Pink Floyd – Animals (1977)

We're still ploughing through the Harborough Market purchases, this one the second Pink Floyd CD in the pile.

Released in 1977, as I was doing my A levels, and had yet to understand punk, I never got to know this album in a way I had its predecessors, and only caught snatches of it at sixth form parties (quickly to be removed by some girl wanting to dance to the latest disco pop hits).

Since those girls seemed to want little to do with me, I wasn't sympathetic. Or perhaps they wanted little to do with me because I wasn't sympathetic.

But on listening, decades later, there's something about this album, which doesn't quite hold together as the couple before it did. It's another Roger Waters concept album (he did the vast majority of the writing), an existential malaise album based around Animal Farm characters, by this young millionaire worried about the state of the country.

In reality, it's three long tracks, bookended by the gentle, minimal acoustic Pigs On The Wing as intro and outro. Dogs is the first, the basic song melody strong and interesting, but the diversions, soloing and noodling, struggle to maintain this listener's attention for 17 minutes. Pigs is probably the most satisfying of the three, each of its verses railing against those who have attracted Waters' ire (and I'm not arguing with any), with strong instrumental breaks. Finally, Sheep opens with a jazzy electric piano noodle, before launching into a solid rocker, which remains enjoyable.

But the overall feeling is one of wanting more from the band. They had set the bar high with DSOTM and WYWH, and this, for me, didn't deliver it then, and doesn't now. There are some interesting ideas, but it doesn't quite hang together.

Link to full album

3* - plenty to enjoy, but not a Pink Floyd classic