Pink Floyd - Atom Heart Mother

[Jimi Dean Barrett]

Hello.
Is it worth making a thread called "Atom Heart Mother @40" to celebrate it coming up to 40 years of Atom Heart Mother?
Or is that something NPF is planning as a suprise? (Delete this post if it is!)
It's all very well Roger Waters touring The Wall 2010, but 40 years of Atom Heart Mother! Their first number one! The one that made Dave Brock stop listening to them after it!
I can never find concrete date of release. It's always September/October?
Am I too early for the party? Or have I reminded you there's time to get a card?

[jtull]

I can never find concrete date of release. It's always September/October?

AHM was released 10 October 1970

[czgibson]

I've always been surprised that this one gets underrated. Apart from some of the music on Alan's Psychedelic Breakfast that just sort of hangs there without really going anywhere, I think it's a really strong album. The title track is the highlight for me - definitely one of their best pieces of work up to that point.

The dislike for this record shown by Floyd themselves is staggering!

[SpeedIntensity]

This is my second favourite album of theirs, after Meddle. I don't get the hatred of it. For what it was, a 'prog' album released in 1970, it's certainly No. 1 material.

I love AHM suite. I listen to it and I hear a lot of things. Between it and Echoes, you can pretty much hear all the ideas of Dark Side in their infancy...but I do prefer the live version from the Peel show, just more oomph to it.

[princessDungan74D]

I like some of the songs of the album like If and Fat Old Song and it has a neat album in away.

[J Ed]

Atom Heart Mother was definitely my 9th Floydian purchase
(or 10th depending on how you count A Nice Pair)
and the last of the main catalog, excluding soundtracks and solo albums, until new material started coming out
nobody I knew knew anything about this one and the album cover gave no clues what was inside

the title track was much appreciated as an early attempt at a long structured piece, but seemed a rather forced attempt to squeeze a half dozen musical ideas between reprises of a main theme ... Parsons' engineering also adds to the prototypical character of this track
the three songs were better than the solo sections of the previous album, and the last experimental track went on too long: I often didnt listen to side 2 at all because of that, or would just listen to either the three songs or ...Breakfast, lifting the needle, depending on my mood

funny thang: I was hanging with a bunch of hardpartying punks later on in high school, who swore up and down they hated my favourite band
but I would bring this album to allnight parties and put side 1 on around 4 in the morning, and theyd get into it, under those circumstances
it worked perfectly as a chillout album for partiers too wired to sleep and made a few new Floydfans as a sideeffect


I saw Roger performing If on his 1984 tour
aside from a rearranged StC, its the only one of his preDark Side songs he's ever bothered with
my theory: its confessional folkie style anticipates where he would go with his own solo work, and even lyrically it anticipates parts of Dark Side and WYWH

as for the other songs performed live:
the strippeddown arrangements of AHM without the orchestra are pretty cool, and theres a lot of soundboards, TV and radio broadcasts, or good audience recordings to choose from
versions with orchestra and choir are too similar to the studio version to be of interest other than as exercises in replication
Fat Old Sun of course was a totally different toon live, one I first heard on a cassette bootleg called Sing To Me Cymbaline: its 15 minutes long with several distinct sections
I recommend the 1971 BBC recording to anyone whos never heard how they played it live

and there is only one live Alans Psychedelic Breakfast, an audience recording of their last concert of 1970, and that too is required listening for every selfrespecting Floydfan
just too bad that wasnt filmed, I bet it was pretty intreresting watching Nick Mason cook breakfast live on stage
some releases of this show are more complete than others, and one of them has artwork by a fellow udder-loving NPF member

[danielcaux]

the title track was much appreciated as an early attempt at a long structured piece, but seemed a rather forced attempt to squeeze a half dozen musical ideas between reprises of a main theme....

I still like it more than Echoes! I Guess squeezing half a dozen ideas in one song is better than 24!

My favourite parts are the big melancholic guitar and organ section at the begining and the noisy spacey interlude near the end. And the big finale/reprise of course.

The solo songs and also the three Breakfast songs are quite good at creating a calm and pastoral mood. The Floyd developing the sound of Grantchester Meadows, Crying Song, Green Is The Colour and the Zabriskie ST (except for Summer 68, which is clearly a developement of "The Rick Wright Song"). Side 2 is nice for summer and spring days. My only complaint with this album is that they cut the FOS guitar solo way too early, when it's getting really interesting. It feels more like a coitus interruptus instead of an eargasm.

[Flying pig437]

I don't have a problem with this album and I'm grateful it's part of the Floyd discography. I don't see it pointing the way forward or anything like that. It's probably the most unusual, unFloyd-like album, well the first side is and it just seems to be a stand alone diversion in their ouvere but the title suite is really good. I like it anyway. If isn't v.good but the other 2 songs are and APB is o.k for what it is. I like it when they go and do something experimental like that. It's got a great atmosphere about it.

[Hudini]

IMHO, "Atom Heart Mother Suite" is listenable, but nothing more. I can hear it occasionally but I never deliberately put in on for my own amusement. "If" and "Fat Old Sun" and Waters' and Gilmour's respective attempts to write songs like Syd would, and both fail horribly, drowning in blandness and boredom. While live versions do some justice to "Fat Old Sun", the only live attempt of "If" by the whole band (BBC’s Paris Theatre, July 16th, 1970) fully shows the lack of any potential in the song and it's been rightfully forgotten until Waters resurrected it for a short while only to be forgotten again. "Summer '68." is overblown, overwrought and overproduced, but still quite enjoyable, while "Alan's Psychedelic Breakfast" is so bland that after all these years I still can't tell the difference between its parts.

[Jack Wolf]

Atom Heart Mother

Album Artwork: Pink Floyd's best and one of their most recognizable album covers, also my personal favorite as well. It is simple yet magnificent! The contrast between the sky and grass is perfect, the cow's position is perfect. This is visual perfection! The back cover photo with the three cows is awesome too. - 10

1. Atom Heart Mother: One of Pink Floyd's greatest musical epics. This one ranks up there with "Echoes". I only wish they had made more of these grand 20-minute musical endeavors. - 9.5
2. If: This song has an astoundingly beautiful melody and terrific vocals to boot. The lyric, "If I go insane, please don't put your wires in my brain", is one of my favorite lyrical lines in all of music. This is one of my top 5 favorite Pink Floyd songs. - 10
3. Summer '68: Another fantastic tune, just brilliant! This is probably the only radio friendly song on the album, it sounds sort of poppish and sort of Floydian. Truly excellent. - 9.0
4. Fat Old Sun: A mellifluous song with nice guitar work toward the end. Equally as good as the previous song. - 9.0
5. Alan's Psychedelic Breakfast: Except for a few sections where you can hear the guy crunching on food or talking to himself, this track is actually quite nice. The crackling of eggs cooking on the skillet sounds incredible! But this is still a let down when compared to the rest of the album. - 6.5

Final Score: 9.0 (out of 10)

Final Word: This is easily one of Pink Floyd's best albums. Had the ending track been more impressive, then this might rank up there with "Dark Side Of The Moon". Definitely in the PF albums top 5.

[Enish]

I didn't think I was going to like this album as much as I did, since it was basically a large, orchestral rock piece accompanied by some folk rock, but in the end, I loved it. Had Pink Floyd not gone on to make Meddle and Dark Side, this probably would have been the best album of their career. The opening track may be pompous, but it sounds too good to my ears for me to have any problems concerning the piece's artistic integrity. The vastness of the piece is one of the reasons why I love Pink Floyd so much. The rest of the tracks deserve some recognition. They're melodically rich, nicely structured, and just beautiful overall. I even managed to like "Alan's Psychedelic Breakfast" this time around.

This gets a 5/5 from me.

[rosm]

5/5

The remaster even made a 10/10 from Alan's Psychedelic Breakfast.

[danielcaux]

Atom Heart Mother + Summer 68 + Alan's Psychedelic Breakfast = Pink Floyd's prog rock album?

I tend to forget how a marvelous oddity Summer 68 really is. It really doesn't resembles anything else in their catalog. A prog rock piano ballad blending together acoustic folky guitar with beach boys vocal harmonies and grandiose orchestral backdrops. You can hear it clearly inspired in A Day In The Life and other proto-prog rock songs like that one.

Sometimes I wonder what would have happened if this song had become a top 10 single? Can you imaging the Floyd going down that path again and perhaps Rick becoming the default leader of the band? Perhaps it all would have led to the band wearing costumes and capes in their 70s shows and Rick spinning around with his piano!

[Nicholas]

Fat Old Sun just being played on Radio 2's Sounds of the 70s

[Morty]

I love this album. The title track, the sound, the cover and the way forward for Floyd. This is a 5 from me.