Animals - Pink Floyd (1977)


 

Animals is kind of the forgotten Pink Floyd seventies album, sandwiched in between Wish You Were Here and The Wall -- and there are fewers songs from this than on those albums that are regularly played on Classic Rock radio stations (if indeed, at this point, they still play music from the seventies.) In fact, I don't know if I ever heard one play on Classic Rock stations back in the day. (To be clear, I have not regularly listened to any radio of any kind -- including Internet Radio since about 1996.)

What I'm trying to say is, Animals doesn't really have any hits. But it's a deeply satisfying album musically, featuring a couple of super long, spacey  rock songs that are generally exciting to hear. Oh, and there's lyrics too, and perhaps a unifying thematic concept, but to be honest, I have never paid attention to the lyrics. I vaguely remember reading that it was inspired by Animal Farm by Orwell. Probably was, that seems right up Roger Waters' alley. But I could care less about the lyrics and as far as I'm concerned, Roger Waters can suck it anyway for his constant fellating of Putin.

The music is great fun to listen to, spacious, imaginative and beautiful, and that's really what Pink Floyd is all about for me.

4.5/5

Spotify Link:

https://open.spotify.com/album/21jUB9RqplD6OqtsTjKBnO?si=ZLHmrxWXSMm6ZJ2JDk6mdA

I have an old European pressing of the CD, probably the original Harvest master. It sounds great. Remasters are generally kind of well-done, I think. I first heard this in college -- Pink Floyd is big in college, ever noticed? -- when my friend Brandon played it for me on cassette. 

Coming Up:

A.M. Wilco

A.T.O.M. - Carbon Silicon

ABBA - ABBA 

ABBA Gold: Greatest Hits

Abbey Road - The Beatles

Achtung, Baby! U2

Actually - Pet Shop Boys

Adult/Child- The Beach Boys

Aerosmith's Greatest Hits

After The Gold Rush - Neil Young

Afterglow - Crowded House

Aftermath (UK Version) - The Rolling Stones

Against The Odds: 1974-1982 Blondie (three disc version)

Aimee Mann Live at St. Ann's Warehouse

Aiming For Your Head - Betchadupa

The Album -- ABBA

The Album That Never Was - The Kinks

All Four One - The Motels

All Over the Place - The Bangles

All Summer Long -- The Beach Boys

All the Great Hits -- Diana Ross

All Things Must Pass -- George Harrison

All This Useless Beauty -- Elvis Costello & the Attractions

All-Time Greatest Hits - Neil Diamond

Alluvium -- Eddie Rayner

Almost Blue -- Elvis Costello & The Attractions

Almost Summer - Celebration

Alpha Mike Foxtrot -- Wilco*

The Alphabetchadupa - Betchadupa

Altitude - ALT

American Idiot Green Day*

American Prayer -- The Doors

Amnesiac Radiohead*

And I Feel Fine...The Best of the IRS years (1982-1987) - R.E.M.

Animals - Pink Floyd

Anodyne - Uncle Tupelo

Another Life - Another Life

Another Music in Another Kitchen: The Buzzcocks

Another Side of Bob Dylan - Bob Dylan

Anthology: Diana Ross & The Supremes

Anthology: Smokey Robinson & The Beatles

Anthology 1: The Beatles

Anthology 2: The Beatles

Anthology 3 The Beatles

Anthology: North South, East West - Tim Finn

Apple Venus: Volume One -- XTC

Apollo 18 - They Might Be Giants

The ArchAndroid: Janelle Monae

Are the Village Green Preservation Society -- The Kinks

Are Well-Respected Men - The Kinks

Armed Forces -Elvis Costello & The Attractions

Around the World in a Day - Prince

Arthur (or the Decline and Fall of the British Empire) - The Kinks

At My Piano - Brian Wilson

Autoamerican - Blondie

Automatic for the People - R.E.M.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Become What You are - The Juliana Hatfield Three (1993)

Image
  Despite the fact that  Become What You Are   reminds me of a rather dreary time in my life -- the year and a half or so when I came back to Springfield Missouri after college to live -- I think this is one of my favorite albums of 1993 -- and 1993 was a really good year for my taste in music.  Juliana Hatfield has a way of telling stories and fleshing out ver complex characters and defining complex emotions in amazingly simple terms, with a few lyrics as possible -- she's sort of, like, the Hemmingway of singer/songwriters. And that's a compliment. But to be clear, this music is not one woman alone with an acoustic guitar; this is a real rock band and Juliana Hatfield herself is quite a formidable hard rock guitarist. This is kind of in the grunge era; I wouldn't call it grunge, but it's from  the brief period of time when singer songwriters could rock in this way that was somewhere between The Stooges, Kiss, and Big Star. See also some of Aimee Mann's cu...
Read more

Arrival - ABBA (1976)

Image
  Arrival was Abba's fourth album, which was long labored over, to good results: it was a huge seller, even going gold in the stubbornly resistant American market, thanks to the giganto-hit "Dancing Queen", still in it's one of the most perfectly written pop songs of all time. The immortal image of the 17 year old girl awash in the first innocent glow of her full physical and sexual power dancing alone under the blue lights strikes tears in my eyes every single time I hear it. I'ts so perfect. .. Like their previous self-titled album  Arrival  runs through a lot of styles and moods, but the the album overall comes off as even more adult and overtly sexual: while the first two songs celebrate innocent girlhood: (girlish fantasies of kissing teacher, the innocent abandon of the 70s teen disco,) the themes seem to progress from innocence to materialistic and sexual cynicism. But the album never breaks a sweat doing this: it all still goes down like ice-cream. The de...
Read more

Beggar's Banquet - Rolling Stones (1968)

Image
Beggar's Banquet was The Rolling Stones' first post-psychedelic album, in which they went back to their roots as a blues rock band, a place which they have decided never to leave again, perhaps due to the disastrous reception of Their Satanic Majesties Request. A pity, in my opinion, but this is not the place to go into it. It's also probably the last great gasp of original guitarist/multi-instrumentalist colorist Brian Jones, although he would play on a few songs on the next album, he was rapidly descending in a tragic downward spiral.  Personally I prefer the rissks the 1965-1967 era Stones took to the Blues Rock phase (though with the addition of Mick Taylor they definitely recorded a pair of their finest albums) and I find the relentless roots rock of  Beggar's Banquet to be a tad bit disappointing. Like, where are the harpsichords, horns, dulcimers and sitars of yesteryear?  Having said that, there are definitely no bad songs here: no ten minute long jams or lame M...
Read more