Pink Floyd Atom Heart Mother R.I.P.?

[Marmalade]

Roger Waters has given an interview with RT explaining how (he thinks) Zelensky is a cunt and the West should simply sit down with Russia and end the war.

For forum members who can go that far back, I wonder if anyone else feels the real rot set in years ago when Pink Floyd became ‘part of the machine’ …after Atom Heart Mother.

UmmaGumma was their most creative album, probably powered by a rather generous amount of the psychedelic drug, LSD: sheer brilliance.  Gates of Dawn had been a start-up album before kicking off with Saucerful of Secrets and parting company with Syd Barrett. More was a warm up. Then came the real thing, UmmaGumma, unlike anything made before as much as Mahler was unlike anything in the age of Handel.

Atom Heart Mother was that gentle back-to-nature album that was nice to wake up to after a night of drug-fuelled excess. After that it all started to go wrong, though they did learn how to make an awful lot more money. Meddle was and still is nice. Just nice. With Obscured by Clouds fans started wondering if their albums were still worth it.

With Dark Side of the Moon it was if someone had bought them up, commoditised them,  taken away the drugs, told them to write tunes, and fill in with some blithe social comment. It was like a retirement cheque.

Years ago I saw Wizard of Oz played at the cinema with the sound turned off and Dark Side of the Moon played instead. (This is a known phenomenon: External Link/Members Only ). Pink Floyd, fully bottled, marketed and with mystery thrown in.

Roger Waters never looked back. Like a geriatric Greta Thunberg he sporadically lectures us on how to save the planet and anything else. RT must have seemed a logical next step.

I realise fans who aren’t alive to experience the heyday of UmmaGumma and Atom Heart with say Dark Side is a work of genius. I would simply add ‘corporate genius’

[mr.bluesky]

I am quite into Pink Floyd they are one of my favourite bands but I was not a fan of their early albums . Like a lot of people I guess I really got into them after listening to Dark Side of the moon which I never tire of listening to. Their last one "The endless River" I never rated it much. Apart from Darkside of the moon my favourite would have to be The Division Bell. I guess like all bands they evolve over a period of time and like bands like The Rolling Stones and Fleetwood Mac are still going strong .

[King Nuts]

Always been a Floyd fan. And yes, one wonders how the same band (more or less) can make Ummagumma AND Dark Side of the Moon.

Saw them live only once, at Earls Court around the time of the Division Bell. Fabulous show. And I remember seeing them on TV as part of the Live Eight Hyde Park show in 2005. After all the other crap acts went on, the four lads reunited to play a half dozen tunes, and were note perfect. Class.

And Roger Waters is right about Zelensky.

[SpaceRaiderDave]

Roger must have gone bat shit crazy if he saw this headline on the BBC "Pink Floyd reunite for Ukraine protest song"

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[JimmySW]

I am quite into Pink Floyd they are one of my favourite bands but I was not a fan of their early albums . Like a lot of people I guess I really got into them after listening to Dark Side of the moon which I never tire of listening to. Their last one "The endless River" I never rated it much. Apart from Darkside of the moon my favourite would have to be The Division Bell. I guess like all bands they evolve over a period of time and like bands like The Rolling Stones and Fleetwood Mac are still going strong .

My thoughts exactly, listening to Dark Side of The Moon for the first time and experiencing true stereo like that on a good sound system was an amazing experience.

[Marmalade]

I can accept that I may have some bias, as do most people, towards stuff I lived through as a teenager: but my point is a more objective one. UmmaGumma used a massive amount of innovative musical technique, new elements incorporated into the overall sound (as did Mahler). By Atom Heart, this was watered down to the sound of someone eating cornflakes but at least innovative.

New musical elements are largely lacking from subsequent albums which rely more on ‘nice tunes’ and ‘interesting lyrics’. It is these albums that the Beeb delve into for the occasional burst of theme tune and Dark Side is considered a rock classic (The Wizard of Oz detail, as intentional, has never been verified by the band as far as I know). They were successful sounds but generic. People say it was Syd Barrett that had given them experimental edge — and perhaps when he left (being a bit too experimental perhaps) they subsided into more ‘acceptable sounds’.

It happened to many bands. Often when they succeeded enough to be recognised but decided they weren’t getting paid enough (Marc Bolan being an overt example — complained that no-one bought the music fans said they loved so he churned out T-Tex instead).

If you are truly experimental, contributing something genuinely new, the vast majority will reject it in favour of stuff that is more of what they’re used to but with a bit more edge.

[Marmalade]

So what else do people think has been truly innovative over the years? House music? Macy Gray?

Probably the ‘concept album’ could be classed as pretty innovative. Some of Floyd’s verge on being concept albums.

I think concept albums started with The Moody Blues (Days of Future Passed). John Mayall’s Blues from Laurel Canyon is in the gonceptvslbum category and has stood the test of time rather better.

Other contributions welcomed.

[Malvolio]

The Who Sell Out (1967) - the concept is you're listening to a pirate radio station, complete with advertisements between the songs.

For me a better album than either Tommy or Quadrophenia.