Author: Peter Podbrežnik
Artist: Pink Floyd
Label: EMI Records
Release: 1977
Length: 41:46
Rating: 5/5
During punk’s reign, an era hostile to musical innovation and virtuoso sonic experiments, Pink Floyd remained one of the last creative superpowers of the old prog-rock guard, whose fortunes had by then more or less turned black. Despite the hostile propaganda from some of the trendy media of the time, their artistic creativity and popularity stayed intact, and even grew.
“Animals” was the next piece of art in their string of highly acclaimed concept masterpieces with socially critical undertones, the ones with which they kept shifting the goalposts of popular and experimental music like it was nothing. An era was definitely over with this album’s release, since it marks the breakup of the band as a democratic collective and the start of the dictatorial rule of the brilliant bassist and vocalist Roger Waters. He increasingly cemented his role as chief songwriter and central architect of the concepts. Thanks to his songwriting dominance, Waters often clashed with guitarist David Gilmour, and the differences between them soon became irreconcilable, which later led to plenty of needless, I’d even say tragic, drama surrounding the existence of this legendary band.
Despite the first of many clashes of egos, they managed to close ranks in the studio and create another majestic album, one that ranks among their greatest achievements and rightfully earns a place on the list of the most revered albums in the history of progressive rock. “Animals” is a concept album largely inspired by the cult novel Animal Farm. That was penned by the British, socially critical writer George Orwell, who also found fame with the literary classic 1984, another related critique of a controlled society, in which he introduced the well-known concept of so-called Big Brother.
The socially critical concept of “Animals” weaves convincingly together with Waters’ misanthropic lyrics and the distinctly gloomy atmosphere that blows through the whole album. It’s a biting, almost brutally realistic, yet thoroughly mocking critique of Western capitalist society and its hierarchical division of social roles, built on three animal species. These are the pigs (a metaphor for the ruling caste, i.e. politicians, businesspeople and the clergy), the dogs (the repressive organs of the state) and the sheep (the God-fearing, blinded proletariat). Waters’ vision is, roughly speaking, mainly a critique of the unjust capitalist system and the division of social roles within an oppressive and exploitative order, whereas Orwell’s novel was at its core a satire of the various roles of individuals within a communist social order.
Once again Pink Floyd stuck to their usual instrumental trademarks and, as befits their tradition, used a range of special sound effects, including barking, growling and bleating, that is, the calls of all three central animal species the concept talks about. All three central pieces feature complex structures with unexpected time changes, sudden tempo swerves and mouthwatering solos from guitar maestro Gilmour and keyboardist Rick Wright, who added an ARP synthesizer to his keyboard arsenal.
Despite the second-class role in which Waters already saw them at the time, both of them delivered some of the best instrumental moves of their careers as Pink Floyd members. Two of the pieces, “Dogs” and “Sheep”, had been sitting in studio form under different titles not long after the end of the “Dark Side Of the Moon” tour, but over time the arrangements were completely reworked and the lyrics changed. True to the subject matter, the mood of the album is rather dark, melancholic and pessimistic, with plenty of dramatic twists. Its central message is also beautifully captured on Thorgerson’s excellent cover, where a giant inflatable pig floats above the skyscrapers piercing the sky and a gigantic power station. “Relatives” of that inflatable pig were used as part of the stage design for years afterward.
All three central pieces, which present the individual social castes through animal metaphors, are a chapter in themselves, but they make the biggest impact as a rounded whole, together with the shorter acoustic opening and closing, the two parts of “Pigs On the Wing”. Both are short acoustic love ballads dedicated to Waters’ former love Carolyne. With their light mood and optimistic message, they stand in sharp contrast to the sarcastic, dark pulse of the other three tracks. The lyrics, laid over a simple melody on Waters’ acoustic guitar, suggest that friendship and love can rise above even the harshest social injustices. In the closing verse of the second part, Waters also turns on himself as a (former) “dog” who has come to the important realization of how to protect himself from his “pig” masters. For all its simplicity, this is a connecting, if not key, pair of pieces for the whole album, tying together the remaining three central compositions.
Hard proof that Waters was, at this stage of his career with Pink Floyd, still practicing a policy of enlightened, or benevolent, absolutism can be found in the phenomenal, more than 17-minute super epic “Dogs”, which, with its ambient-instrumental depth, is without a doubt the main treat of the whole album. Here he hands Gilmour the bulk of the vocals and lets him have some real star moments, with a series of unforgettable, heart-wrenching guitar solos. The opening melody features acoustic guitar, the sounds of Wright’s synthesizer and Dave’s sarcastically tinged vocals, and then they slowly build the atmosphere all the way up to the closing dramatic climax. The key moment of the composition, the one that still makes every guitar gourmet smack their lips with delight, hides in the central guitar solo, which features a dual guitar harmony that Gilmour created by recording one guitar over another. On top of all that, you can catch the highly inventive use of numerous guitar effects such as delay and reverb, which over the years became a staple of Dave’s career.
Gilmour sings most of the vocal parts, and then the caustic Waters takes over the singing baton in the last two verses. The acoustic subtleties and colorful keyboard textures woven in along the way crank up the distinctly melancholic, almost harrowing mood. During the section with Wright’s longer synthesizer solo, you can hear the sounds of dogs barking and yapping. Most of those sound effects were produced with a vocoder. The dogs are used here in a superb way as a metaphor for soulless businessmen and schemers who, with their ruthless deeds, destroy those close to them, their subordinates and their surroundings, while being kept under the watchful eye of their masters, that is, the pigs.
On “Pigs (Three Different Ones)”, Waters uses a vivid metaphor to portray three different kinds of swine (politicians, businessmen and the clergy) who manipulate the loyal dogs and docile sheep with lies, scheming and abuse of power, in order to hold on to authority, wealth and influence. Within Waters’ lyrics you can find plenty of barbed remarks aimed at some of the conservative British politicians of the day, led by the “Iron Lady” Margaret Thatcher. He mostly mocks their false morality, greed and unlived sexual fantasies, that is, traits all too often associated with representatives of the far right and conservatism. These barbed messages are disguised so subtly that none of them could easily recognize themselves in them and accidentally sue the band.
Over his guitar solo, Gilmour used a special effect to recreate the grunting of pigs, and such sounds crop up through most of the composition anyway. Some of them border on the grotesque, and it isn’t hard to picture the likes of Bavčar, Šrot, Rupel and their friends greedily shoving each other aside at a shared trough. This witty piece isn’t any peak of structural complexity or ambient fervor, but it manages to reach the edge of brilliance with a few clever tricks, like the aforementioned grunting, the mocking chorus and Mason’s use of cowbells. The central source of melancholy, which softens the grotesqueness of all these pig effects, once again lies in the haunting guitar passages and solos and the central, chilling keyboard motif.
Of the three central compositions on the album, “Sheep” is the least appealing, since the unusual psychedelic intervals make it a somewhat tougher nut to crack, but that doesn’t mean it isn’t another splendid and interesting piece. The slightly psychedelic piano intro is joined by a build-up on a rattling bass. Then comes a dramatic transition with Waters’ chameleon-like singing, tied together by plenty of tasteful Hammond passages and clever guitar touches. Here too there’s no shortage of various sound effects, led by the vocoder, especially during the synth solo, as well as yet another killer Gilmour solo that still makes every guitar gourmet lick their lips. At one point Waters’ singing reaches almost paranoid proportions, while Dave’s closing escalation of guitar phrases is pure candy for the ears. Toward the end they didn’t skip the bleating sounds either, representing the lowest caste on the social ladder, that is, the blinded proletariat, which stays exploited and humiliated under the watch of the dogs and the eternal drudgery of the pig masters. Good thing it’s followed by an optimistic acoustic closer, which takes the edge off this overall fatalistic aftertaste.
“Animals” is another crown jewel in the treasure chest of prog rock’s greats, and it still shines as bright as ever. In brilliant fashion it combines Waters’ political manifesto, a mirror held up to our society, with a dark and harrowing atmosphere that nobody who has learned to think for themselves can hear and stay cold. Sadly, the album’s central message remains as relevant as ever even after more than three decades, or rather, more relevant than ever. There’s hardly any need to guess that “Animals” was a commercial smash, one that stormed the top of the charts of the day with ease. Still, it surprised plenty of people, mostly because of its dark ambience and the not insignificant length of its central compositions. Meanwhile, Waters, ever more authoritarian in his songwriting ambitions but also ever more isolated, had already started cooking up his biggest concept-driven, half-autobiographical manifesto, which turned out to be the most ambitious project in the band’s history. The first brick between him and the rest of the band had already been laid successfully.
Lineup
Roger Waters – vocals, bass guitar, acoustic guitar, rhythm guitar
David Gilmour – vocals, guitar, bass guitar, synthesizer
Richard Wright – Hammond organ, Wurlitzer electric piano, Fender Rhodes piano, Yamaha piano, ARP synthesizer, backing vocals
Nick Mason – drums, percussion
Production
Pink Floyd
Tracklist
1. Pigs on the Wing 1
2. Dogs
3. Pigs (Three Different Ones)
4. Sheep
5. Pigs on the Wing 2
