The Madcap Laughs | ||||
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File:Sydbarrett-madcaplaughs.jpg | ||||
Studio album by Syd Barrett | ||||
Released | 3 January 1970 | |||
Recorded | Abbey Road Studios 28 May 1968 – 5 August 1969 | |||
Genre | Psychedelic folk, experimental rock | |||
Length | 37:47 | |||
Label | Harvest/EMI Capitol Records (US) |
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Producer | Syd Barrett, Peter Jenner, Malcolm Jones, Roger Waters and David Gilmour | |||
Syd Barrett chronology | ||||
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Allmusic | ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() |
The Madcap Laughs is an album by British singer/songwriter Syd Barrett, released on 3 January 1970. It was his first solo album after being replaced in the band Pink Floyd by his old school friend David Gilmour.
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After leaving the group, Barrett began recording sessions with former Pink Floyd turned Syd Barrett manager Peter Jenner in May 1968. The sessions were brief, as the project was abandoned for almost a year which Barrett spent as a recluse. In April 1969, Malcolm Jones took over the project and Barrett began working on newer material, while reworking the 1968 recordings. Session musicians, namely, members of The Soft Machine, as well as Humble Pie drummer Jerry Shirley were also called in to augment Barrett's songs. It is still a mystery why Jones abandoned production responsibilities, at the end of May, so soon after having assumed them. Jones' recollections of the sessions are that he and Barrett got on well together and had in fact completed half of the album before the new producers took over.
Roger Waters and David Gilmour were in the process of completing Pink Floyd's Ummagumma album when they got involved with The Madcap Laughs that July and helped Barrett finish his album, "in a two-day sprint" according to Rick Sanders, author of Pink Floyd (Futura Publications, 1976).
[Sessions] were pretty tortuous and very rushed. We had very little time, particularly with The Madcap Laughs. Syd was very difficult, we got that very frustrated feeling: Look, its your fucking career, mate. Why don't you get your finger out and do something? The guy was in trouble, and was a close friend for many years before then, so it really was the least one could do."— David Gilmour, [2]
The album featured a rather unorthodox recording process, in which Syd would provide a backing track of his own singing accompanied by acoustic guitar, over which the session musicians would overdub the rest of the arrangement. However, Syd's playing and singing were highly erratic and unpredictable—he skipped or added beats and bars seemingly at random, or otherwise he would strum on a single chord for a long time before unexpectedly reverting back to the main portion of the song. This was all much to the frustration of the session musicians; a close listen to several tracks [in particular "No Good Trying" and "Love You"] will reveal the backing band hovering uncertainly here, or being caught off-guard by a chord change there (during an interview, Robert Wyatt recounted that musicians would ask "What key is that in, Syd?" and Barrett would reply "Yeah", or "That's funny"). Syd would not allow the musicians to rehearse or re-record their overdubs, insisting that they sounded fine. After several months of intermittent recording, the album was finally deemed complete.
... I liked what came out, only it was released far too long after it was done. I wanted it to be a whole thing that people would listen to all the way through with everything related and balanced, the tempos and moods offsetting each other, and I hope that's what it sounds like, I've got it at home, but I don't listen to it much now.
The cover shows Syd Barrett in his living room. The nude woman appearing on the backside of the record sleeve was an acquaintance of his known as "Iggy the Eskimo".[4] Photographer Mick Rock says, "When I arrived for 'The Madcap Laughs' photo session, Syd was still in his underpants .. His lady friend of two weeks, 'Iggy the Eskimo', was naked in the kitchen ..".[5] In October 2010 she was interviewed, revealing her name is Evelyn and she is of an Anglo-Pakistani background.[6]
"Octopus" was released as a single in November 1969 and the album itself followed in January 1970. It reached #40 in the UK at the time[7] and was fairly well-reviewed.[8]
As part of Harvest Records's "Harvest Heritage" series of reissues—and to capitalise on the breakthrough commercial success of Pink Floyd—The Madcap Laughs was re-released in September 1974 as record one of a double album, record two being Barrett's second and last solo album, Barrett.
Slowdive covered "Golden Hair", which was used in the opening of the film Mysterious Skin.
All songs by Syd Barrett, except where noted.
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Feel is first album released by a Polish pop rock band Feel. The album has earned Diamond certification in Poland.
"Feel" (stylized as feel) is a smooth R&B song by Japanese singer and songwriter Kumi Koda. For the song, she worked closely with composer Hitoshi Shimono, who had composed the instrumental. The single is Kumi's sixth single in her 12 Singles Collection and charted at #1 on Oricon with 39,110 copies sold within the first week. As with some of the other singles released in the collection, feel was limited to 50,000 copies.
The song also became Koda Kumi's second song to have a chorus completely in English (first being 24, which was also written and composed by Hitoshi Shimono).
The music video for the single tied into the four others in the storyline: Candy feat. Mr. Blistah, you, Lies and Someday/Boys♥Girls.
The love interest in the music video was played by Shugo Oshinari. Shugo Oshinari is best known for his portrayals of Teru Mikami in the Death Note TV series and Takuma Aoi in Battle Royale II: Requiem.
As with the other 11 singles in this collection, this single cover represents a stylized version of a traditional dress from a culture; this time it draws its inspiration from Spain and the costume of matadors.
The Bangladeshi taka (Bengali: টাকা, sign: ৳ or Tk, code: BDT) is the official currency of the People's Republic of Bangladesh. Issuance of banknotes ৳5 and larger is controlled by Bangladesh Bank, and for the ৳1 and ৳2 banknotes, which are the responsibility of the Ministry of Finance of the government of Bangladesh. The most commonly used symbol for the taka is "৳" and "Tk", used on receipts while purchasing goods and services. ৳1 is subdivided into 100 poisha.
The word taka in Bangla is also commonly used generically to mean any money, currency, or notes. Thus, colloquially, a person speaking Bangla may use "taka" to refer to money regardless of what currency it is denominated in. This is common in the Indian state of West Bengal and Tripura, where the official name of the Indian rupees is "taka" as well.
The word taka is derived from the Sanskrit term tangka (ṭaṃka), which was an ancient denomination for silver coins. In the region of Bengal, the term has always been used to refer to currency. In the 14th century, Ibn Battuta noticed that people in the Bengal Sultanate referred to gold and silver coins as taka instead of dinar.
Taka may refer to:
Otaka, Ōtaka or Ootaka (written: 大高, 大鷹 or おおたか in hiragana) is a Japanese surname. Notable people with the surname include:
Otaka (written: 尾高 or おたか in hiragana) is a separate Japanese surname. Notable people with the surname include:
GRA or Gra may refer to:
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