Disco de Pink Floyd: “Animals”

It's hard to call anything of Pink Floyd's underrated. The band has two entries in the 'Top 20 Best Selling Albums of All Time' list, matching the Eagles and the Beatles for two albums in the chart. Their best-known album, Dark Side of the Moon, spent 741 consecutive weeks (14+ years) in the Billboard 200 Album charts. Their devoted fan base includes millions. And that's not even half of their achievements. So to call anything of theirs underrated is rather unbelievable, but in the case of Animals, it's total truth.

For an opener, Pigs on the Wing (Part 1) is a rather fitting start. It's short, cynically romantic, and simple; just an acoustic guitar with vocals with an animal metaphor from the get-go.

Then comes Animals' most notable track, the seventeen minute 'Dogs.' Seventeen minutes is a rather long time on one subject, but in Pink Floyd style they make it count, with plenty of David Gilmour's wonderful guitar solos. For those who view rock and roll as guitar solo heaven, Gilmour is your god. Also add to the combination the lyrical genius that is Roger Waters. His imagery with the album-long metaphor of animals to humans is striking and fantastic. The dog in this song is a greedy businessman, who is always first to pick up stray meat, first to make a kill, etc. My favorite line is 'You have to keep trusted by the people that you lie to, so that when they turn their backs on you, you'll get the chance to put the knife in.' Even more incredible imagery fills the song as the lyrics describe the painful, lonely death of the dog, specifically from cancer.

Next on the album is 'Pigs (Three Different Ones).' Roger Waters' lyrics describe pigs as the overweight, overpowered authority of the 'farm.' This song spends more time criticizing authority figures like Mary Whitehouse (The Brit equivalent of Tipper Gore), than it does maintaining the pig metaphor. The song features plenty of grunts and voice box to decorate the song as it hops from one pig to another. You may have seen the South Park episode where Cartman tells his new fourth grade teacher 'ha ha charade you are, teach-a!' I say no more. Drummer Nick Mason keeps a great rhythm going through the slow track, certainly able to keep the beat.

The last opus of a song is the ten-minute rocker 'Sheep.' This is my favorite of the album. It features the trademark Pink Floyd 4/3 jumpy rock beat (as also heard in 'One of These Days' or 'Money'). Richard Wright gets his moment of shine with this song since his solos decorate much of the middle. Waters again delivers a powerful vocal as his lyrics describe the most submissive mammal, the sheep. They are pictured as mindless lemmings that do whatever they are told with no objections. They do rebel, however, as you can barely hear the satirical version of the 23rd Psalm, rewritten to include karate and meat grinders in the middle of the track. Do your research, it's funny. My favorite part of this song is the ending, the crushing guitar is as hard a rock as you're going to get out of Pink Floyd and its anthem-like tone will stay in your head long after the song ends.

The last track, Pigs on the Wing (Part 2) closes in its simplicity, ending what is a terrific album.

Apart from the music, the artwork of the cover is fantastic. That flying pig is actually an inflatable that was brought into the air above the power station. Its dream-like cloudy sky looks more like a painting, but ask cover artist Storm Thorgerson yourself and he'll tell you, it's photograph.

Just because you see two songs just over a minute and three songs averaging over ten, this does not mean the album is a messed up project or a throwaway. This album has such great consistency with defiant, symbolic lyrics, powerful guitar crush and Floyd cynicism. It was never appreciated when it was originally released, but it's totally worth reconsideration today.

How could this legendary progressive-rock band possibly top the classic double-header of "Dark Side Of The Moon" and "Wish You Were Here"? Simple---drop the saxophonist and the female backup singers, make the music less spacey and more harder-edged, and lay down some of the most powerful, enthralling, bone-crunching prog-rock ever committed to tape! The mighty Pink Floyd did just that with 1977's "Animals," an astounding rock album that is not only an all-time classic, but it's also hands down the band's best work. Hey, I love "Dark Side" et al just as much as the next Floyd fan, but with "Animals," Pink Floyd ROCK with everything they've got, and for the very last time as a four-piece (session musicians were once again used by the band for "The Wall" and every Floyd album that has followed it).The theme of "Animals," inspired by George Orwell's "Animal Farm," is a journey through society split into three caste systems of animals---dogs, pigs, & sheep. The dogs are the ruthless cutthroats, the pigs are the stuck-up authority figures, and the sheep are the blind followers. Roger Waters, David Gilmour, Nick Mason, and Richard Wright blaze through this work with astonishing musical force. With no extra help from session musicians, the band have only themselves to play off of here, and because of that, the band's musical power is given extra strength. "Dogs," in particular, is a great example---Gilmour's shimmering acoustic guitar strums initially sound far off, but then draw closer. As Wright's eerie keyboards make a cameo, Gilmour lays down the strongest, most powerful lead vocal he's ever done for the band. Then the rest of the band kick in, and "Animals" becomes absolutely mindblowing as the band REALLY shift into high gear.I also love the album's intro and outro in the form of Waters' two parter, "Pigs On The Wing," which is actually a love song to Waters' then-wife, Carolyn. The first part of the song beautifully acts as a sort of "calm before the storm," as it settles you into your seat or on your bed, and gets you ready for the sheer musical force to follow. Forty minutes later, after the Floyd's incredible treatment of "Sheep" finally fades away into the distance, Waters comes in with the second half of "Pigs On The Wing," the peace *after* the storm, if you like. It ends the album on a very poignant, memorable note.Pink Floyd have got many brilliant albums in their catalog, but "Animals" is the big one for me. It's outstanding, and, as a concept album, it's also a very fascinating allegory about our own society. Simply put, "Animals" is a brilliant opus from one of rock's greatest bands.

Without a doubt the most underrated album in the Pink Floyd legacy, ANIMALS had three unfortunate circumstances thrust upon when it was released in 1977. Number one, it wasn't as accessible as the band's multi-million seller DARK SIDE OF THE MOON, which was still on the charts when ANIMALS was released. Number two, the blistering punk movement had erupted and painted progressive rock into a corner. Finally, number three, the album had the unfortunate luck of being sandwiched in between Floyd's two most popular albums - the warmly atmospheric WISH YOU WERE HERE and the double concept album THE WALL. But despite all those shortcomings, ANIMALS is a solid album from start to finish and has gained some recognition over the past 20 years. It is now widely regarded as one of Floyd's best works, as it should be.

Pink Floyd were always dark and cynical in their music, but they also had a tinge of beauty that was undeniable. For ANIMALS, they decided to focus a lot more on the darkness and cynicism due to the subject matter, resulting in their most unfriendly recording. Roger Waters' theme on the record is inspired by George Orwell's classic novel ANIMAL FARM (it's a great book, everyone should read it), by taking all that was horrible and disgusting about society and human nature in the late '70s and classifying the humans as dogs (blind money grubbers), pigs (totaliterian "leaders"), and sheep (the weak followers). Lyrically, this is some of the best stuff Waters has ever written.

The album is bookended by two parts of "Pigs on the Wing," which are both a minute each. Despite their short length, these songs have really beautiful acoustic guitar and vocals. It's actually a bit misleading, since the album is much darker. I guess they wanted to be optimistic before turning pessimistic. The 17-minute epic "Dogs" is a brilliant and well-written piece of music. The lyrics are deep and thought-provoking, the melodies are stunning, and the band's interplay is tight. Incredibly textured keyboard work from Rick Wright permeates throughout the song, complimented by simple yet consistent drumming from Nick Mason and raw, spellbinding guitar playing from David Gilmour. The music effortlessly flows from dark parts, to heavy parts, and to mellower parts, and everything in between. Just an amazing song.

"Pigs (Three Different Ones)" is 11 minutes long, and sounds like a terrific leftover from WISH YOU WERE HERE. More great keyboard playing from Wright is shown, but Gilmour's guitar definitely comes to the forefront this time around. It also has a bouncy, playful rhythm that gleefully mocks the hypocrisy of the pigs. The 10-minute "Sheep" is a combo of the previous two tracks, by combining the epic feel of "Dogs" with the energetic moodiness of "Pigs." There's some really awesome bass playing from Waters on this one, and the song does take a left turn with a really spooky mid-section before the end.

With five songs and three them over 10 minutes long, ANIMALS won't be everybody's cup of tea. It's the band's least enjoyable album (from a musical standpoint) and the music and message will take a while to sink in. But when it does, you'll be grateful, and that's what makes ANIMALS stand head and shoulders above Pink Floyd's other material. Instead of pleasing the punk rockers, they rightfully followed their own path.

About as thick as a 28 year-old fruitcake,"Animals" will remain as one of the meatiest albums of all time,and one of the most beautiful pieces of audio literature ever written and recorded.

When I first listened to this album...it really was a bit much for me at the time. Honestly,the lyrics are completely honest and brutal.

Many of you all know what "dogs","pigs",and "sheep" all mean after reading all these other reviews.

Anyway,that pretty much wraps it up.

I give it a five,out of five.

I hope you enjoyed my review,and I hope it was helpful to you.Don't forget to put your opinions of my review in the "was this review helpful to you" place.

P.S. I was listening to this album pretty much thewhole time while I was writing with review.

Still one of the most fascinating of Pink Floyd's albums, and the one that tends to get overlooked in favour of the more acclaimed likes of Dark Side, Wish You Were Here and The Wall. It's also one of the more difficult albums of their later career, building around three songs that each clock in at over ten-minutes and two short bookends that both introduce and bring to a close the overall themes and motifs behind the album. As most people are aware (even those who haven't heard the album, but are familiar with it's history) Animals takes it's lyrical and ideological cue from Orwell and, in particular, his classic Animal Farm. The three main songs - Pigs, Dogs and Sheep - use the same animal analogies to dissect the bloated face of Great Britain circa '77, with direct references to the self-righteous upper classes (Pigs), the totalitarian government (Dogs) and the mindless, classless workers (Sheep). The lyrics by Roger Waters point the finger at each group and offer some of the coldest and most heartless exchanges ever committed to tape.

The album sounds like a complete musical U-turn away from the territory of Wish You Were Hear, with the ambient synth and acoustic guitars of that album being replaced by cold, dissonant keyboards and angular, electric guitar madness. It manages to predate their hugely successful double album The Wall in terms of sheer sound and vastness, but replaces the navel-gazing and self-pity of songs like Comfortably Numb and Nobody Home with something much darker, abrasive and discontented. Like Wish You Were Here, the short number of songs is really a hint that the whole album should be viewed as a complete piece of work, with the songs moving in and out of each other and also, in and out of various mid-song movements. It's not out of the ordinary here for a song to begin with an eerie keyboard refrain backed by an acoustic guitar, only to shift into something heavier, with buzz-saw guitars, heavy bass-lines and furious percussion. As a result, it certainly shows Pink Floyd at their tightest musically, as they offer a selection of different speeds, tempos and atmospheres. It ends up sounding like a punk album before most punk acts had even jumped on the bandwagon, but at the same time, ends up as possibly the band's most 'progressive' album, with the long songs, over-bearing concepts and dense production ultimately having more in common with Genesis than Sham 69.

The lulled opening Pigs On The Wing 1, with its gentle folk guitar and distant organ comes across like a (musical) wolf in sheep's clothing (sorry!!), as the gentle melody and lyrical allusions to love and happiness essentially giving way to the regret, disappointment and desperation that will flourish throughout the proceeding 40-plus minutes. So, if the iconography of the artwork doesn't clue you in (the overcast sky, the enormous power station, the lone pig floating through the ether, the dark red bricks, broken windows and barbed wire of the near-by security offices suggesting anarchy, unease and rampant totalitarianism) then the opening line of Dogs certainly will; "you gott'a be crazy, you gott'a have a real need... you've gott'a sleep on your toes, when you're on your feet, you got to be able, to pick out the easy meat". The sound of Dogs gets more and more intense as it moves ever forward, with Dave Gilmour laying down some extraordinarily dexterous lead work and at least three standout solos throughout the monumental 17-plus minute running time.

The rest of the band are on top form too, with Nick Mason offering some powerhouse percussion, from seemingly improvised moments in those lengthy instrumental breaks, which brings to mind jazz and classical influences as opposed to straight-rock, and then there's the extraordinary organ/keyboard work from Rick Wright, who creates much of the musical textures and underlining sense of foreboding, particularly the album's centrepiece Sheep, in which he really deserved a co-song writing credit for the sheer enormity of his musical contribution. Waters offers a few decent bass-lines, as well as supposedly playing acoustic guitar on the first and final track, but it's his skill as a lyricist that really impresses here. The range of ideas conveyed throughout is spellbinding, as Waters offers moments of soul-searching emotion, spiteful caricature (the description of Mary Whitehouse on Pigs springs to mind) and snarling satire.

With the three songs that create the core of Animals, Waters ably establishes himself as one of the greatest rock lyricists/British poets of the last fifty years, easily showing fellow rock curmudgeons like Elvis Costello, Mark E. Smith, Luke Haines et al a thing or two when it comes to venting their musical spleen (the description of the central character in dogs is particularly cold, especially the central verse; "and in the end you'll pack up, and fly down south, hide your head in the sand, just another sad old man, all alone, dying of cancer"). The climax of Dogs is one of the most hate filled diatribe ever presented on record, as Waters and Co. cut through the heart of the oppressors and their lives of contradiction ("who was born in house of pain... who was fitted with collar and chain... who was ground down in the end... who was found dead on the phone... dragged down by the stone" etc). The bile continues throughout the rest of the album, with Pigs using it's three verses to cut up the moral majority ("bus stop rat-bag... ha-ha, charade you are... you f*cked up old hag... ha-ha charade you are"), whilst Wright offers a surprisingly funky keyboard grove and few piano fills that bring to mind Abba's Dancing Queen (!!), whilst Gilmour, again, offers some solid guitar work and a storming, over-the-top epic of a guitar solo to bring us to a close.

I've hardly mentioned Sheep, though suffice to say it continues the bleak and unapologetic sound, this time focusing on the underclass, as it's lyrical target. It's easily as essential as both Dogs and Pigs, and leads us nicely into the sweet reprise of Pigs on the Wing 2, with Waters bringing this cold and oppressive album to a close with a sense of hope and that sweet closing line... "only a fool knows, a dog needs a home, a shelter, from pigs on the wing".