Animals is probably my favorite PF album. Love the aggression and darker atmosphere.
I graduated high school in the early 90's (on time, even).
Animals is probably my favorite PF album. Love the aggression and darker atmosphere.
I graduated high school in the early 90's (on time, even).
If you're actually reading this then chances are you already have my last album but if NOT and you're curious:
https://battema.bandcamp.com/
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The Greatest Floyd Record and my #3 all time album.....
Most played PF album for me. From the first time I heard that awesome guitar at the beginning of Dogs I was hooked. Such a moody and dark album. LOVE IT.
I'm not sure why, but this album has incredible staying power and has aged extremely well. Probably listen to it more than any other Floyd album, just because I never tire of it.
Yes, it's big 5 Prog! Great album - completely disagree with that review
I'll bet punks who didn't like Floyd had a harder time disliking this album.
The beginning of the end. Not a bad album, but nowhere near Dark Side or WYWH, IMO. They took some concert jams and made songs out of them. Most of that stuff works better in the pre-1977 concert jams, if you've got the boots.
Class of 79. We seem to come at it from opposite directions. Dark Side and Wish You Were Here are two of my favorite albums from anybody. I was looking for WYWH 2, with more Shine type music. Where you were looking for the next great thing and the aggression in the music fit the bill. It definitely was not what I was looking for at the time. Now, when the mood strikes, Animals, musically and lyrically, really works for me.Originally Posted by MYSTERIOUS TRAVELLER
Interesting string of comments and questions. My first album was Ummagumma, I was I don't know, nine, it had just come out. ALWAYS a huge fan of Floyd. The interesting thing about Animals, is that to me, it harkened back to the early days and the mysterious nature the band always had, You NEVER saw pictures of them outside of concert images, they never did publicity, they always had this very mysterious quality about them. WYWH kind of broke that a bit for me. But it came back with Animals. I didn't pay too much attention to the lyrics, what waters was ranting on about, until years later when all their laundry was out in the open. Its dark, brooding and mysterious, just how i like them!
One of my issues with this album is that Rick Wright seems to take a back seat. I think that might have something to do with the fact that by this time Roger Waters was insisting he play a smaller role within the band which eventually led to his dismissal(he was absent on the Final Cut). So after the keyboard heavy WYWH album I was a bit let down by Rick's comparatively lesser role on this one.
Huh, not to me... Keys drive Sheep, and the whole back third of Dogs. He's more present on a lot of Animals (or no less so) than on songs like Have A Cigar, and Welcome To The Machine (which is mostly bloop noises made by Waters and/or Gilmore). In fact, apart from fills in the intro and outro of Shine On does WYWH even have a keyboard solo?
Totally disagree. Rick absolutely "shines" on Animals. The electric piano intro to Sheep, the organ arpeggios on Pigs 3DO, the Electric piano in the middle section of Dogs. He gave the album a great atmosphere - lots of string synth throughout too.
Favorite PF album by far for me. The second I heard Pigs 3DO, I was hooked (back in 1978).
I agree about Rick Wright's presence on Animals. Despite his low view of the album, he did do some excellent work on it, as did Gilmour.
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Well, maybe as a composer, yes. I think he admitted this was the first album where he didn't write anything. But he some nice moments a performer, like that intro on Sheep, and the synth solos on Dogs. One thing I wish they had kept was the solo he played on Raving And Drooling when it was played onstage in 74-75. I thought it really added to the tense atmosphere of that song, but I guess as it morphed into Sheep, they decided to drop that solo.
Another really interesting point is that when they played Pigs (3 Different Ones) in concert, that talk box guitar solo in the middle section was replaced by another synth solo. I always wondered how/why that decision was made.
Last edited by GuitarGeek; 10-28-2013 at 02:22 PM.
I may be off on this but I think you're thinking of 'Raving and Drooling.' 'You Gotta be Crazy' is what morphed into 'Dogs' on the final album.
But yeah...when I finally heard those tracks for the first time on the WYWH box, it was surprising how much soloing Wright was doing.
If you're actually reading this then chances are you already have my last album but if NOT and you're curious:
https://battema.bandcamp.com/
Also, Ephemeral Sun: it's a thing and we like making things that might be your thing: https://ephemeralsun.bandcamp.com
Isn't that Wright on the synth solos of Welcome to the Machine? IMHO his horn pads on the title track, albeit not the melody, are almost as essential to the sound of the song.
And his solo in the 2nd half of Shine On? One of my all-time favorites of his (and one of my all time favorite PF moments, for that matter).
If you're actually reading this then chances are you already have my last album but if NOT and you're curious:
https://battema.bandcamp.com/
Also, Ephemeral Sun: it's a thing and we like making things that might be your thing: https://ephemeralsun.bandcamp.com
Three points:
1. There's lots of keyboards on Have A Cigar. There's synth, electric piano, and I think a little bit of Clavinet. He doesn't have a solo on the song, but he's filling in a lot of background stuff, kinda like a rhythm guitarist.
2. I don't know which version of Welcome To The Machine you've been listening to, but the version on the Wish You Were Here album (and which was played on the 77 and 87-89 tours) has two very prominent synthesizer solos which were most definitely played by Wright. In fact, I'd point to those as being some of Rick's best solos.
3. Rick plays a hell of a lot more than mere "fills" during Shine On You Crazy Diamond. He plays a solo in Part One, then once the full band comes in, he plays a second solo, in between Gilmour's second and third solos. And Parts Eight and Nine are mostly built on his keyboard parts, ie Rhodes, Clavinet, synth on Part Eight, and grand piano and string synth on Part Nine (the latter being a bit more obvious on the live versions played on the 77 tour, Part Nine starts with Rick playing solo piano).
Oy!
Yes, it is. It's Waters, apparently, playing the throbbing bass sound and the filtered noise effects on a VCS-3 or Synthi A (apparently the band used both) during the verses, but the melodic playing is Wright (apparently on a Mini-Moog).
How is it more prog than the entire "SOYCD" piece?
Yeah, you're right about key solos on Welcome... had forgotten! But as far as the rhythm stuff goes it's in line with what's happening on songs like Pigs (Three Different Ones). So I still maintain that Animals is not lighter on keys (as I think you guys do as well, basically).
Yep, plenty o' keys in both to go around
If you're actually reading this then chances are you already have my last album but if NOT and you're curious:
https://battema.bandcamp.com/
Also, Ephemeral Sun: it's a thing and we like making things that might be your thing: https://ephemeralsun.bandcamp.com
Animals shows up often as a favorite among casual fans of Floyd. I think that is because it has a strong 4/4 rock feel throughout which fits in with the mainstream FM rock of the time. WYWH and Dark Side might be a bit too light and textural for most rock fans.
QFT agreed and agreed
Why is it whenever someone mentions an artist that was clearly progressive (yet not the Symph weenie definition of Prog) do certain people feel compelled to snort "thats not Prog" like a whiny 5th grader?
Desert Island Disc.
I love dark and this is very dark without being self-absorbed like The Wall is. I can remember burning some "stuff" and listening to it on an amazing stereo and it was almost claustrophobic. My only complaint is I've always felt like there was a song missing from the album. To me there is another song out there somewhere that would have put the album out of the stratosphere. It's just too short.
"The woods would be very silent if the only birds that sang were those who sang best..." - Henry David Thoreau
That's......news to me. All the casual fans I knew preferred and were most familiar with the standard fare (Dark Side, WYWH, the Wall).
If you're actually reading this then chances are you already have my last album but if NOT and you're curious:
https://battema.bandcamp.com/
Also, Ephemeral Sun: it's a thing and we like making things that might be your thing: https://ephemeralsun.bandcamp.com
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