FEATURED ALBUM: Pink Floyd - Animals

[Poisoned Youth]

When you have a catalog full of great music, it's a little difficult if not even a bit disrespectful to pick a favorite. Growing up, you didn't really hear much from Animals on the radio if at all. This made it difficult for me to get into sandwiched between some of the most popular albums of all time, full of hit songs on the radio. However, over time I have come to not only enjoy the album immensely, but also feel as if it might be the most complete album of them all. Calling it my favorite might be a bit of an overreach, but then again maybe not.

What do others feel?



Review from Pitchfork:

It begins somewhere for everyone. There's the first song that grabs your attention and seizes the imagination, the first album that demonstrates such overall strength and originality that it becomes something more for most listeners, just as there is the first kiss that awakens the soul and forever changes the vision.

I admit without qualm that it began for me with Animals. My brother was in college, and one day I went through his records and listened to the ones with the coolest covers. Animals fascinated me then as it still fascinates me today. It is the acute anthropomorphic fantasy, possessing a timeless quality that has thrust it into the category of "classic," though it may remain forever in the shadow of its more commercially successful older brother, Dark Side Of The Moon. Consisting of three tracks each longer than ten minutes and two tracks under two minutes, Animals is not for the attention- span- deficient. However, within this impenetrable fortress of radio- unfriendly tracks, we hear Dave Gilmour's guitars at their absolute best, get a full-on dose of Roger Waters' powerful lyrical imagery, and are presented with the worst elements of our own humanity- packaged in the skins of "Sheep," "Dogs" and "Pigs (Three Different Ones)".

For those weaned on The Wall and Dark Side, you'll find Animals to be a whole new bag of feed. Where Floyd's two most recognizable albums made their mark with operatic aggression and fear, Animals deals in dirt- under- the- fingernails reality, the common smallness that simultaneously binds and repels us all. "Dogs," a 17-minute study in the commonest of all faults, lazily dispenses bite after venomous bite into the desires that drive us to seize the fast buck and screw anyone that gets in our way:

You have to be 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.

All this wrapped up in the flaky coating of two hauntingly similar and musically identical tracks casting opposite views of cynicism and hope on the proceedings. Animals is like George Orwell's Animal Farm run through a full- audio acid test- spectacular in every aspect and now in full color.

I admit without qualm that it began for me with Animals. - James P. Wisdom

[Progatron]

For me, it's the best one they did post-Meddle. I don't really listen to the rest of the post-Meddle albums much anymore, but I can put on Animals any time and love every second of it. I love the long instrumental section in Dogs that acts as a transition between Gilmour and Waters' lead vocals. I've always loved the sound of Gilmour's guitar on this album too, and how it's way up high in the mix. It's a great sounding album, and the climax of Sheep is to die for. A classic!

[Sputnik]

Absolutely my favorite Pink Floyd album. Didn't pay much attention to it for ages, but found a cheap copy on CD (which I still have) in the early 90s and decided to give it a whirl. Glad I did, it really grabbed me when I gave it my full attention. I also like WYWH a lot, but this one tops it for me; perhaps because I haven't heard much of the material to death and it still sounds "fresh." I also like the dark, cynical take, and even though the names have changed, the issues are as relevant today as they were in the late 70s.

Bill

[Rarebird]

I love Animals. It is probably my favorite of the 3 albums I have.

[Trane]

It wasn't instant love for me...

As I entered Floyd's soundscapes with DSOTM and WYWH, Animals was quite a sonic shock for me... it took about a month before getting into it... First with Sheep than Dogs, and lyrically, it wasn't as obvious as their previous two albupms (at least to the 14 yo I was)


And those (punks?) saying it was Floyd's answer to punk rock are wrong, because the album was released in Jan 77 (and probably engineered a few months before), and most of it written two or three years prior

[Rick L.]

I like animals. I like Pink Floyd. Therefore, I like Pink Floyd - Animals.

[Zeuhlmate]

I have just relistened, hoping that I would find it more interesting that I did 40 years ago. Alas.

Each to their own.

[proggy_jazzer]

I have no problem calling it my favorite. I still listen to it regularly, 40+ years after I bought it new. In fact, one of my favorite things to do, listening-wise when I have time, is to spin Dark Side, WYWH, and Animals in succession: a sublime sequence.

[mozo-pg]

This is like Pink Floyd's Lamb Lies Down On Broadway. Totally unique in their catalog. More aggressive sounding. Easily my favourite.

[Jerjo]

Animals was the album I came to last in my Pink Floyd exploration and I'm not sure why it was bypassed in the first place. It certainly is a keeper, as much of a monument as the previous two. And still awaiting an immersion set...

[Mister Triscuits]

To this day I still think of "Dogs" and "Sheep" as "You Gotta Be Crazy" and "Raving and Drooling," respectively. I actually have to think for a moment which one goes with which animal title.

[MudShark22]

When peeps ask me to name my three fave PF rekkids, its always animals, meddle and saucerful...

I can always reach for this disc and enjoy it.

[Kcrimso]

My the favourite Pink Floyd album. Real masterpiece.

[JJ88]

To this day I still think of "Dogs" and "Sheep" as "You Gotta Be Crazy" and "Raving and Drooling," respectively. I actually have to think for a moment which one goes with which animal title.

Funnily enough I was listening to Wembley 1974 today and I still think these earlier lyrics are very weak. 'Dogs' and 'Sheep' are far superior lyrics, and have lost little potency.

I would certainly now say it's every bit as brilliant and as classic as the albums either side of it. Such a hard, brutal album, yet not without hope- see the last verse and big rock-out finish of 'Sheep' and the 'Pigs On The Wing' bookends.

[Casey]

I may have been the first person in Syracuse, NY to purchase this record when it was released. Those were the days; record shop owners/employees knew me well due to my frequent haunts.

Anyway, I saw PF live during their 1975 tour when they were airing out Shine on..., You gotta be crazy, & Raving & Drooling. I admit that I had a boatload of PF boots to aurally observe the development of these songs. When Animals was released, for me it was the icing on the cake. The music, the album art, & still no pictures of the band members... The mystique of PF endured but their uniqueness was gone (in my mind) because more and more people were aware of them and playing their music.

As much as I love Meddle/Echoes, it it the 3 albums (DSOTM, WYWH, A) I reach for most often. My preference is putting on an album and listening to it from start to finish and these albums satisfy that desire perfectly. Not a clunker in the bunch. Now, as for The Wall....

[JJ88]

Apparently this was the infamous bootleg of the time to contain '...Crazy' and '...Drooling:

https://www.discogs.com/Pink-Floyd-B.../master/433079

[NogbadTheBad]

I came to Floyd via DSOTM and then moved forward to Animals & WYWH before moving back to the beginning of their career. I like pretty much everything they did up to Animals at which point they lose me. I can find bits in later albums worthy but as a whole lacking.

Animals to me is the most complete document of the post Meddle era and is my favorite album by them, I like the bile and edge it has before Waters disappeared up his own arse & took control.

The band is really two different bands pre & post Meddle. Animals easily sits in my top 5 of all-time and is often reached for when in the mood for post Meddle Floyd.

[mx20]

Along with the audio to Live At Pompeii, Animals is my favorite Floyd Product, and probably the only Floyd Product I would choose to buy again we're it to receive remix/re-issue status.

[JJ88]

^Apparently a 5.1 mix has recently been done.

http://www.imwan.com/phpBB3/viewtopic.php?f=17&t=105897

[MYSTERIOUS TRAVELLER]

some really excellent music for the 10 minutes Waters zips it and gets off his soapbox. Otherwise very difficult to listen through all the way.

[Mister Triscuits]

Apparently this was the infamous bootleg of the time to contain '...Crazy' and '...Drooling:

https://www.discogs.com/Pink-Floyd-B.../master/433079

There were many different versions; this is the one I had:

[Facelift]

One of the better of the 1970s albums whipped up on the fly and comprised mostly of already-existing material.

[Paulrus]

Never heard it.

[Brian]

Hmmm first time I heard it, junior year in HS, 1977. Buying reefer from a senior at the oval at Lake Michigan. Sitting in the back seat of this guys car with some friends we are imbibing and the sheep had me looking out the window for livestock...the things you remember.

[JKL2000]

Some time next month my son and I are going to see The Machine do DSOTM, WYWH, and Animals all in one night. Animals might be the straw that breaks the camel’s back! But it’s as good as the other two, never sure how to rank them. That Floyd cover band that played at last year’s ProgDay preshow killed on some Animals tunes, but they made everything seem vital!