Vulture Ranking (out of 165 songs): 8
UCR Ranking (out of 167 songs): 14
Louder Ranking (out of 50 songs): 25
WMGK Ranking (out of 40 songs): 17
Ranker Ranking (out of 132 songs): 29
Billboard Ranking (out of 50 songs): 26
Vulture Ranking (8 out of 165 songs): This was the lead-off track to Piper - more evidence that Barrett also had something to say on guitar. The beginning here is as dramatic as anything Pete Townshend was coming up with at the time. The vocal track is much less interesting, but there’s something big and powerful coming out of Barrett’s crazed brain. It’s unquestionably a major song, its hints of chaos and even danger a landmark in the development of psychedelic rock. The descending guitar line is a little trite - compare it to the thunder of “Sunshine of Your Love,” for example — but its low-fi nature has its own charms, and almost a punk feel. And it really worked live. (Not sure who told Syd “domine” needed an accent, though.) Unfortunately, Barrett’s beginning was his end. By the time the band had finished its first album, it was obvious Barrett was damaged. There’s no official diagnosis of his condition, but based on the surviving record it seems safe to say that Barrett was an early acid casualty. “He completely disappeared into himself,” a friend said. And when, temporarily, he came out, he did things like trade away his car to a passerby for a pack of cigarettes. His ability to contribute deteriorated to the point where the band brought on Gilmour to play guitar for him; they even thought they might pull off a Brian Wilson arrangement, where Barrett could stay offstage and write the songs. But that couldn’t happen. Eventually the band stopped picking him up for performances, and Gilmour stepped up to become the group’s main vocalist.
UCR Ranking (14 out of 167 songs): Astronomy Domine led some to classify PF as space rock, a label they resisted. Listening to it, you can understand why that tag was such an easy one for fans to affix. Barrett takes listeners not just on a journey to the stars (and the moons of Uranus and Saturn), but to a whole other world with imagery that can’t help but fire the imagination (“the icy waters underground,” “a fight between the blue you once knew”). The sonics are spellbinding, particularly the descending, chromatic progression matched with a piercing howl that could be the sound of a star burning out. But, like Barrett, before it crumbles, it burns so very brightly.
Louder Ranking (25 out of 50 songs): Talk about laying down a marker. The opening blast from Floyd’s debut LP is a psychedelic freak-out from the pen of Syd Barrett, inspired by his burgeoning interest in all things celestial and kick-started by manager Peter Jenner listing names of various planets through a megaphone. Barrett and Rick Wright share vocals, although it’s the breathless interplay of the whole band that really impresses. Wright’s organ and Waters’s truculent bass keep the ship docked in orbit, while Nick Mason doles out flurries of drum fills and Barrett heads into the cosmos with echo-delay guitar and an exploratory sense of awe. Astronomy Domine remained part of Floyd’s live shows even after Barrett’s departure, despite them baulking at the suggestion that it was a prime example of ‘space rock’.
WMGK Ranking (17 out of 40 songs): Written by Syd Barrett, it sees him sharing vocals with Richard Wright. The haunted jam saw Barrett looking to the stars, and figuring that other planets would be just as scary as this one: “Jupiter and Saturn, Oberon, Miranda and Titania, Neptune, Titan, stars can frighten.”
Billboard Ranking (26 out of 50 songs): Appropriate that the first song to ever appear on a Pink Floyd LP should begin with the sound of their manager reading the names of the planets over a megaphone, and unfold with zooming guitars, Morse code synths, pounding drums and disembodied vocals. The band would find many new and innovative ways to ready their brew for mass consumption — and it's been rightly pointed out that the band never really sang about space that much after this — but all the ingredients for their mega-success were still pretty much right there from the beginning.
Up next, another Wall track (sorry
@PIK95) . . . based on something that actually happened in real life.