ANIMALS

Pink Floyd's third album in their ''classic'' era is somewhat overlooked in every circle of music other than the progressive one. As proven by this site, Proggers LOVE this album... for good reasons. Likely the least accessible of Floyd's music this one is a dark and brooding tale reflective of the time. Decidedly sticking more to the long song side of things, Floyd churns out 3 masterfully dense compositions here... each one having a life all it's own. The third (and not last) concept album in a row by the band, this album was all about the economical crisis facing Britain at the time of its release. Dividing society into three sections, Waters turns humans into Animals on this outing, asking society to look at themselves for what they've become.

DOGS is the first track up. This being the group of society that works for the upper class to enforce regulation upon the middle and lower class, the dogs are essentially the brutal taxmen of the animal world. While it would be impossible to completely dissect this track, that's the gist of it. An evil sounding track, (as is most of the album, due likely to Floyd's rebellion to punk and ''the man'') this one incorporates a lot of keys and heavy music that can really induce the 'wall of sound effect' if you're not carefully listening to it.

PIGS (THREE DIFFERENT ONES) refer to the upper class. Giving orders and getting fat the track is very representative of someone calling judgment on them and sitting back to watch the results (''haha, charade you are!'' [South Park's Eric Cartman would later quote this line for those who don't already know]). Another one of Floyd's rocky tracks along with all the other material on the album, this one is definitely a keeper.

Coming near the end is the bombastic SHEEP. This is, of course, the lower and middle class who must be herded if they are achieve anything. If there is any kind of storyline on this album this is where the heaviest plot twist lies (''Have you read the news? The dogs are dead!'').

Of course, those aren't the only songs on the album... the 3 minutes of bookeneding PIGS ON THE WING are rather pleasant with their soothing vocals and acoustic guitar, but nothing to write home about. Still a good intro and outro it really seems like Floyd wanted to take everything that they did on Wish... and invert it. Even the cover is much darker than it's predecessor.

Other than that there's not much to say about the album that hasn't already been said.

Everyone knows about the crazy (marketing scheme?) incident that saw the photoshoot of the album cover go terribly wrong and resulted in the band chasing a giant inflated pig around town. Most everyone also knows that the idea for The Wall would come from the tour for this album when Roger Waters would spit on one of the fans tring to climb on stage. As a rock star, he was becoming distant from his fans... almost building a wall between him and them. Bam, a concept album was born.

Like my other Pink Floyd experiences, this one also has a story to go with the unforgettable first time I listened to it. I bought this one and Obscured By Clouds at the same time, they were on a deal so it was the perfect chance to get them both. A bunch of friends were hanging out in a little hick town called Lantzville (our towns were in a sort of perpetual war) that I used to live a 5 minute walk from and so I trucked over there with discs in hand. Needless to say, the first time I listened to the disc I could not fathom the length of the songs. Listening to the different parts of DOGS alone I thought that the album was moving along until the end of the track when I thought the album had almost come to a close when, hey, that was only the end of the first (real) song! So needless to say... we spent a good long time enjoying the album and playing Magic: The Gathering on my friend's orientally themed kitchen table (don't rub it in too much now).

The last /really/ Pink Floyd album as Roger would do a complete take over after this (even if there's rumors of him re-recording some of Gilmour's parts on this album because he ''didn't like them'') this one is a masterpiece like it's older brothers and deserves all 5 stars that it sometimes doesn't receive from other critical sources. Essential... just don't expect to ''get it'' after one listen... this thing is DENSE.

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