Pink Floyd fans praise end to Atom Heart Mother as artists still use lock groove on vinyl prints

A lock groove used on vinyl prints of Pink Floyd‘s Atom Heart Mother has been praised by fans.

Lock grooves on records mean the needle and tonearm are kept from drifting in the label area. Once the label area is reached, the needle will lift and reset to the starting position. But a sound recorded in the label grooves means some albums will continually play and need a manual lift of the needle. Pink Floyd’s 1970 release, Atom Heart Mother, does this, and has been praised by fans. The Beatles’ Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band used this technique three years before the release of Atom Heart Mother, though Pink Floyd has been praised for their use.

A post to the r/TodayILearned subreddit shared the effect, with the run-off groove meaning the album played a constant dripping noise until the stylus was lifted. The post reads: “The final song on Pink Floyd’s album Atom heart Mother, Alan’s Psychedelic Breakfast, features a dripping sink at the end where on original vinyl copies, the effect was cut into the vinyl’s run-off groove, causing the dripping noise to play on infinitely until the stylus was removed.”

The dripping has been praised by music lovers, and received comparisons to A Day in the Life, the final song on The Beatles’ Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band. One user made the comparison, writing: “Same thing was done at the end of Sgt. Peppers Lonely Hearts Club Band at the end of A Day In The Life. I believe it was only done on the British version.”

Another user replied: “When I first got Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band, I listened to it straight through and was working on schoolwork while doing so. At the end, the white noise played for close to thirty minutes until my dad asked why there was noise.”

Other users have praised the lock groove and say it is a common loop used in punk and grindcore albums. One person wrote: “It’s still very common to do. I have three punk/grindcore records at home that constantly loop a riff at the end. You kinda feel stupid after listening to it for four minutes wondering when it’s going to end.”

Another added: “Jack White recently did the same thing with the sound of crows calling on his Ultra LP of Lazaretto. It also features a rotating angel hologram when spinning and alternate beginnings to a song depending on which groove you put the needle on!”

Some are not as impressed by the lock groove, with one person calling it “fucking annoying”. Another replied: “And it really doesn’t matter a whole lot since so many decks out there are auto return anyway.” Only a select first pressings of Atom Heart Mother made use of the lock groove.