Furthermore journalists has  compared syd barrett to the  1970s British band Wire. I dont think Wire sounds like Syd Barrett .  I  could only hear Syd influence on some songs but not the entire album 

http://www.bbc.co.uk/music/reviews/p98c/

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tL9v5eWYIyo

I refuse to say that an artist is overrated, he has the rating he deserves.

But I can say that IMHO the best thing that could ever happen to Pink Floyd is the retirement of Syd Barrett, without Gilmour and Waters together, Pink Floyd would had been just a Psychedelic band that vanished in 1970 or 71 trapped in a dying genre.

With some cult artists whose careers were cut short it is difficult to quantify their effect while with others it's piss-easy, anyone who dares to say Jimi Hendrix is overrated would be laughed out of the playground for example. It is easier still of course if that career was cut tragically short so elevation to cultdom was guaranteed by posthumous decree and universal public mourning. With Barrett it's not so easy because he didn't die so wasn't taken away leaving a hole of unrealised potential, but just withdrew from the public glare and with that sort of faded away. Yet with the benefit of hindsight and some understanding of context we can begin to see behind the myth and fable that has grown up around him. 

Speculation of his mental state, and the causes thereof, didn't really enter into the public consciousness until after the release of Wish You Were here, five years after his last solo album and some three years after Barrett had withdrawn from the music business. Between 1970 and 1973 Pink Floyd and Syd's Floyd were regarded by the media and fans alike as two separate entities, even their record company recognised this and tried to capitalise on the success of Meddle and Dark Side of the Moon with a budget-priced compilation and a retrospective repackaging of the two psychedelic-era Floyd albums as a toofa. As early as 1971 it was acceptable in Pink Floyd fandom to dismiss Piper and Saucerful, and all the 7" singles associated with them, as being relics of a different age, and with that to some extent, Syd Barrett. It seems strange today, but back then knowledge of a five-man Floyd was more of a rumour or myth than universal truth such that when David Bowie (following the release of Pin Ups) claimed to have seen a five-man Floyd perform on stage around 1967/8 it was met with doubt.

The seeds of Barrett's cult-status germinated around 1972 with the formation of the Syd Barrett Appreciation Society and its club fanzine ' http://www.lulu.com/shop/various/terrapin/ebook/product-18607486.html" rel="nofollow - Terrapin ', but were sown a year or two earlier following rumours of aborted sessions for a third solo album; the hole of unrealised potential that appears as a gaping chasm moments after the untimely death of a musical hero was beginning to form around Barrett while he was still alive, much like it had around Brian Wilson for similar reasons. The promise that Barrett revealed on Piper At The Gates was yet to be seen in his solo work (which in itself was fast becoming eclipsed by Pink Floyd's rise to stardom following the #1 chart success of Atom Heart Mother released a month prior to his second album), people were expecting more and that pressure to deliver shows in later analysis, not only in the documented accounts of the recording sessions that have subsequently surfaced, but also in Barrett's reaction to the reception the albums and his sporadic live shows received.

If everything stands or falls on just the body of work he released then the record is not a great one if you measure it at face-value fifty years later. It would seem incongruous that such a fractured and some would say naive collection of songs would have spored such a far-reaching reaction in so many people that you would be forgiven in mistaking this for misplaced adulation of the myth rather than recognition and appreciation of his work. This suggests there is far more to his work than just surface detail just as there is far more to the man than the myth that surrounds him, his innovation and creativity are reflected below any superficial evaluation of mere notes and words, and analysis of guitar and studio technique (though all are a worthy place to start). The sections covering his creative impact and cultural influence given on http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Syd_Barrett#Creative_impact_and_technical_innovation" rel="nofollow - Wikipedia , while far from being am exhaustive summary, suggests there is far more to this than just a bit of journalistic hype, nostalgia and faddish hipsterism. 

I was, several times, not only with posting it but also in the edits and when Previewing the post to proof-read it. 

It's an interesting one. Hendrix famously toured with Syd's Floyd in 1967 though was somewhat dismissive of their music and didn't have anything to say about Barrett as such. I suspect that Barrett was as in awe of Hendrix as much as Gilmour was when he met Hendrix in Paris later that year. Barratt was never a virtuoso player but he was almost as innovative in his wanton abuse and misuse of the instrument and its effects pedals (without quite the theatrics of Hendrix and Townshend). As Henry Cow's Fred Frith observed in a series of articles entitled "Greatest Rock Solos of Our Time" published in NME way back then: " [Apples and Oranges] is my favourite wah-wah playing of all time – incredibly incisive and articulate. He makes the pedal hang always in the edge of feedback, which eventually breaks through as the final sound of the song."

His style was raucous, blues-based rock, so it's more raw and has more slop in it. He was more effect than technical display--except on songs like Little Wing. But he could do things with it that other people tried to match and failed. You have to know how many different finger positions were in one of his signature slide mordants, and how effortlessly they blend together in sound. And yet, you can watch Jimi on tape take a breath from singing and throw effortless fills in

Also, like any ground-breaker, kids picking up the guitar, started copying his technique. And so enough of his innovations are within the toolkit of a standard player these days. It's like watching Citizen Kane and noticing that you don't see anything that modern filmmakers don't do. And that's 100% true. But Well's techniques started to define film-making. (Still plenty of filmmakers these days don't construct mundane scenes from 4 overlays and glass mattes). 

It seems like every very innovative musician always had a background in other arts, as did Barrett.  All the arts are connected, when they're great.  

Hi,

I'm not sure what "overrated" really means, but as a "writer" of poetry and stories, I would suggest that Syd Barrett stands way up there ... however, we don't always think of rock music as an artistic endeavor and think that lyrics that TELL YOU what they are about are more interesting than a story about a mouse that I call Gerald, the humor and satire of which is way out there in terms of literature. 

Let's face it ... how do you compare one of those early songs, with a Chuck Berry song in terms of lyrics ... you don't. One is not about your willy, so to speak. It's about something else that most poetry and writers work on, even if you call it "cleverness" or something else. Like the Oxford/Cambridge connection is not similar and almost the same.

I would not use Syd Barrett's solo albums as an example at all, although some lyrics are OK, however, the music used was no longer "interpretive" of the words, as the earlier songs were, and the adventure and the liveliness and fun that was with some of his early lyrics, was wasted, and I think that this is what hurt his words, more than anything else. But that way of interpreting his early work, must give a lot of care and attention to the other three members that nurtured the songs so well. On Syd's solo albums, maybe one or two songs were nurtured and the rest was just throw away stuff that made Syd look bad and out of it, which of course, history seems to tell us he was.

I'm sure there were other writers and artists that were much more out of it, that were also "underrated" and "overrated". But most "song writing" in the rock music era, is not that artistic and that intelligent, though some of them are very pointed and strong. And some are way out there to the point that no one knows what it means ... heck, folks are still trying to interpret Milton and Shakespeare, and all come off differently!

If Pink Floyd hadn't capitalized on his freaking out he would have been lost to time and if he didn't freak out Pink Floyd would have turned out quite different. Maybe they would have just become a washed out psychedelic band. For me Syd's solo albums are un-listenable.

Hi,

"Overrated in Britain, underrated elsewhere..."

I agree and disagree, being multi-national and having lived in 3 different countries. In both england and America, since the 1960's, the media has been exceedingly strong, and in love with themselves to the point where anything they said, "was right", and in the end, it was in the name of commerciality ... which benefitted both countries really well when it came to their artists, and films as well. Even Fellini, did not get as much attention in Italy, for example, since even their studio couldn't stand him, and the same thing in Tokyo with Akira Kurosawa.

That made it more difficult for other countries to be reviewed and written about, on par with many of these continentals (American and British), which I think created a two headed monster that pretty much states, nowadays, it all has to be in English, or its crap. many fans, here, still cringe about the foreign languages thing, as if the emotion and the feel of the music itself required any lyrics to show up and talk to you!

Thus, it is easier to think that Syd Barrett is this and that, and others are not. And the fact that PF went on about him in at least two other albums, made it look like there was something to it all in the back of everyone's mind, that the band had to deal with.

There is an issue, even here, of undcerstanding and getting some information as how/what happened, even in the 1960's, and our Southern California FM radio experience during that time, that was hard to recognize even by Dean standards. And it became the history of the "progressive music" by default, by the Brittish, and anyone else saying anything is not correct and few people are even capable of adding to it, subrtracting, and not get involved in the personal thing. I can tell you what I saw and experienced. I can not argue with anyone that thinks that what I went through as a person during that time, is not a valid experience, because their view is more complete and important than mine!

We're all right, and at the same time, we're all also wrong. What happened to one is not the same as another, but what sometimes I think that someone is objecting to, is that a foreigner is talking about their Gods ... and they are not my Gods ... and we already know how that discussion goes around the world. Stupid and worst results in the name of essentially ignorance.

IF, we want to expand our "progressive music", we have to allow and expand, on our views and critical studies. Making fun of them, and breaking up the thread, should not be allowed and that should be on the hand of the moderators, who tend to favor their friends, and not the subject at hand.

Over-rated or not ... depends on our complete view of the whole thing, not just as a favorite, but other than a handful of us, I have not met many who appreciate the early material as much as the later material. I have preferencesm yes I do, but the writing and quality of the poetry and wording in Syd's pieces, and almost second to none in the history of pop music, and they are very special, and show a side of English/British literacy that is not always visible in a lot of their material ... what with the media's interest in the fad's ... instead of the art of it all.