syd barret is not an outsider

In my last post, I wrote a little bit about outsider music, and listed a couple of the big names in the genre -- as if that's not an oxymoron.

Irwin Chusid's book includes a section on Syd Barrett -- the man best known as a founding member of Pink Floyd. At the risk of being tendentious, I do not accept the notion thatBarrett counts as an outsider. It doesn't matter how badly his mental state degenerated or how unhinged his solo works are. If you were the creative force in a band as prominent as Pink Floyd -- to the point where some hardcore fans consider Piper at the Gates of Dawn (the only Floyd album to include Barrett) to be the only "legitimate" Floyd album -- the, I'm sorry, but you can never qualify for outsider status.