 | |
| Released | October 2, 1970 |
| Recorded | March 1 - July 26, 1970 |
| Studio | Abbey Road Studios |
| Label | Harvest |
| Length | 52:06 |
| Genres | Progressive rock • experimental rock • folk rock |
| Producers | Pink Floyd |
Atom Heart Mother is the fifth studio album by Pink Floyd. It was released by Harvest on 2 October 1970 in the UK and by Capitol Records on 10 October 1970 in the US. It was recorded at Abbey Road Studios in London, England. This was Pink Floyd's first album to reach #1 in the UK Charts.
A remastered CD was released in 1994 in the UK and the United States, and again in 2011.
This album was commercially successful on it's release, but the band members, especially Roger Waters and David Gilmour, have had several negative opinions on it.
The cover was designed by Hipgnosis and was the first album of Pink Floyd's to not feature the band's name on the cover, or contain any photographs of the band anywhere.
Releases and track listings[]
| UK release (October 2, 1970) runtime: 52:06 | |||||
23:44 |
No. | Song name | Writer(s) | Lead vocals | Length |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | "Atom Heart Mother"
|
Roger Waters(4, 5) • David Gilmour(1 - 6) • Richard Wright(2 - 6) • Nick Mason(2, 5) • Ron Geesin(1 - 3, 6) | instrumental, wordless vocals by Gilmour and John Alldis Choir | 23:44 | |
28:22 | |||||
| 1 | "If" | Waters | Waters | 4:31 | |
| 2 | "Summer '68" | Wright | Wright | 5:29 | |
| 3 | "Fat Old Sun" | Gilmour | Gilmour | 5:22 | |
| 4 | "Alan's Psychedelic Breakfast"
|
Waters • Gilmour • Wright • Mason | instrumental, spoken word by Alan Styles | 13:00 | |
Credits[]
- David Gilmour - vocals, guitar, bass, drums on "Fat Old Sun" and "Alan's Psychedelic Breakfast" (Morning Glory)
- Roger Waters - vocals, bass, acoustic guitar on "If", tape effects, tape collage
- Richard Wright - vocals, keyboards, orchestration, piano on "Summer '68", bass on "If"
- Nick Mason - drums, percussion, tape edits, tape collage, additional engineering on "Alan's Psychedelic Breakfast"
with
- John Aldiss Choir - vocals
- Alan Parsons - engineer
- Peter Bown - engineer
- Ron Geesin - orchestration, co-composition on Atom Heart Mother Suite
- Alan Stiles - voice on "Alan's Psychedelic Breakfast"
- Abbey Road Session Pops Orchestra - brass, orchestral sections
- James Guthrie - 1994 remastering
Info[]
- The original album cover shows an ordinary cow standing in a pasture, with no text or any other clues as to what's on the record. The band wanted to explore all sorts of music without being limited to a particular image or style of performance. They requested that their new album have "something plain", which ended up being the image of the cow. Storm Thorgerson said that he simply drove out into a rural area and photographed the first thing he saw. The cow's name is Lulubelle III.
- The longest tracks are progressions from instrumentals such as "A Saucerful of Secrets", and "Interstellar Overdrive"; the Atom Heart Mother Suite's split up into 6 parts and features a full orchestra and choir while there are 3 parts of Alan's Psychedelic Breakfast which are joined by dialogue and sound effects of, the roadie and friend of the band, Alan Styles preparing, discussing and eating breakfast as the acid starts to take over. The musical gestures and "mental soundtrack" that Alan narrates, mingled with sounds of preparing the meal in the song gives an visual, humorous representation of the feeling of the first glint of the hallucinogen, to which the song's title refers, as he goes through his normal routine.
- 'Atom Heart Mother' celebrated it's 50th Anniversary since release in the UK on 2nd October 2020.