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"Our music may give you the screaming horrors, or throw you into screaming ecstasy." - Roger Waters

"Yes, I agree it could be something on similar lines to what Pink Floyd are tackling. They don't know it, you know, but people like Pink Floyd are the mad scientists of this day and age. - Jimi Hendrix
Introduction

This timeline will attempt to answer the question; what if Syd Barrett remained as the frontman of the British psychedelic-progressive rock band Pink Floyd? The point of departure from our timeline exists somewhere between the months of May and October of 1967, when Syd Barrett's feelings of dissatisfaction with the pop music industry and his desire to pursue his art within a musical setting, coupled with an extravagant taste for LSD, clashed with the rest of the band's desire to continue as a commercial band. In our timeline, Syd Barrett burnt out and was eventually removed from the band, replaced by David Gilmour in early 1968. He and the band went separate ways and within ten years, Pink Floyd was at the top of the charts, playing to sold out stadiums and arenas, whereas their former guitarist and founder was sitting at home, attempting to reconstruct his life after being shattered in the late 60s and early 70s.

Instead, we will explore the possibility of what would happen if Syd Barrett had not become too difficult to work with, and instead fused his vision of a multimedia artform with the rest of the band's desire to experiment within a commercial setting. To aid in the construction of a realistic and plausible timeline, I have researched this topic carefully and compiled my view of the personalities and events from various sources, including Mark Blake's Comfortably Numb: The Inside Story of Pink Floyd, Rob Chapman's A Very Irregular Head: The Life of Syd Barrett, Nick Mason's Inside Out: A Personal History of Pink Floyd, as well as a wealth of online sources including personal accounts, interviews, and reviews. So, please, sit back and enjoy a what-if that changes the face of music.
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