October 2, 1970, album No. 5. Four on from the bombastic psychedelia of their debut, one of the greatest albums of the 1960s. Pink Floyd, not quite in the doldrums but not exactly flying either, released an album which indicated a change.
A change severing any remaining ties with their psychedelic, whimsical past. A change which saw Pink Floyd move in a progressive direction. A change in the way their music was packaged, both physically and sonically. Bold statements all. But is Atom Heart Mother’s 50th anniversary worthy of celebration?
Should the anniversary be commemorated, instead of celebrated? Rather like one commemorates an event in history, such as the founding of NATO. Not an event itself worth popping corks over, yet arguably did a reasonable amount of good long term. A celebration is something more spectacular. A deserved party, recognizing achievement. And boy could we do with that right now.
You listening, Nick Mason, Roger Waters and David Gilmour? These words would probably fall on death ears, however. Both Waters and Gilmour have been less than complimentary in the past when talking about Atom Heart Mother.
“God, it’s shit. Possibly our lowest point artistically,” Gilmour later told Mojo. Meanwhile, Waters was once asked whether he would consider playing any of this album live. “You must be fucking joking,” he answered unequivocally. “Atom Heart Mother is a good case, I think, for being thrown into the dustbin and never listened to by anyone ever again,” Waters added in the ’80s.
That’s enough to put anyone off delving into Pink Floyd’s more obscure back catalog. Possibly after having already feasted on the big four, as well as on the later Gilmour-led era, and maybe having dabbled with Syd’s early excitement? Is Atom Heart Mother really that bad? I mean, really?
To formulate an answer, a little context is needed: The late 1960s was by common consent a great time for popular culture, with London one of its epicenters. The music of the time was ground-breaking and populist. And somehow, amidst this coolness, a bunch of polite, well-spoken Englishmen managed to become the hippest, most cutting edge of bands. The UFO Club in London was their headquarters and before long “The” Pink Floyd released Piper at the Gates of Dawn.
Inspired by Syd Barrett, their charismatic, cherub-like and beautiful leader, the band produced a gem of a record full of pastoral psychedelia, whimsical lyrical nonsense that somehow made complete sense. To this day, it is a compellingly joyous listen.
As Syd began to suffer in his rock star role, David Gilmour joined the fold to help complete A Saucerful of Secrets in 1968. The band’s second album was no less exciting than the first, with a collection of sharp tunes and cosmic investigations. So far, so good.
Syd Barrett ultimately departed, and without him Pink Floyd’s sound lost a lot of charm and a mire started to spread. 1969’s More signaled the start of two albums of outright experimentation. Folky, in places. Also, unbelievably heavy in places (“Nile Song,” “Ibiza Bar”). Like, where did that come from? It showed plenty of variety and depth in Gilmour’s vocals, a useful tool for the future. But still, the album was basically all over the place, stylistically.
The live material on 1969’s double album Ummagumma contained experimental cuts from the first two albums. A welcome inclusion, if slightly baffling. Why include live versions of material, still fresh, so soon on a “new” release? Hardly moving forward, was it? However, these experimental cuts are nothing compared to the endless sound effects provided on “Several Species of Fury Animals Gathered In a Cave And Grooving With a Pict.” Even the title goes on and on.
Then there’s nine minutes’ worth of Nick Mason percussion on “The Grand Vizier’s Garden Party” and a lengthy (being kind here) avant-garde keyboard symphony courtesy of Richard Wright called “Sysyphus, Part 1-4.” Lord knows what Gilmour must have been thinking on “The Narrow Way (Parts 1–3)”. No sign of any kind of hook. To be fair, that was probably not the point. Folky flashes are heard on Waters’ “Grantchester Meadows.”
Ummagumma smacks of individual members having “their” moment, and the result was nearly 50 minutes of brief hope interspersed with sludge and murk. Possibly, it represents a phase Pink Floyd had to go through. But by 1970, they lacked any real focus. Things had to have some real direction. They had slung a lot of mud at the wall, and only a small amount showed any hint of sticking. A change was needed.
As such, Atom Heart Mother is an album crucial to the evolution of the band. Significantly, it marks the point at which they left psychedelia behind and set down the road of more controlled experimentation, pushing boundaries in a palatable manner. In other words, progressive rock.
The first of these is represented “Atom Heart Mother Suite.” It is in six parts and takes up the entire first side of the record – 23 minutes and 44 seconds of continuous music. All reasonably focused. The first time any single track had done this on a Pink Floyd album. And a formula the band elected to repeat on Meddle with “Echoes.” When this is considered, it’s easy to see the value of this experiment. But is it any good?
David Gilmour served as an early catalyst for the song, which started off as a movie-theme style number. Originally entitled “The Amazing Pudding,” it grew out of “a chord sequence on the guitar that reminded him of Elmer Bernstein’s theme music to the 1960 Western movie The Magnificent Seven,” Mark Blake says in Pigs Might Fly. Contrary to what Waters and Gilmour say, it is by no means “shit.”
A discordant brass hum gives way to the main “movie theme” opening movement, again driven by the brass. Not something repeated too often in Pink Floyd’s catalog. The addition of choir voices, both collectively and in solo form, combine to give a sinister, disturbing feel in places. While the experiment is overdone in some instances, it sits comfortably alongside the band instrumentation in “Breasty Milk” (part 2 of the suite), for example. The solo in “Funky Dung” (part 4), backed by Wright’s funky keyboard, Water’s smooth bassline and Mason’s percussive statements, is key.
That most Pink Floyd of characteristics, the soundscape, was being honed right here. “Its staccato fills and lazy riffs are almost a dummy run for Dark Side of the Moon’s ‘Any Colour You Like,'” Blake added.
With no lyrics, this all could have easily disintegrated into a jumbled mess. But it doesn’t. The “Atom Heart Mother Suite” is thought-out. It makes sense. By no means is it the band’s finest hour, but it is a focused, coherent piece of progressive music. The fact an outside writer was involved may have helped. Poet, musician and arranger Ron Geesin is credited as a co-writer, and the result is experimental enough to push boundaries, yet pronounced enough to hold the listener’s attention.
It is arguable that “Echoes,” and possibly even “Shine On You Crazy Diamond,” could not exist without “Atom Heart Mother Suite” testing the water. Malcolm Dome once described the piece as “something that could neither be categorized as rock, nor classical, nor indeed anything else outside of what it is.”
Side two is comprised of four pieces, with each songwriter in the band having a moment. “If” kicks things off, with a folky feel. By questioning throughout, Roger Waters prevents a naturally pastoral sounding track from becoming too whimsical. Lyrically, it is a step in the direction of familiar future Waters issues, such as the madness expressed on Dark Side of the Moon. Some feel the “spaces between friends” line is a reference to the gap in the friendship of the band with Syd Barrett – which is an important characteristic of the band’s future output surfacing on Atom Heart Mother. Also, there is a minor bite in Waters’ vocals, though the man himself described them at “prissy and English.” So, maybe a nibble rather than a bite.
“Summer ’68” was written by Rick Wright, reminiscing about the band’s time on tour in America. Wright sings of emptiness following an encounter with a fan. “In the summer of ’68, there were groupies everywhere,” Wright said in Barry Miles’ Pink Floyd: The Early Years. “They’d come and look after you like a personal maid, do your washing and sleep with you and leave you with a dose of the clap.” You get the picture. The sound has West Coast vocal elements, as well as a return of the brass section, creating a huge sound at times. Wright’s vocal sits well with it all.
David Gilmour is next up on “Fat Old Sun.” His vocals are very English (compared to Wright’s) and the lyrics reference “distant bells” and “new mown grass” to paint a definite picture of Albion. Yet the music is again influenced by the West Coast of America. A bit Jefferson Airplane, a bit Grateful Dead. So, the confusion of More and Ummagumma returns. Still, “the lyrics suggest bucolic, summer evenings by the Mill Pond in Cambridge,” Blake said, “rather than on a hippie ranch in Laurel Canyon.”
Speaking of confusion, “Alan’s Psychedelic Breakfast” closes the record. Alan Styles, the band’s roadie, was preparing breakfast and the sounds of the fizzing, crackling and boiling ingredients were amplified and used, along with voices, more sound effects and noises. It stretched out over some 13 minutes, creating “the most thrown-together thing we’ve ever done,” according to Gilmour. During the “Rise and Shine” section, Styles mumbles: ‘Oh, um flakes, oh … then I don’t know. Scrambled eggs, bacon, sausages, tomato.” Musical interludes pop in and out, including a chilled soundscape during the concluding “Morning Glory” segment.
The piece was performed live and did make a minor celebrity out of Alan Styles, who sadly passed away in 2001. I’ve always liked it, personally. But it is by no means coherent. In a way, “Alan’s Psychedelic Breakfast” further emphasizes the importance of side one, which was a pronounced, thought-out slab of progressive music, while the record’s final track is overly experimental at best – or in line with David Gilmour’s declaration, at worst.
There are several other important firsts on Atom Heart Mother. It was the first album to feature a quadrophonic mix. As well as the material, the actual sound of the recording was evolving. Quadrophonic sound, effectively filling a room from four corners with different channels, was something Pink Floyd had debuted live back in 1967 in London. Still, it was a technically challenging task on vinyl, especially with the album’s orchestral arrangements. And given the widespread lack of record players with quad capability on the market, something only benefiting a few.
However, when consideration is given to the later sonics of Dark Side of the Moon, and subsequent releases by the band and other 1970s acts, Atom Heart Mother is again, ground-breaking. “Continuing their deep experimentation with live sound, Pink Floyd also released several albums on quad vinyl including Atom Heart Mother, Dark Side of the Moon, and Wish You Were Here,” Serg Childed subsequently noted. “Recorded with great difficulty, Atom Heart Mother deserves special attention.”
This was also the first Pink Floyd album without a title, or the band name, on the cover. Instead, Atom Heart Mother featured a lone cow, in a field, photographed in Potters Bar, Hertfordshire. This kick-started an era of records released without visible identification, stretching throughout the ’70s to The Wall. The tactic, already employed by the Beatles on 1969’s Abbey Road, was later adopted by bands like Led Zeppelin and King Crimson. The music sold itself, see; anything could go on the cover, even a Friesian cow.
Significantly, Atom Heart Mother was Pink Floyd’s first No. 1 album. Whatever the views of certain band members, the public bought into what they were doing for the first time since the band’s debut – certainly in terms of record sales. They had moved from cult heroes to wading through a direction-less experimental psychedelic mire, and had emerged making music the general public wanted to hear.
Easy to dismiss as overblown and self-indulgent, Atom Heart Mother doesn’t contain the same strength of material as on later albums. Pink Floyd wasn’t quite ready. Still, the album’s significance is in what it started – a pronounced, focused epic slab of music, lyrics questioning one’s existence, soundscapes that sounded comfortable in their environment and an overall goodbye to psychedelic experimentation for the sheer sake of it. Add to that a revolutionary cover, quad sound and the public buying it in quantity, then there is little reason to argue with Nick Mason’s comment from his autobiography Inside Out: “There are moments on Atom Heart Mother when you get a taste of what Pink Floyd would soon achieve on Meddle and Dark Side of the Moon.”
Turns out, the 50th anniversary of Atom Heart Mother is actually worth celebrating, not just commemorating. Again – you listening, fellas?
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