release date: Aug. 5, 1967
format: digital
[album rate: 4 / 5]
producer: Norman Smith
label: EMI Columbia - nationality: England, UK
Track highlights: 1. "Astronomy Domine" - 2. "Lucifer Sam" - 4. "Flaming" - 7. "Interstellar Overdrive" - 8. "The Gnome" - 10. "Scarecrow" - 11. "Bike"
Studio debut album by Pink Floyd released in the year when albums really flourished the pop / rock market. The band is formed by and consists of Syd Barrett on lead guitar & vocals, Roger Waters on bass & vocals, Richard Wright on organ, piano & vocals, and with Nick Mason on drums & percussion. 8 out of 11 tracks here are written and composed solely by Syd Barrett, which basically was the case at this early stage of the band and at a time when psychedelic rock was THE predominant style of the band. The remaining three tracks are credited the band and Waters (#6). The album is included on a long list of selected albums, which is regarded the best albums of the year, the decade or modern pop / rock music, and alongside the band's second album A Saucerful of Secrets (1968) this is lauded as being the first actual psychedelic rock albums where you hear Pink Floyd taking experimental rock to new territories. The US version of the album also included the band's first single success "See Emily Play", although, that track seems much out of sync with the rest of the compositions, perhaps except from "The Gnome". Today, the album is part of music history. I don't find it great nor very interesting but in a musical historical perspective, the album is outstandingly original and therefore also enlisted in "1001 Albums You Must Hear Before You Die". Needles say, the album has been reissued in a number of editions - most noteworthy, I reckon, is the "40th Anniversary Edition", which comes in a 2 and 3-disc version of the album with disc 1 containing the original mono mix and with disc 2 containing a stereo version of the original European edition of the album. The bonus disc edition (disc 3) also contains the band's first three singles alongside several outtakes. The album is a must have when speaking about psychedelic rock and then it's also very interesting in that it's the only album by the band with Syd Barrett. If you 'only' happen to be aquainted with later albums by Floyd, this is a different type of music as Barrett's own originality shines through in a way, you will only hear on this.
Highly recommended.
[ allmusic.com, Rolling Stone Album Guide, Q Magazine 5 / 5, The Daily Telegraph 4 / 5 stars ]
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