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Atom Heart Mother by: Pink Floyd

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Rating: - Pppppuuuurrrrlllleeeaaaaaasssssseeeee

Don't get me wrong, I love Pink Floyd and its members' solo material, but 'Atom Heart Mother'? Absolute rubbish. 'Fat Old Sun' is a fairly good song, but the rest? Give me a break. The title track isn't even good enough to be considered a mess, 'If' is boring, 'Summer '68' is rubbish, and just what the **** is 'Alan's Psychedelic Breakfast' about?

Avoid this rubbish. If you're looking for some early Pink Floyd material, go for 'The Piper At The Gates Of Dawn' or 'A Saucerful Of Secrets'. Not this rubbish.

Rating: - Hmmm

It seems that mere grand ambition counted for everything in the '70s. Atom Heart Mother has many critics, Pink Floyd included, and many fans, and whilst was hardly groundbreaking, it paved the way for material that was.

The side-long title track is, in all honesty, a flabby, chaotic mess. However, it was the first time PF used an orchestra, which proved to be useful on other albums (such as The Final Cut) and it was their first attempt at a bloody long song. 'Echoes' and 'Shine On You Crazy Diamond', two of the greatest songs ever written, were preceded by AHM, although their really isn't any comparison.

The second track, 'If', is a decent song by bassist Roger Waters. However, is it more remniscent of, say, The Kinks, rather than Pink Floyd. The next two, 'Summer '68' by Rick Wright and 'Fat Old Sun' by Dave Gilmore are also Kinks-esque songs. The final track, 'Alans's Psychedelic Breakfast', is quite frankly bizarre, I can't see any point in it, but it is different from anything else done by anyone on any planet ever, and I like it.

Fans at the time should have been worried. The album may have got to number one, but they were in trouble. Without maverick genius Syd Barrett they appeared to have lost their way. There were two main purposes behind AHM. Firstly, to record new stuff i.e. Atom Heart Mother Suite and Alan's Psychedelic Breakfast. Secondly, to find the new creative force for Pink Floyd. They did explore new stuff, but the Roger Waters-led era remained some way off.

What this album did achieve for Pink Floyd, however, was increased mainstream publicity. It was their first number one of any description, and it ensured the future success of much better albums.

So, should you buy it? It is a decent album, good for any collection, but if you are interested in Pink Floyd and want to try them out, then dont buy this. Later stuff, and indeed some earlier stuff, is much better.

Rating: - Underrated

When I first heard this album I wasn't particularly impressed - I wasn't listening very much. Most of Pink Floyd's material has the ability to really capture your attention (Comfortably Numb, for example.) But it's really grown on me since, especially Wright's Summer '68, which is a quality song. Atom Heart Mother (the song) is good but isn't on the level of other bloody long tracks such as Echoes and Shine On You Crazy Diamond. It receives unfair criticism (in my eyes, at least) but it was a very experimental period for the band, and they worked seperately on individual tracks.

Track two, If, is a good song but reminds me more of the Kinks than Pink Floyd - it's a nice little ballad, but hardly groundbreaking. Fat Old Sun is the crappest ever name for a song, but it's another nice little ballad. But just what on earth Alan's Psychedelic Breakfast is about is quite frankly beyond me. It's out of this world (not amazing, just bizarre taken to a new level.) A strange finale to an strange album

I would definitely recommend this album to anyone. It will have it's moments for most people, but I think all-round it is underrated, and certainly draws a lot of unfair critcism, not least from the band itself.

Ciao.

Rating: - great!

well, some great floyd shown here, what a musical vision they had to try and show us this,...! nothing like it anywhere and not even now..! great weird album still takes you there... wherever there is and drops you off and you have to walk home..!

get your head layed! psyched and accoustic, weird and friendly at times, but always interesting...!

a very important lp..!

Rating: - Single Mother

'Atom Heart Mother' is remarkably difficult to place in the Floyd corpus. Although a commercial success, it is often placed by simple chronology behind 'Meddle' and 'Obscured by Clouds' in terms of musical accomplishment, and seen as the last transitional album, a transition that began with the expulsion of Syd Barrett from the band in the late 1960s. However, the album is probably far more advanced than it is given credit for, and although dismissed by some fans and the band themselves, is loved in equal measure by others. My opinion is that the album is neither as bad as the Floyd think, nor as good the fanatics think.
The title track that opens the album is a quasi-orchestral opus formed in collaboration with Ron Geesin, a partnership whose uneasy nature is typified by the convoluted nature of the song itself, particularly in the opening section 'Father's Shout'. However, following an impressive and well-managed build-up involving the portentous Georgian-style chanting of a choir, and some vastly improved Nick Mason drumming, the piece breaks down into the slow groove of 'Funky Dung': this is effectively the first time in Floyd's career where the immaculate soloing guitar of Gilmour has been allowed to swim over the burbling organ of Wright, and here, progressing to a reverberating chant section, Floyd do achieve some interesting music that has their own identity splashed over it. However, with the returning refrain, you are always kept aware of Geesin's at times inappropriate tone that frequently takes the music into the realms of a Benny Hill-style burlesque: you sense that the two camps are working exclusively and as such the piece is something of a curate’s egg.
After the organised bluster of 'Atom Heart Mother', 'If' places itself in direct opposition to anything so overwrought. This Waters ballad is a tiny gem, containing an unusually soothing vocal from Roger, and a moving lyric that revolves around the desire to escape one's habits and shortcomings, but ultimately realising that the person is constrained by them. The genuine tone of the lyrics lifts the slightly bathetic, cliched music to a new level, and it can rightly be considered a classic early example of Waters's burgeoning lyrical brilliance. Again, Gilmour's developing lyricism on the guitar is prominent in the background; accompanying as opposed to intruding.
With Roger's lachrymose ballad moving along at a languorous pace, the next offering, this time courtesy of Rick Wright with 'Summer 69', effortlessly evokes those long summer days spent chasing through the fields with beautiful girls, with attendant dewy-eyed fondness from the writer. The lyrics are shot through with the typical 60s iconography of the touring band, to name just a few - girls, friends lying in the sun and loud music. The bouncy, up-tempo melody and rather jocund vocal helps enforce this feel-good, rather un-Floyd vibe, there are even some Beach Boys style backing vocals. The closing brass section jars slightly however and is played ad nauseum, spinning us back to the excess of the title-track.
Gilmour's offering, 'Fat Old Sun', is therefore his attempt and subsequent yoke to outdo the summertime feel of the two previous compositions, and begins well as he strums a lonely acoustic guitar in a lonesome fashion. This shows Gilmour's leaning toward folk, but it is not clear as to whether the emotion is meant to be serious; whether what we are getting is intentionally bathetic or not. Gilmour seems drawn to a tender exposition of his desire to be out in the country, but at times the emotion seems contrived. The closing guitar solo finally relieves us of untangling the opposition, setting free his guitar to wail over a smooth tapestry of slide guitar, and keyboard, as Mason's cobbled together drums echo and clatter uncomfortably in the background, giving the unfortunate impression of them tumbling out of the back of the tour bus, which is a shame as Mason’s drums show a marked improvement over the rest of the album.
'Alan's Psychedelic Breakfast' must have seemed like a wonderful idea at the time; although ultimately it is three interesting jams interspersed by the ramblings of a man tucking into his cereal. The at times jaunty music sums up the mood of the preceding three tracks, but in reality it simply sounds like what lift music sounded like in the sixties - in three different elevators. The first cut features a synth sound so obnoxious I am sure Rick Wright just used it as a joke. The second fares slightly better, as above the unpalatable sound of Alan enjoying his breakfast we get a folksy ramble through Gilmour's pastoral meadows around the river Cam, which is actually rather charming, if a little bland. Floyd could probably have culled a proper song from this, as opposed to shoe-horning it into this strange format. The last song is slightly dull but features some interesting instrumentation, pointing the way towards 'Obscured by Clouds'.
Overall, this is an album worth buying if you are interested in the exact origins of Floyd’s classic sound, as there are moments during this album where it shines brilliantly through. Also, there is some fantastic music, particularly in the title track, and in the excellent Waters ballad; Wright’s effort is also commendable though too saturated by the end with its horn section, whereas Gilmour song is just about saved by it’s psychedelic outro.

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