ANIMALS

The year was 1977. The Punk Revolution had firmly established itself. Jonny Rotten was wearing his infamous "I Hate Pink Floyd" shirt. So what did Floyd do in the face of such pressure? Write shorter, more commercial songs? No. Instead, they created 3 long songs; and in doing do, created something that rocks harder than anything Punk's 4 chord rock could achieve. It is somewhat inaccessible, but after a few listens I have come to conclude that it is Pink Floyd's finest hour, although WYWH is a very, very close second.

This album marked a transition for them; Waters was becoming increasingly controlling (which caused him in turn to shut out Rick and then later David), and his lyrics took a much darker turn. It also saw them somewhat abandon their ethereal sound; Animals rocks unlike any other Floyd album, except maybe for Obscured by Clouds. This album also features what I think are Waters' best lyrics and his best vocals; this is the first album which had him singing for most of the time. (You know, back when he could actually sing) The concept is loosely based on Orwell's Animal Farm; different types of people are compared to different animals. Dogs are the warriors; Pigs are the crafty overlords who control everyone else; Sheep are the unthinking masses.

POTW pt. 1--A short opening acoustic number. Musically, it is exactly the same as POTW pt. 2, but they have different lyrics. I have heard some people criticize Roger for writing a short song and then making it 2 songs so he would get more credit. While there's no doubt that Roger was being a credit-whore, (more on that later) they are missing the point of these songs. They are a soothing opening to prepare the ear for the madness that will ensue shortly, and braketing the album with them creates a wonderful circle effect, the influence of which can be heard on album such as Frances the Mute by The Mars Volta.

Dogs--The epic of the album, although it's more of a jam in structure. This song began its life as Darkside-era jamming sessions, and it's amazing. I could do without some of dog barking and repeated of the stone stone stone, but that's ok. What's most intriguing about this song (besides that's it's incredible) is that the structure is different from most long songs; there are not many hooks, and it doesn't follow the verse- chorus-verse-chorus progression that most songs follow. Don't be fooled by the Waters/Gilmour credit; just like the other songs, this is very much a group effort; Waters was just being a credit-whore. The lyrics compare peo The ending is one of the most powerful endings I have ever heard.

Pig (3DO)--Again, this is a group effort, despite what the credits may tell you. Roger started to show his expressly political side; this song takes a swipe at Margaret Thatcher, the conservative Prime Minister of England, by name. Normally this kind of thing really bothers me--keep YOUR politics out of MY music!--but the music is so incredible that they are forgiven.

Sheep--Pink Floyd's hardest song ever? Possibly. After a jazzy intro, the song launches into a real rocker with some excellent synth work by Wright. This song also grew from Dark-side era jams. Both were actually going to be included on WYWH, but the band thought that the album would work more coherently if it were more unified, so they dropped these songs for later.

I find the ending lyrics of Dogs "Who was dragged down by the stone" to be very telling of the things to come. Roger let his ego get in the way, and it brought down the entire band to the kind of suck level with The Wall when he refused to really cooperate. Then he didn't cooperate at all with The Final Cut, but that is for another time and another review.

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