Animals

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Editorial reviews

Amazon.co.uk Review
Although not in the same vein as the deliciously hallucinogenic earlier Floyd works such as iUmmagumma/i and iDark Side of the Moon/i, iAnimals/i is innovative and musically diverse in its own right. Inspired in part by George Orwell's political fable iAnimal Farm/i, Roger Waters condemns the avarice and inequalities of capitalism, metaphorically and musically grouping humans as pigs, dogs, and sheep. The pigs are self-righteous hypocrites inflicting their beliefs on everyone else, the dogs greedy money-grabbers, and the sheep witless followers. Dark, cynical, and brilliantly composed, iAnimals/i is an ingenious and under-acknowledged album. i--Naomi Gesinger /i

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Customer reviews

review by: date: 2009-02-26 rating:
PINK FLOYD MP3 DOWNLOAD
This particular album is extreme value for money. The download procedure for me as a first time user was excellent.

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review by: date: 2009-02-03 rating:
Woof! Their last truly great album
Often overshadowed by its illustrious predecessors "DSOTM" and "WYWH", "Animals" continues to be criminally overlooked in the canon, but really it might well be the Floyd's best album from their classic mid-70s period. br / br /Recorded during England's punk "Summer of Hate" in '76 and released early the following year, "Animals" is the sound of the Floyd snarling, and sounding just as angry as any of their younger rivals - and putting some much-needed distance between the Floyd and their enfeebled contemporaries (Genesis, Yes, ELP, Eagles, Fleetwood Mac et al). br / br /Just about everything, from the famous Battersea Power Station/flying pig cover, through the playing, singing, production, lyrics, to the overarching concept, is just about perfect. Although it's difficult to imagine it being made at any other time, it has not dated one jot. br / br /The album is bookended by two short acoustic numbers, but the real meat of the album lies in the three epic songs sandwiched inbetween. "Dogs", perhaps the bleakest song the Floyd ever recorded, is a meditation on the folly of ruthlessness and ambition; it opens with some exquisite chords from Gilmour (whose playing throughout the album crackles with energy and commitment) and features a fantastic middle section featuring Wright's doomy Moog and the sound of vocodered dog barks. br / br /Side Two begins with "Pigs, Three Different Ones", a self-consciously crude and highly effective blast at fat greedy businessmen (chiming nicely with our times), a "bus stop ratbag" and clean-up TV campaigner Mary Whitehouse. It ends with a stinging Gilmour solo - perhaps the best he's ever committed to tape. br / br /Next up is "Sheep", in which the narrator urges the downtrodden masses to rise up and grab their freedom, which featues a psalmic parody and a brilliant closing riff. br / br /Waters' singing - a kind of posh-boy whine - is hugely effective (as opposed to off-putting) throughout the album, while Gilmour's sole vocal contribution, in the first half of "Dogs", is simply lovely. br / br /A towering achievement that still sounds energetic, and which still resonates today. I simply cannot recommend this record enough - whether you're a fan of the Floyd or not. br / br /

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review by: briandaud date: 2009-01-31 rating:
A bit of nostalgia
I remember buying the vinyl LP when it came out and playing it till it wore out. At that time I was a hi-fi nut and had some good gear, but this downloaded version sounds even better than I imagined it would. I don't know what the sound boffins do to enhance the sound, but it is wonderful. You have to like Pink Floyd in the first place, of course. For those who do, buy this. Fantastic!

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review by: Gilmour/Townshend date: 2008-08-10 rating:
ALBUM 3 IN THE SERIES OF THE GREAT ALBUMS FROM FLOYD
What more could you want. I read once that this was the end of all Floyd as we know it. How wrong can you get! As I'm writing this I'm listening to it, and believe me when I tell you this album does not disappoint. Ok, it might not be as good as Dark Side, Wish You Were Here or The Wall, but its in no way a bad record; and its on record where you really get the beauty of it. A cd is still good, but you don't have the raw-ness of the original format they released it to. Anyway the music: admittedly, looking at the lengths, dogs might be a little too long, and have an unnecessarily long bridge, but that's what Floyd are all about. Dogs just goes to show what a writing partnership of Gilmour/Waters can produce. And this being the only song on the album not written entirely by Waters, it also features less and less from keyboardist Rick Wright. He's still on the album, just with this album and The Wall, he became less involved. The open and closing folk rock ballads of Pigs On the Wing are really cool, and show just how good Waters was at writing. Side 2 features the best in guitar on the album for me, as we get that ace guitar solo from Gilmour at the end of Pigs (Three Different Ones), and we have that insanely cool Outro guitar riff on Sheep. Each of these songs end with fading out, and they end with some of Gilmour's best guitar work, and you wonder why they didn't make Pigs On The Wing one song and the end the album with either Sheep's ending guitar riff, or put Pigs (Three Different Ones) at the end, and have Gilmour's solo end the album, personally I think that would have made it perfect, and that really is the only let down of the album. Basically its 5 stars coz its got brilliant vocals/lyrics/guitar lines/bass lines/keyboards/drums. What more could you want.


review by: stipesdoppleganger date: 2008-04-16 rating:
Ha ha charade we still are.
In 1977 when Pink Floyd released Animals they were considered by the punk movement so prevalent at the time to be one of the so called dinosaurs bands that the spiky snotty denizens of anarchy land wanted to supplant . The irony is, that Animals was as angry, biter and spiteful as any punk album and being Floyd it,s made with a damm sight more intelligence than most of those. br /Animals is a concept album-something that would earn it even more withering scorn from punks. Inspired by George Orwell's "Animal Farm" in that is uses animals as metaphors for social groups - where Orwell was denouncing communism , Floyd ,and in particular Roger Waters , are lambasting capitalism . The animals represent various caste,s in civilised society. Pigs are ruthless leaders, their snouts truffling in the trough, dogs are vicious amoral businessmen, while sheep are pliant followers- powerless and easily led. br /Many of the songs for Animals were originally conceived at the same time as some of the material for "Wish You Were Here". The seventeen minute epic "Dogs" previously known as "You Gotta Be Crazy" and "Sheep" previously well known as "Raving And Drooling" are monumental pieces of music. "Dogs" is the one song on the album with a credit for David Gilmour and it,s accepted that this is the album where Roger Waters became the principle song-writer and where tensions within the band inexorably started to ratchet up. br /The recording process for the album proved to be the last time that the band used their traditional approach of refining and adapting the songs live first before fleshing them out in the studio. From Animals on the band , or to be more accurate Waters. conceived the album then worked it out in the studio with some input from other band members. br /The input from band members on Animals though minor in terms of song writing is vital in terms of sound . Rick Wrights keyboard playing is pivotal to the music's sense of disenchantment and misanthropic anger. The way the notes fizz in on the back of each Waters verse line in "Sheep" is phenomenal. The whole album seethes with indignant intensity. "Pigs (Three Different Kinds)" villifies the moral minority , attacking Mary Whitehouse directly -"You house-proud town mouse ha ha charade you are"- but also lays into power crazed politicians ( It,s a veiled attack on Thatcher) and mendacious business men."Dogs" is an especially bitter piece where the greed and materialism of the protagonist does,nt prevent him from the vagaries of fate -"All alone and dying of cancer". The guitar playing here is truly exceptional , the instrument seemingly lamenting the passing of old fashioned values. God knows what it would do today....probably explode in shower of incandescent sparks. br /"Sheep" is driven by an fabulous galloping Waters bassline and has the trusting followers wandering into a "Valley Of steel" before they turn gleefully on the dogs to "March cheerfully out of obscurity into a dream". Congruously the album is book ended by two sweet brief acoustic numbers ."Pigs On The Wing" Pts 1 2 are love songs written by Waters for his then wife Caroline, and seems to be giving the message that in a world run by Pigs and Dogs love can conquer all in this case "Even a dog needs a home , shelter from pigs on the wing". br /Animals like The Final Cut is an often ignored , sadly under rated Floyd album, though the number of reviewers who seem to agree with me is very heartening. I prefer this album to all their early albums and more than the album considered their classic -Dark Side Of The Moon , though that's great as well. It,s also , rather depressingly a more relevant album today than it was in 1977 after Thatcherism and New Labour. Market forces rule the world - the dogs and the pigs are more powerful than ever and as for the sheep. Ha ha charade we are

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