The Pink Floyd album Roger Waters and David Gilmour agree should be deleted from history
Find me an artist who wouldn’t change a single thing about their career, and I’ll find you a liar. It doesn’t matter who you are; even members of Pink Floyd have entire projects which they’d love to pretend never happened.
Taking artistic leaps of faith is a risk for a reason. However, nothing truly groundbreaking has ever come from following a formula and playing it safe. If Brian Wilson had taken that route, the world would never have heard Pet Sounds; the same goes for Bob Dylan’s ‘Subterranean Homesick Blues’, or any other musical creation that is viewed as a trailblazing masterpiece.
However, that being said, more often than not, artists will not create the next Pet Sounds and reshape the album format as we know it, even if they are as talented as Pink Floyd.
While the legendary band have produced all-time great albums, like The Dark Side of the Moon, Wish You Were Here, and The Wall, Roger Waters believes they made missteps on the way before unlocking the zenith of their potential.
Today, bands seemingly get dropped by labels quicker than ever without being given the luxury of maturing across several albums before becoming the best version of themselves. Thankfully, it hasn’t always been that way, as Pink Floyd were given time to find their feet again following Syd Barrett’s departure, which altered the group’s dynamic. They couldn’t make another The Piper at the Gates of Dawn without Barrett’s involvement, and needed a refresh, which didn’t occur overnight.
Throughout this teething stage, Pink Floyd were yet to become an arena-dwelling rock behemoth, which meant expectations weren’t sky-high. However, public perception did shift with their fifth album, Atom Heart Mother, their first number-one record in the United Kingdom.
It was a breakthrough moment for Pink Floyd that would put them on the path to becoming giants. With that in mind, one would presume it’s a source of immense pride for the band, but quite the opposite is true. From the perspective of Waters, Atom Heart Mother is a stain on their legacy.
Atom Heart Mother, released in 1970, arrived at a fascinating point in their acclaimed career, sandwiched between Ummagumma and Meddle. While it was their third record without Barrett’s presence, Pink Floyd were still discovering their new identity, but it wasn’t for a lack of trying.
Significantly, Atom Heart Mother marked the end of their relationship with producer Norman Smith, who had previously worked closely with them on their work up to that point. However, following the end of the recording process, Pink Floyd knew it was time to move on without him.
The recording process of Atom Heart Mother was longer than they anticipated, which was a low ebb for the band. Ron Geesin, who was brought in to assist with the struggle, later shared in the book The Flaming Cow: The Making of Pink Floyd’s Atom Heart Mother: “When we did Atom Heart Mother, they were at their lowest point of creativity. They were pretty exhausted, and they didn’t really know where to go. It just happened that I was on the spot around that time.”
Ultimately, the album is a reminder of a difficult time in the band’s history, with Waters saying in the 1980s (via The Times): “Atom Heart Mother is a good case, I think, for being thrown into the dustbin and never listened to by anyone ever again.”
Additionally, Mark Blake’s book, The Inside Story of Pink Floyd, quotes Waters disregarding the album as “a really awful and embarrassing record”.
It’s not just Waters who feels this way, either. Typically, he and David Gilmour lock horns on any subject matter. However, they are on the same page when it comes to Atom Heart Mother, an album they both wish had never been released.
Gilmour told MOJO in 2001: “Atom Heart Mother was a good idea, but it was dreadful. I listened to that album recently: God, it’s shit, possibly our lowest point artistically. It sounds like we didn’t have any idea between us, but we became much more prolific after it.”
Thankfully, Atom Heart Mother was only a bump in the road for Pink Floyd on their journey to their musical destination. While their famous experimental edge hindered this album, that same adventurous artistic streak led them to create greatness, suggesting Atom Heart Mother was a necessary step. At this stage, they had yet to acquire the skills necessary to execute their vision, but in time, Pink Floyd eventually mastered this knack.
As much as neither Waters nor Gilmour would like to hear it, Atom Heart Mother was a net-positive on Pink Floyd’s career, too. They may want it to rot in hell for the rest of time, but it was a commercial breakthrough that invaluably helped Pink Floyd in the long term. It’s far from their most complete body of work, yet it still helped lay the foundations for the world domination that would later take place.
