Poll: How do you rate Pink Floyd's "Atom Heart Mother" album?

Always loved the album, with the AHM suite about as strong as Echoes. Summer '68 is my favorite from Side 2. My buds and I in college probably played the suite into the quad at night more than any other Floyd selection.

That said, and in comparison to the later 70's albums and almost 40 years of retrospection, overall I'll stop just short of declaring it one of their best (though it is essential listening for Floyd fans, IMO), and voted A pretty solid effort - worth recommending.

Doug

 

Solid Effort: One I enjoy
Of course having a Dutch lineage and my Grandfather a Dairy Farmer, I had to go with the Holland Pressing

 

To me, the horn section is where "Summer '68" gets a little blaring and overbearing. It's pretty good up to that point.

I personally find just about all of Wright's contributions to early Floyd largely overlooked.

 

Definitely a skip for me. Never held my attention at all.

 

Fat old sun not memorable? I couldn't stop humming the chorus after I first heard it but alas we are all different in our tastes.

I like this album compared to say the final cut but don't revisit it often....about as often as more and saucer full of secrets.

 

I'm a huge Floyd fan and I couldn't tell you how "Fat Old Sun" goes at all. Stuff from Obscured by Clouds ? Sure.

I think when even the main songwriters of the band are saying the album is weak there might be something to it ....

 

One of their best!

"If" is Waters in top form ... an overlooked track.

"If I go insane, please don't put your wires in my brain."
Roger never sounded more like Syd.

I really like all songs on that album.

 

I agree. The title track's quad mix has the drums centered and it sounds much better that way. Though some sections on Side 2 sound weird, especially 'If' with its ADT additions.

 

As someone said on the last page........somewhere between essential and solid effort.

 

So-so.

 

Always loved the "Atom Heart Mother" suite -- the rest on the album is OKish.

That and live "Ummagumma" are the best PF works for me, probably meaning I'm not much of a fan.

 

Yes, all the orchestra and choir stuff was added at a later session.
Roger and Nick played the basic track from start to end without interruptions, probably because EMI didn't want the band to cut and slice tapes in those days so it had to be one 'perfect' take or something.
David did guitar overdubs later, so did Rick with organs/keys. Besides SFX, in the end Ron Geesin came in with orchestra and choir.
Later he often commented that he wasn't satisfied with the results because in some parts the choir was out of sync with the band's backing track and they couldn't redo these takes. Eventually those sound effects in the middle covered issues.

 

Atom Heart Mother, is way better than anything Gilmour and Waters have done solo.

Much better than The Wall, as well.

True Pink Floyd music.

 

Probably my favourite Floyd album.
Weird and wonderful from start to finish.

 

Waters: "Atom Heart Mother is a good case, I think, for being thrown into the dustbin and never listened to by anyone ever again... It was pretty kind of pompous, it wasn't really about anything."

Gilmour, in 2001: "I listened to that album recently: God, it's sh *t, possibly our lowest point artistically."

They're both right.

 

Not in my opinion.

And I'm a true fan.

 

On various occasions they've dismissed most of their pre-1973 work in similar fashion. Their opinion, which of course can't be argued with. But at the time, they worked on those post-Syd records with belief and enthusiasm*. Which was how we (the then-smallish Floyd cult, of which I am a charter member) received them at the time.




*Although occasionally accompanied by droll commentary; Nick being the drollest.

 

Not bad. Other than the title track I hardly listen to it but I am going to put it on now.

 

It takes a true fan to love this half baked snooze fest IMO. I recall Gilmour saying it was proof that PF fans would buy absolutely anything, but I can't find the quote.

 

I'd have to rate it around The Final Cut and Ummagumma, in terms of their output post-Syd with Waters.

I think AHM is better than the studio record of Ummagumma by far.

 

This is hard to plug into one of the five categories offered in the poll. It's not "lower tier" because it's not good overall. I'm kind of indifferent to it. And so that's where I'll put it -- lower tier because of indifference.

I can't imagine urging this album on a friend or acquaintance when Pink Floyd is the topic of discussion. I could suggest listening to the title track and Fat Old Sun...and, I guess Summer '68, but just to get a sense of how they evolved.

Hmm, maybe I talked myself into "not bad"!

The first time I heard this was on a family outing along a river up in the mountains. My older brother played it (on a reel to reel? I think), calling it "dinner music". My father snapped at him to turn it off.

 

Yeah, you could say the same about Endless River too. We get it, Gilmour and Waters hate it, as they look askance as pretty much everything they did before Meddle. Artists aren't always the best critics of their own work. As the Bishop noted, I'd take Atom Heart Mother over anything that either of them has done in the last thirty-five years. In a heartbeat.

 

A lot of the disparaging quotes on record from Gilmour are from about fifteen years ago. He evidently felt it earned reassessment in the interim, with his contribution to the live performance of the Atom Heart Mother suite in 2008 and Fat Old Sun later being in his solo setlist. Hardly in keeping with his earlier view that the material is "s**t" and represents an "artistic low point". Those two tracks represent almost three fifths of the album.

 

A rare lapse in p.r. decorum for David, who's usually pretty respectful -- and grateful for -- the fanbase.

 

I agree. An artist shouldn't negatively critique their own output, there's plenty of others who will do that. He's right though.