Confessions of a Fanboy

I got the last of my 2007 Christmas presents today, and it is so true that good things come to those who wait.

My brother is on a real hot streak with gifts these days. I got The Ramones’ Anthology for my birthday and for Christmas he got me the deluxe, 3-CD package of the 40th Anniversary Edition of Pink Floyd’s The Piper At The Gates of Dawn. I wonder what it says about the recipient if someone gives you a copy of this sonic insanity as a Christmas gift.

I became aware of this package after reading good friend of the site Tom Johnson’s article about it. I didn’t have the money for it then, so it went on my Amazon wishlist where it languished… until now.

Piper was Floyd’s debut album and is the creative peak of the band’s Syd Barrett-led era. There are some Floyd fans who think the Barrett era was their best – I’ll leave that discussion for another day. Piper was recorded at Abbey Road studios and released in 1967, the same studio and time period in which The Beatles recorded and released Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band. Both albums are classic examples of the psychedelic era of rock. Sgt. Pepper was the more commercially successful while Piper was the more experimental, daring, and bizarre.

I’m not a Floyd historian or a Piper expert, but I find it a fascinating record. Syd Barrett crafted a record that blends cartoonish nightmares, drug-induced paranoia, cosmic soundscapes, and catchy pop music. It’s an astonishing record made more extraordinary by the madman behind it.

Syd Barrett is often considered one of the first casualties of the psychedelic drugs popularized in the ’60s and that is partly true. Barrett did take drugs and I can’t imagine they didn’t have an effect on his mental deterioration, but Syd may not have been – and probably wasn’t — sane before the drugs. Barrett passed away at the age of 60 in 2006.

To commemorate the 40th anniversary of this classic recording, EMI released it in multiple packages. The first package was a 2-CD version featuring a remastered mono mix of the album and a remastered stereo mix. This is pretty cool in and of itself because the two mixes reveal all sorts of interesting nuggets about the songs from the album. The super deluxe version comes in a hardbound book-like package and adds a third disc to the set. This third disc collects non-LP singles, rarities, and alternate mixes from the Piper era of the band. Some of these rarities are available in other packages, others being made available for the first time. Did that sound like a fuckin’ commercial or what?

Anyroad, I’ve listened to the mono mix and I’m now 2/3 of the way through the stereo. This definitely moves toward the very top of my 2007 Christmas haul.

Filed under: Tags: Pink Floyd