Personnel includes: Syd Barrett, David Gilmour, Rick Wright, Roger Waters.

Producers: Syd Barrett, David Gilmour, Malcolm Jones, Roger Waters, Peter Jenner.

Principally recorded at Abbey Road, London, England. Includes liner notes by Mark Paytress.

Audio Mixer: Gareth Cousins.

Audio Remasterer: Peter Mew.

Liner Note Author: Mark Paytress.

Recording information: EMI Abbey Road Studios, London, England (05/06/1968-07/17/1970); Maida Vale Studios (05/06/1968-07/17/1970).

The gifted leader of the earliest incarnation of Pink Floyd, and the mastermind behind the peerless psychedelic pop of that group's PIPER AT THE GATES OF DAWN, Syd Barrett's playful, subtly deranged musical sensibilities inspired an entire generation of British songwriters. His brief but inspired solo career, and subsequent retreat into seclusion and obscurity, have only amplified his already considerable popular mystique.

WOULDN"T YOU MISS ME compiles 22 tracks from Barrett's two post-Floyd solo records for EMI as well as a handful of rarities from the outtakes collection OPEL. Though these spare, often chaotic compositions are a far cry from the tightly wound psych-pop of Floyd tracks like "See Emily Play," they are possessed of their own undeniable dark grandeur. Barrett completists will need this collection for its inclusion of the previously unreleased "Bob Dylan Blues."

You know the situation is getting desperate when a compilation recycles material from an outtakes collection released a decade prior. Such is the case with Wouldn't You Miss Me?: The Best of Syd Barrett, a package that basically combines the best of Syd Barrett's two proper albums, The Madcap Laughs and Barrett, with a number of previously issued outtakes and a straggler from producer and Pink Floyd bandmate David Gilmour's vaults ("Bob Dylan's Blues"). But to be perfectly fair, the now-recycled outtakes release in question, 1989's Opel, was a rare instance where such a release lived up to the quality of the artist's proper studio albums. And it's not as if The Madcap Laughs and Barrett feature such a glossy, professional sheen that the average ear would need to tell the difference between the painstakingly crafted and the whimsically patched together. Barrett wasn't exactly Jeff Lynne, was he? So, in this most bizarre situation, it makes a fair amount of sense to consider some of the Opel material to be worthy of inclusion on a best-of. If you're keeping score at home, here's how the track distribution works out: Seven songs come from The Madcap Laughs, nine are from Barrett, four are from Opel. That leaves enough space for the early "Bob Dylan's Blues," a decent song that serves as a flimsy ruse to rope completists into buying the disc, as well as a previously available Peel Session version of "Two of a Kind." All in all, it is a fine introduction to Barrett's solo material, but does someone who released two proper studio albums really need an "introduction" to their work? Longtime fans might want to exercise some restraint, especially since those still-unissued outtakes are being released water-torture style. ~ Andy Kellman