Barrett (album) - Release and Aftermath

Release and Aftermath

Professional ratings
Review scores
Source	Rating
Allmusic
Rolling Stone

The cover of the album was designed by Barrett, it was originally one of many drawings Barrett had done in Cambridge, years back. Barrett was released in November 1970 to less interest than had greeted The Madcap Laughs earlier in the year, and as a result, failed to reach the chart. Talks of more singles and a third album were rumoured over the following months. Barrett dismissed the album and Madcap, saying: "They've got to reach a certain standard and that's probably reached in Madcap once or twice and on the other one only a little – just an echo of that. Neither of them are much more than that." Allmusic reviewer Ritchie Unterberger called the album "a bit fuller and smoother than the first album", referring to "Baby Lemonade", "Gigolo Aunt", and "Effervescing Elephant", that are "among his peppiest and best-loved tunes", however, "the tone is darker and more meandering" in the rest of the album. In an overview of Barrett's carrerr, Rolling Stone referred to both Barrett's solo albums as "entrancing".

On 16 February 1971, Barrett recorded a short set for BBC Radio 1's Sound of the Seventies radio show, however, in contrast to 1970's radio appearance where Barrett performed new material, this time round Barrett played songs from Barrett: "Baby Lemonade", "Dominoes" and "Love Song". Bored and directionless, Barrett headed back to his hometown of Cambridge and — but for a brief dalliance with a band called Stars in 1972, and some abortive recording sessions in 1974 — left his music career behind for good.

Doing Syd's record was interesting, but extremely difficult. Dave and Roger did the first one (The Madcap Laughs) and Dave and myself did the second one. But by then it was just trying to help Syd any way we could, rather than worrying about getting the best guitar sound. You could forget about that! It was just going into the studio and trying to get him to sing. —Richard Wright,

The album was reissued in the early 1970s with his first solo album The Madcap Laughs as record two of the 2 record set, Syd Barrett as Harvest's series of Harvest Heritage reissues. In 1993, Barrett (along with The Madcap Laughs and Opel) was reissued both independently and as part of the Crazy Diamond Barrett box set, on 26 April 1993. A remastered version was released in 2010. For release on An Introduction to Syd Barrett in 2010, Gilmour laid down a new bass track to four songs, only one from Barrett: "Dominoes".