ANIMALS

Recorded in 1976, when the punk scene in the UK was rapidly attaining notoriety through raucous live shows and a confrontational attitude but had not as yet begin the wave of album releases which would drive prog off the charts, Animals finds Pink Floyd looking at the waves of angry young men in "I hate Pink Floyd" shirts and thinking to themselves "Hey, you know what? *We* hate Pink Floyd too!"

All jokes about the increasingly poisonous interpersonal situation in the band aside, Animals finds the group crafting a murky, mildly grimy sound miles away from the clean, sterile atmosphere of Wish You Were Here, in which they explore thematic territory that is just as angry, cynical and accusatory as the punks were dredging up. Of course, this was not purely a reaction to the antics of the Damned, the Clash or the Sex Pistols - there's anger there in Wish You Were Here - but in crafting a more intimate sound and making more direct attacks on the objects of their disapproval (devastatingly so on Pigs (Three Different Ones)), the band appear to have recognised the mood of the time, as well as the increasing gap growing between them and their audience.

Nick Mason has said he was glad to see the punk revolution shaking up the musical scene and resurrecting the underground vibe of Floyd's early days, but it seems that he wasn't alone in the band in feeling more affinity with the angry punk audiences than the chirpy mainstream crowds who wanted another Dark Side of the Moon; Waters and Gilmour's compositions and the band's overall performance on Animals speaks to a powerful desire to return to the underground, and Waters' increasing lack of sympathy for his audience would lead to the infamous spitting incident on tour, which in turn led to the Wall - the album which both ended the run of universally-acclaimed Floyd albums and, arguably, made the eventual Waters- Gilmour split inevitable. But Animals is more than a mere sign of the times - it's also a third masterpiece in a row for a band who at this stage could do no wrong.