Atom Heart Mother (1970)
1. Atom Heart Mother Suite
2. If
3. Summer '68
4. Fat Old Sun
5. Alan's Psychedelic Breakfast
Generally regarded as the least-loved and least-remembered album in Pink Floyd’s catalog—and not without justification. In fairness, the band was still in the throes of their post-Barrett identity crisis. The grand conceptual pieces and rock opera ambitions of their later years were still a ways off. For now, they were mostly concerned with being “out there.” And if that meant alienating casual listeners in the process, so be it.
The good news is that unlike the chaotic studio half of Ummagumma, this record at least flirts with something resembling structure. Yes, there are actual songs here. The trouble is, very few of them manage to stick. The band hadn’t yet outgrown their fascination with sound-for-sound’s-sake, which means that even the better musical ideas are often interrupted by an overwhelming desire to simply be weird.
Take Alan’s Psychedelic Breakfast, for instance. At its core, this 13-minute track contains some of the most pleasant and melodic playing the band had delivered to that point. But instead of simply riding the wave of the music, they stop—frequently—to let us listen to a man make breakfast. Literally. Crackling bacon, pouring milk, and an oddly mumbling narrator discussing his love of eggs and tea. These interludes break up the music entirely, and the result feels more like a prank than a composition. Had they just let the music play, and maybe kept the quirky title, the piece could’ve worked a lot better.
Then there's side one—the 24-minute title track Atom Heart Mother Suite. It’s an ambitious, classically-tinged composition complete with brass arrangements and a choir, and while it certainly sounds important, it rarely feels like it. There are some impressive movements, but the whole thing comes off more as an exercise in endurance than enjoyment. Even diehard Floyd fans have likely only made it all the way through a handful of times. Once you get past the novelty of “Pink Floyd with a full orchestra,” you’re left with a rather long piece that never fully justifies its running time.
The final 15 minutes of the record are devoted to three shorter, more traditional tracks—one each by Roger Waters, Richard Wright, and David Gilmour. Curiously, these are the highlights. Waters’ If is a melancholic acoustic ballad that comes close to resembling a love song—albeit a Floydian one, featuring musings on madness and disconnection. Wright’s Summer ’68 is upbeat by their standards and boasts a strong melody, while Gilmour’s Fat Old Sun is a pastoral, gently psychedelic piece that he would later revive during his solo tours. These tracks hint at the songwriting strengths that would soon define the band, but they’re so deeply buried in the album’s more bloated moments that it’s no wonder many fans overlook them entirely.
Atom Heart Mother is definitely the sound of a band still sorting themselves out. They weren’t quite ready to let go of their early experimental instincts, even as their songwriting chops were starting to come into focus. The pieces were there—they just hadn’t figured out how to assemble them yet. Fortunately, they would. And soon.
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