Pink Floyd, not quite in the doldrums but not exactly flying either, released an album which indicated a change.Ī change severing any remaining ties with their psychedelic, whimsical past. Four on from the bombastic psychedelia of their debut, one of the greatest albums of the 1960s. The version we play on 'Floydian Slip is the gold Mobile Fidelity Ultradisc II pressing, which is the version pictured.October 2, 1970, album No. 'Atom Heart Mother' became Floyd's first number one album in Britain.

The ordinary nature of the cover, of course, turned out to be more radical than anything else the band could have done. In an attempt to shock the public with an entirely ordinary album jacket for the new Pink Floyd album, Hipgnosis's Storm Thorgerson drove to Essex, England, and snapped a photo of the first cow he came across.įurthermore, the album was released without the band's name on it. The album cover photo came about nearly as spontaneously. The story goes that the band adopted the name on the spot. The album's title was allegedly inspired by an Evening Standard headline about a pregnant woman with an atomic pacemaker - a headline Geesin spotted shortly before the band was to go on the John Peel radio show to debut its then-unnamed opus. On the original British LP version, the sound of the dripping faucet at the end continued into the record's center groove, making for a constant drip, until the needle was lifted from the album. When performing the number in concert, the band allowed the smells of real cooking eggs and bacon to permeate the audience. The realistically irritating sounds of a fellow cooking his breakfast act as a segue between the three parts. The group recorded the framework of the 23-minute-plus number, and then left it in the hands of Ron Geesin to add orchestrations, choirs and such, while Floyd toured America.Ī good portion of side two consists of 'Alan's Psychedelic Breakfast,' a nearly 14-minute, three-part song cycle, named after Floyd roadie Alan Stiles. Side one of 'Atom Heart Mother' is composed solely of the title track, which began its life as 'The Amazing Pudding,' a working title that would later become the name of a now-defunct Floyd fanzine.

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