ANIMALS

"Animals" in an album based loosely around George Orwell's classic novel Animal Farm which is an interpretation of the Russian Revolution. The story is put into a context we can all understand and for each key character in the real story there is a coinciding one. The book was looked on as a joke when it was first released and no one took is seriously. However over time it has become one of the essential books of 20th centaury. I read the book because it was one the school assigned us to read, and I had heard bad things about it. People said it was boring and stupid, I however read the book in one day and then grew very interested in the "real" story. It is a good book and I found it to be a good read, although I was a bit confused first time I read it.

Now the album Animals is basically a very loose around the concept of Animal Farm and I'm not quite sure where it refers specifically to the novel. The easiest identifiable song with direct influence from the book is Pigs, who in the book were the corrupt people taking advantage of "animalism" as it is called in the novel. Pigs, by the way is an excellent song, a very progressive one with great synthesizers and guitar solos, particularly towards the end of the song.

The album openers and closers are very dynamic songs which are simple acoustic songs running for little more than a minute but, but are still songs. In the album cover there can be seen an inflatable pig flying around in the background over a factory. Perhaps this implies that modern industry came with the Russian Revolution and destroyed the old style of farming. As you can see there are many meanings that can be deduced from Animals.

If you ever wondered why only farm yard animals were included on this album, then hopefully now you will realise why that is. Dogs is perhaps the best song from Animals and it doesn't seem to take anything from the book. The last three minutes of the song is among my favourite music Pink Floyd ever wrote, I congratulate the band on this song. The end of the song is rather sad really. Cloking at around 17 minutes this is a true prog epic.

Sheep sounds very similar to pigs and lots of experimentation with synthesizers took place in this song I believe. Sheep is another impressive Floyd song and it talks of the dangers of being a sheep and the hardships they face. There is great line where Roger Water sings "follow the leader" and those three words characterize the animals so well.

1.Pigs on the Wing pt.1 (4/5) 2.Dogs (5/5) 3.Pigs (Three Different Types) (5/5) 4.Sheep (4/5) 5.Pigs on the Wing pt.2 (4/5) Total = 22 divided by 5 (number of Songs) = 4.4 Excellent addition to any prog music collection

Animals is a very healthy 4 stars from me, it deserves such a high rating (which has already been taken care of) as it is an excellent album and it gets the mind racing and guessing as to what it means. If you like Pink Floyd then Animals is an essential, to everyone else it is just an excellent album to have in you're collection. If you haven't read Animal Farm then I laugh at you, hahahaha, and recommend the book to you. It isn't a bad book and should only take an afternoon to read.