Pink Floyd: Atom Heart Mother - 1970

 

After their previous indulgent outing, The Floyd were full-on weirdo prog by now. 

The first track, Atom Heart Mother, took up the whole of side one, and lasted twenty-three minutes. It is a classically-influenced, largely quiet piece that features a consistently subtle, warm bass sound, some nice drums and guitar too, but, as with so many of these prog suites, you have to sit through the whole lot for the good bits that come around every three or four minutes, such as the guitar-bass-organ interplay at around eleven and a half minutes, which is inspired. The peaceful guitar passage at the end is great too. Indeed, shave fifteen minutes off the track and it would be so much better! 

Quite a bit of it reminds me of Mike Oldfield’s Hergest Ridge. Maybe he drew inspiration from this. As these prog suites go, it is ok, give me this over much of Yes’s output all day long. Furthermore, I have to admit that, for 1970, it was pretty adventurous, falling into the category of classical rock music, something that Emerson, Lake and Palmer would specialise in. The band have all expressed negativity towards it subsequently. Maybe the last word on it should go to Roger Waters, speaking in 1984, who said -

“if somebody said to me now – right – here's a million pounds, go out and play Atom Heart Mother, I'd say you must be fucking joking”. 

The old side two started with Waters’ If, a pleasant, gentle folky song played largely on acoustic guitar. Nick Wright’s Summer ‘68 is a track that features some Beatles-style brass and a catchy drum rhythm as well as some slightly jazzy piano. Fat Old Sun, a David Gilmour song, is again quiet and folky, with some very Ringo Starr-influenced drums. Some strong guitar and bass arrives near the end. 

Despite some equally attractive guitar and bass, a lot of Alan’s Psychedelic Breakfast (complete with cornflakes noises and frying sizzles) is an indulgent waste of time that nobody should ever part with money for. 

There were some good bits on this album, but some dross too. Would I ever play this album out of choice, in order to gain satisfaction? Would I hell. I'm with Roger Waters on that one. Never mind, the best of Pink Floyd was to come, or so I'm told by those who know better than me.