It’s rare for classic rock bands to happily look back on their work and decipher every single note for their fans. Most artists, including Pink Floyd, would prefer that their listeners spend their time trying to find their own meaning in their music’s lyrical and sonic structures. It means that only a few times has David Gilmour, the group’s chief guitarist, gone into too much detail about the band’s catalogue.
David Gilmour once gave a list of his favourite songs from the band and explained why, due to its association with the late Richard Wright, he refuses to perform ‘Echoes’ live. He has rarely shown much disdain for the group’s back catalogue. He assumes that all of those minor missteps captured on tape contribute to the fabric of the band.
However, Gilmour has always considered Atom Heart Mother to be one of their weaker albums. Though more a six-part musical piece than a full album, Floyd fans will find plenty to enjoy. They wrote the record, released in 1970, before fully harnessing their spiraling sound, representing a group in transition.
However, Gilmour believes the album falls far short of the band’s impressive standard. Speaking with Mojo in 2001 and asked about the late-1960s era of Floyd, which not only had to deal with the deterioration of Syd Barrett but also the powerful sounds of the decade now being washed away, Gilmour said: “We didn’t know where we were going in terms of recording, but we were pretty good live. We were very good at jamming, but we couldn’t translate that onto record.”
Albums More and Ummagamma would indicate that David Gilmour was correct. Fans frequently regard the records as among the band’s lowest-quality works. However, the band eventually found their groove. Gradually, a direction revealed itself to us. The line began with ‘Saucerful of Secrets’, extended to ‘Echoes‘, via the long piece Atom Heart Mother.
The guitarist did not mince words when describing the album’s flaws: “That was a good idea, but it was terrible. I recently listened to that album and thought it was terrible, possibly our lowest point artistically. Atom Heart Mother sounds like we had no idea what we were doing, but we became much more prolific as a result.”
In reality, this summary is a bit harsh on the album. There are some great moments hidden within the grooves of the vinyl. In addition to the transporting title track, which takes up the entirety of side one of the album. They beautifully polished the rest of the album.
On Atom Heart Mother, they were beginning to lay out Pink Floyd’s path before them. Moving on from the band’s explosive moments, they were now creating songs that deliberately engaged with the intellect of rock. Along with the title track, the album includes two classic songs, ‘If’ and ‘Fat Old Sun‘. However, Gilmour will always view the album as a stepping stone to their greatness.
