FEATURED ALBUM: Pink Floyd - Animals

[battema]

My personal top PF album.

[NogbadTheBad]

This album features at most only half new compositions. What the heck was going on that they only managed to come up with about 15 minutes of new music in two years time?

My understanding was that Dogs & Sheep were originally planned for WYWH but didn't work in context of that album so became the basis of Animals. The fact they were significantly road tested doesn't take away that it was 'new' music for the Animals album. Would you rather they dumped those two tracks and came up with 30 minutes of new music? Personally I like that they road tested those tracks to the point where we got those excellent versions on the album.

[proggy_jazzer]

This album features at most only half new compositions. What the heck was going on that they only managed to come up with about 15 minutes of new music in two years time?

In 1977, unless you had been fortunate enough to see them live on the WYWH tour, you would have had very little chance to hear any of the material that wound up on Animals prior to its release. It sure sounded like new music to me.

[Stevie B]

Dogs is a bit of a...well, dog really. It's not really all that musically interesting to start with, and to then stretch it out to fill a whole side just emphasises its lack of quality. A lot of 2nd division prog bands did this in the seventies, but it's a bit disappointing that Floyd went down that road too on this occasion.

The rest of the album is great. I was sixteen when it came out and in a band that used to rehearse in my parents' garage. We decided to try covering Pigs on the Wing. I was the drummer, so decided to have a go at doing the singing as there's no drums. Half way through the song there's a banging on the garage door...it's the police (ironically) come to tell us to kindly refrain from playing loud music at such a late hour (or "screw the nut lads" as he put it...I still have a cassette of the whole incident!).

Happy days...

[battema]

To each their own: for me Dogs is one of the finest longer moments from Floyd.

[Paulrus]

To each their own: for me Dogs is one of the finest longer moments from Floyd.

Just the fact that they did produce an album with long pieces on it in 1977 says loads about Floyd's stature (and integrity) at the time. Punk? Critics? Trends? What are those?

[Vic2012]

Haven't played it in years. Good album. I'd rank it below WYWH. Need to listen to it.

[Phlakaton]

To each their own: for me Dogs is one of the finest longer moments from Floyd.

To me its pretty much the core of what PF is about

[wideopenears]

To me its pretty much the core of what PF is about

Moi, aussi.
My first PF album, still probably my fave...the atmosphere evoked by this thing is still haunting. All these "new music" comments only apply if you saw the band back during the WWWH tour. The Animlas album sounds, to me, like a suite.

I'm a fan of everything up to the Wall, and I lost some interest after that, but this one still evokes a vibe of slight menace and foreboding...from the cover to the caustic attitude, to the haunting interlude in Dogs....etc.

[JJ88]

Just the fact that they did produce an album with long pieces on it in 1977 says loads about Floyd's stature (and integrity) at the time. Punk? Critics? Trends? What are those?

I think they were big and important enough to ride anything out, really. They'd built up a reputation of integrity and intelligence with their music.

My understanding was that Dogs & Sheep were originally planned for WYWH but didn't work in context of that album so became the basis of Animals. The fact they were significantly road tested doesn't take away that it was 'new' music for the Animals album. Would you rather they dumped those two tracks and came up with 30 minutes of new music? Personally I like that they road tested those tracks to the point where we got those excellent versions on the album.

Yes, such a glib assessment ignores the fact that Wish You Were Here came out in the interim, which also had two fresh songs they did not play in their live shows of the time ('..Machine' and the title track).

I think considerable improvements had been made to the 'old' songs by the time they appeared here.

[NogbadTheBad]

Dogs is a bit of a...well, dog really. It's not really all that musically interesting to start with, and to then stretch it out to fill a whole side just emphasises its lack of quality. A lot of 2nd division prog bands did this in the seventies, but it's a bit disappointing that Floyd went down that road too on this occasion.

To each their own: for me Dogs is one of the finest longer moments from Floyd.

To me its pretty much the core of what PF is about

Moi, aussi.

And me, Dogs is one of my three or four favorite Floyd tracks. Methinks Stevie is in the minority on this one.

[calyx]

Animals was NOT ‘two years in the making’. The DSotM tout extended into 1974 and 1975 with new material introduced but WYWH did not come out until just after the touring cycle had ended - September 1975. Having played much of the album live already they opted not to tour WYWH as such, but instead were back in the studio by early 1976. So the remaining Animals material (Pigs and PotW) was written in 3-4 months (including a well deserved holiday), not 2 years !

[Trane]

To each their own: for me Dogs is one of the finest longer moments from Floyd.

Fourth by the length (behind Echoes , AHM and Crazy Diamond), and also 4th in my tastes between those tracks

Just the fact that they did produce an album with long pieces on it in 1977 says loads about Floyd's stature (and integrity) at the time. Punk? Critics? Trends? What are those?

Same could be said about Yes' Awaken, but no one thinks of Yes' integrity on that GFTO album.

[Stevie B]

And me, Dogs is one of my three or four favorite Floyd tracks. Methinks Stevie is in the minority on this one.

Well as battema says...to each their own

[JJ88]

Incidentally it's a pity there is no multi-track material from their 1977 In The Flesh tour. It's perhaps best known for the final Montreal show with Waters' on-stage meltdown which partially inspired The Wall, but the set-lists were exceptional. They did Animals in full (albeit in different order), WYWH in full and then Money/Us And Them as encores. The show I'm most familiar with, the 9th May Oakland one, even has a one-off throwback to 'Careful With That Axe Eugene' as a third encore. I think that's the last time they ever played that.

[battema]

Well as battema says...to each their own

And hey...we're prog rock fans. We're all about the underdogs around here

It's all good

[Sturgeon's Lawyer]

This would be my second or third favorite Floyd album, after Wish You Were Here, and more-or-less tied with Piper. It's not very radio-friendly, which is one of the reasons I like it so much; I haven't heard it to death. (I can't even listen to Dark Side and The Wall anymore without getting itchy.) (And, yes, the "middle songs" from WYWH also get a lot of airplay, but most of the album is the sublime "Crazy Diamond," Floyd's absolute peak as composers and Waters's as songwriter.)

And I'm sorry, L, but I [i]like[i] Waters's lyrics here; perhaps it's a matter of politics, as I'm a screaming liberal snowflake (Winter is Coming!) and so tend to agree with Waters on such things.

[infandous]

This is the only post Meddle ablum I can still listen to and enjoy. Mainly because of the lack of radio play, but also the complete lack of any of the tracks appearing on the two post Waters live albums (both of which I loved at the time they came out, but never listen to anymore....I also saw them twice on the Division Bell tour, where they played Shine On both times). This was probably the 4th Pink Floyd album I ever heard (back in the late 80's) and for some reason I never owned a copy, even though I always liked it. Fortunately, my significant other does own a copy, so for the past 8 years I've been able to listen to it whenever I felt like it (she's a bigger Floyd fan than me and seems to love whatever album is playing). I'd rank Dogs as my second favorite Pink Floyd epic, and probably in my top 5 of all their songs.

I also agree that the lyrics are great and I think this was actually their most successful concept album (yes, I've always liked it more as a concept than Dark Side, WYWH, or the Wall).

[MYSTERIOUS TRAVELLER]

I see everyone complaining about radio play

thankfully, I never listened to the radio much... only ever heard it at big outdoor get-togethers; so no album(s) have ever been ruined for me
so DSOTM is still a classic and my 2nd fav Floyd album behind WYWH. Meddle comes in 3rd and I would prefer to play the early albums before ever reaching for Animals

[Mister Triscuits]

I see everyone complaining about radio play

"Pigs" actually got quite a bit of FM airplay at the time the album was new, at least in my area. However, it didn't enter the AOR rock canon and get played to death over the ensuing years like a "Money," a "Wish You Were Here," or a "Comfortably Numb."

[NogbadTheBad]

Heard WYWH on the radio in the gym just today.

[Trane]

"Pigs" actually got quite a bit of FM airplay at the time the album was new, at least in my area. However, it didn't enter the AOR rock canon and get played to death over the ensuing years like a "Money," a "Wish You Were Here," or a "Comfortably Numb."

Pigs is probably the least played of the three major songs of animals on the Belgian classic rock radio... I'd say that Dogs and Pigs get played four or five times a months each (pigs maybe once every second month or so) in "daytime", and probably get more airplay at night time (where longer tracks get more attention)

[Progatron]

The three main cuts from Animals still get played on Toronto classic rock radio, along with the usual suspects from what apparently they believe are the only other three albums PF ever made.

[chalkpie]

I loved seeing Les Claypool perform the whole enchilada live one time in NYC either at Irving Plaza or the Knitting Factory (can't remember which) in 2001 or thereabouts.

[JKL2000]

I loved seeing Les Claypool perform the whole enchilada live one time in NYC either at Irving Plaza or the Knitting Factory (can't remember which) in 2001 or thereabouts.

Now THAT, I’d bother to listen to online!