on him immediately either. 
there are Syd admirers claiming the band did him wrong, but but would've a sound Syd no have done the same if it had happened to Mason, back in 66??

sublime220 wrote: When Pink Floyd were in the middle of their WYWH sessions, Syd Barrett made an unexpected visit to ask if he can rejoin the band, but was ultimately declined. Was this the right thing to do and how would it have impacted the bands sound in the later albums? Comment your thoughts.

Edited by Svetonio - April 10 2015 at 04:10

Thanks for the assessment. You certainly took this personally. Btw, I thought you had left the conversation?

SteveG wrote: ^Just as serious as you were by basing the crux of Firth's statement on a figure of speech such as "it's music for everyone" and then deriding it as a way to discredit his definition. As soon as you did that I should left the conversation. I know better now. Adios

I'm not evading anything. When you say something like "Santeria music is not for everyone," you're not being serious. At least not from my perspective. That's on the level of saying not everybody has the culinary palate of Andrew Zimmern or not every man with with a smidgen of Native American ancestry will go on his vision quest.