David Gilmour once picked Pink Floyd’s “lowest moment artistically”
They can be considered one of the greatest bands of the 20th century, rightly ascending the throne as the ultimate kings of prog rock, boasting that they have changed music forever, and perhaps hold the title for one of the best live shows in living memory. On top of producing some of the best music of the past 50 years, the Pink Floyd story is also a wonderfully dense melodrama that occasionally reads like a bad soap opera.
With an original leader who lost his mind to drugs and mental illness, a fallow period of experimentation, a larger period of global success, and having all of it brought down by petty infighting that corrupted the group, everything about Pink Floyd is drenched in narrative. The group may be shy and retiring in many aspects of their public lives, but as a group, they were always a story waiting to unfold.
It’s worth noting that during this so-called “fallow period”, Pink Floyd were still one of the biggest acts in rock music. Although their albums were often listless and formless, the Floyd were perfecting the art of the live show, complete with elaborate lighting designs, projections, smoke machines, and visuals. It was a moment that cemented their position as a group of artist’s artists as they melded the growing alternative art scene with expansive rock music.
As “space rock” became the genre they were most associated with, the band would blow minds with cosmic breakouts like ‘Set the Controls for the Heart of the Sun’ and ‘Interstellar Overdrive’. It was a launchpad for what would become their most pivotal decade in the 1970s as they delivered record after record of comprehensive cultural touchstones, creating unforgettable live shows all along.
But as the 1960s turned into the ‘70s, and outside the live sphere, Pink Floyd were a spaceship without a captain or a solid direction forward. A chaotic democratic process briefly took hold, exemplified by the individual compositions that made up the second vinyl record of the 1969 double album Ummagumma. No idea was a bad idea, and 1970s follow-up LP Atom Heart Mother strung together a wild central suite, folk songs, and an avant-garde album ender that was mostly just the sounds of their roadie cooking himself breakfast.
These two albums, in particular, came to represent the most “out there” Pink Floyd ever got, and this unfocused feeling led guitarist David Gilmour to criticise Ummagumma and Atom Heart Mother in recent times.
“Well, we’d decided to make the damn album, and each of us to do a piece of music on our own,” Gilmour recalled about his contribution to Ummagumma, ‘The Narrow Way’. Perhaps inspired by their heroes, The Beatles shared songwriting duties, and Pink Floyd subsequently encouraged each member to pen their own tune. However, Gilmour thinks his contribution was below par: “It was just desperation really, trying to think of something to do, to write by myself,” he said. “I’d never written anything before, I just went into a studio and started waffling about, tacking bits and pieces together. I haven’t heard it in years. I’ve no idea what it’s like.”
The band’s reaction to writing their own songs for the LP was likely largely pushed forward following Syd Barrett’s departure from the group. With their chief lyricist gone, Pink Floyd was forced to rely on the songwriting nouse of a new set of minds. The group was unable to harmonise properly, and the loss of their previous leader left a bigger hole than they expected.
Gilmour wasn’t any kinder when it came to his assessment of the follow-up. “Atom Heart Mother was a good idea but it was dreadful,” Gilmour told Mojo in 2001. “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.”
With time and space, Atom Heart Mother has seen fans grow their appreciation for the record. The transportative title track is certainly one of Pink Floyd’s best, taking over one entire side of the record and forcing Waters and Mason to play the bass and drums for 23 minutes straight. In truth, this was the moment the band began to lay out their blueprint.
Both Roger Waters and Nick Mason have expressed dissatisfaction with the two albums, but neither has shared the rancour that Gilmour seems to have for Ummagumma and Atom Heart Mother. If nothing else, Pink Floyd was lucky to have existed at a time when bands could take a few albums to really find themselves. The ill-defined experimentation would soon be abandoned, giving way to more heavily structured pieces that gave Pink Floyd the identity they were desperate to find.
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