Pink Floyd
Atom Heart Mother
1970
Members:
Roger Waters- Vocals, bass
David Gilmour- Vocals, Guitar
Richard Wright- Vocals, piano/keyboards/effects
Nick Mason- drums
Ron Geesin was not a permenant member of the band but he contributed a lot of horn parts on this album.
Atom Heart Mother a very underrated album in the Pink Floyd cannon, and it deserves to be noticed. At the time of it's release in 1970, Pink Floyd were inching closer to musical perfection. Just about a year later they would release the superb
Meddle album, and in only three years, the stunningly amazing
Dark Side of the Moon. Though
AHM is not at all perfect (the last two songs really drag it down), it is still a very good and ambitious work, and without it, who knows if any of the great albums after it would have been made at all. Not unlike the aforementioned
Meddle, this albums is made up of three acoustic-based understated pieces, one from each member (except Nick Mason), and one side-long epic song. Well, this is a very interesting album, let's get right to it....
1. Atom Heart Mother
This is a 23-minute song of epic proportions, a piece of work so multidimensional and large in scale that it takes more than just one listening to fully digest it and be able to enjoy all it's parts. With that said, it's a pretty good song, for a 23-minute one. "Echoes" (from
Meddle ) is also 23 minutes (weird huh) and I like it a
lot better than this one, but that doesn't mean this isn't good. It's very strange, though. Basically, it's divided into many different parts, some sounding extremely different than the others. The song's main theme is a catchy melody played by a bunch of horns. One of my favorite parts is a funky jam around the 11 minute mark that has some great soloing by Dave Gilmour and an awesome bass line. Not to mention some sweet organ work by Rick Wright. Another section has some very interesting nonsensical, tribal-like chanting going on in it; otherwise there are no words spoken or sung in the entire song. All in all, a very enjoyable song. Not perfect, but great.
4/5
2. If
After the 23 minute wall of noise of the title track, this quiet acoustic ballad seems a little out of place. But it's an enjoyable ballad, nonetheless. Sung and written by Roger Waters, it's just kind of a typical song. Pleasant, quiet song. Nothing extremely remarkable. I like the guitar solo at the end.
4/5
3. Summer '68
Wow, this song is just amazing. As much as I love some of the sections in the title track, this song definitely gets the "best on the album" nod from me. This is Rick Wright's own piece, and the piano work is just fantastic (not to mention Beatles-ish). The atmosphere of the song is amazing, the lyrics are touching, the backing vocals that sing "ba ba do ba da ba ba" are beautiful, just everything about this song is great. If you never buy this album, at least download this song. At just 5 minutes, it amazes me every time.
5/5
4. Fat Old Sun
Though David Gilmour is a superb guitarist and great songwriter, I really don't have a lot to say about this song. It's definitely the weakest of the three middle, shorter songs on the album. Gilmour's vocals are weary and uninspired, and the song drags on at a very slow pace. A letdown.
2.5/5
5. Alan's Psycadelic Breakfast
This is an extremely strange song, and one I could never quite get myself to enjoy. Throughout it's 13 minutes, there are sounds of a man munching his morning meal, opening and closing kitchen cabinets, and talking about marmalade. There is some decent instrumental work at the end but it sounds ridiculous when put next to such annoying experimentation. Not one of Floyd's better experimental songs.
3/5
All in all, this album is an enjoyable one. It's too bad that the last two tracks aren't very good, but the greatness of the first three bring it up a little. Though the band have called it "rubbish" since, I really do like most of this album, and I know many other Floyd fans do too. But still, the best was yet to come...
Overall Rating: 3.5/5
