Barrett is the second and final studio album of new material by English musician Syd Barrett.

Recording began at Abbey Road Studios on 26 February 1970 and lasted for 15 sessions until 21 July. The album was produced by Barrett's former Pink Floyd bandmates David Gilmour and Richard Wright, who also contributed bass and keyboards respectively. Jerry Shirley played drums; he and Gilmour had played on Barrett's previous album, The Madcap Laughs (1970).

Barrett was released in November 1970 on Harvest Records in the United Kingdom; unlike The Madcap Laughs, it failed to chart. The album was re-released in 1974 as part of Syd Barrett, which was the first US issue of these LPs. No singles were issued from the album. It was remastered and reissued in 1993, as were Madcap and Barrett's other album, Opel (1988)—both as standalone releases and as part of the Crazy Diamond box set. A newly remastered version of Barrett was issued in 2010.

The initial sales and the critical and public reaction to Barrett's first solo album, The Madcap Laughs, were deemed sufficient and enthusiastic enough for EMI to sanction a second solo album by Barrett. On 24 February 1970, a month after releasing The Madcap Laughs, Barrett appeared on John Peel's Top Gear radio show, where he performed only one song from the newly released album ("Terrapin"), three that would later be recorded for Barrett ("Gigolo Aunt", "Baby Lemonade" and "Effervescing Elephant"), and a one-off ("Two of a Kind", which was written by Richard Wright). The session producers had no verbal contact with Barrett, having communication with him only via Gilmour. For the radio session, Gilmour and Humble Pie drummer Jerry Shirley accompanied Barrett on bass and bongos, respectively. The version of "Gigolo Aunt" recorded for the radio session (and later released on 1988's The Peel Session) was unfinished, with Barrett merely singing the opening verse three times. Barrett played slide guitar on the radio version of "Baby Lemonade", with Gilmour on organ.

Two days later, he began working on his second album in Abbey Road Studios, with Gilmour as producer, and a trio of musicians: Richard Wright, Shirley and Gilmour. The main aim for the Barrett sessions was to give Barrett the structure and focus many felt was missing during the long and unwieldy sessions for The Madcap Laughs. Thus, the sessions were more efficiently run and the album was finished in considerably less time than The Madcap Laughs (six months, compared to Madcap's one year). On 6 June 1970, Barrett gave his one and only official solo performance, at the Olympia in Kensington, backed once more by Gilmour and Shirley. At the end of "Octopus", the fourth number of the set, Barrett baffled the audience and his backing musicians by abruptly taking off his guitar and walking off stage.

According to Jerry Shirley, "What David Gilmour wanted (and tried) to do, unlike the first record The Madcap Laughs, was have a unified rhythm section that played the entire record like any band would do. Which meant me on drums, David on bass, Rick Wright on keyboards, and Syd on ALL guitars, and that was something Dave was adamant about." The first session was on 26 February: three of the first songs—fully recorded—attempted during the session were "Baby Lemonade", "Maisie" and "Gigolo Aunt". However, Gilmour thought they were losing the "Barrett-ness". After "Baby Lemonade" was attempted, two takes of "Maisie" were recorded before Barrett went into 15 takes of "Gigolo Aunt". Jerry Shirley had commented on the final take of "Gigolo Aunt": "I was quite happy with 'Gigolo Aunt', Syd had played his parts so 'correctly' that I can remember at the end of the take we were flabbergasted. It was like we were thinking 'you're not that nuts afterall, you almost got through this take perfectly!'" On the next day, two-track demos of "Wolfpack", "Waving My Arms in the Air", "Living Alone" and "Bob Dylan Blues", were recorded. The former two made it to the album; the latter two did not. On the recording sheet, it lists Gilmour as having taken home a copy of the latter two, Gilmour later returned and took the master tapes too. Gilmour has since said: "Those sessions were done so quickly. We were rushing to gigs every day and had to fit recording sessions in between. I probably took it away to have a listen and simply forgot to take it back. It wasn't intended to be a final mix. Syd knocked it off, I took a tape home." Despite some minor work made to "Gigolo Aunt", Barrett did not return to recording at Abbey Road Studios until 1 April, due to Pink Floyd working on their 1970 album, Atom Heart Mother. On various occasions, Barrett would "spy" on the band as they recorded the album. Again, he recorded some work to a song, "Wolfpack", on 3 April, before the sessions were postponed until 5 June, this time due to Gilmour and Wright going on tour in the US with Pink Floyd.

In the session of 5 June, Barrett managed to record an unknown number of two-track demos for three songs: "Rats", "Wined and Dined", and "Birdie Hop". The "Rats" demo recorded at that time became the basis for the album master, and would later be overdubbed by musicians, despite the changing tempos. A session on 7 June saw the recording of "Milky Way" and "Millionaire", and was rounded off with overdubs for "Rats". "Millionaire" was originally titled "She Was a Millionaire", and was originally recorded by Pink Floyd. Barrett recorded two attempts at a backing track before abandoning it, and adding vocals. Yet another break in recording occurred, until 14 July, where Barrett recorded several takes of "Effervescing Elephant", while numerous overdubs were added to Barrett's "Wined and Dined" demo by Gilmour. Three takes of "Dominoes" ensued, with an unknown number of takes of "Love Song", "Dolly Rocker" and "Let's Split" were recorded. "Love Song" and "Dolly Rocker" were both overdubbed, the former being overdubbed from 17 to 21 July, but overdubs for the latter were wiped. On 21 July, Barrett worked on another untitled track (later titled as "Word Song"), recording only one take, before recording five takes of the last new song to be recorded for Barrett: "It Is Obvious". Barrett worked on remakes of two tracks: "Maisie", and "Waving My Arms in the Air" (the latter now segueing into a new track, "I Never Lied to You").{{#tag:ref|On the several occasions at which several attempts were made at recording "Waving My Arms In The Air", it was always the first take on each occasion that was marked as "best".

Shirley said of Barrett's playing: "He would never play the same tune twice. Sometimes Syd couldn't play anything that made sense; other times what he'd play was absolute magic." Barrett's direction to the other musicians was limited to pronouncements like "Perhaps we could make the middle darker and maybe the end a bit middle afternoonish. At the moment it's too windy and icy".