Animals
	Produced by Pink Floyd
	Released on February 2, 1977
	UK CHART POSITION #2 . . . US CHART POSITION #3 . . . PLATINUM RECORD (3/10/77), 4x PLATINUM (1/31/95)
	Find it at GEMM
JC 34474 cover [outer gatefold photo]

S ullen even by their standards, Animals is a dark, brooding, intractable slab of an album. Using George Orwell’s “Animal Farm” as a launching point, Roger Waters attacks complacency toward the status quo as a breeding ground for submission. The songs are diatribes against humanity, bookended by a pair of acoustic interludes that feign sweetness. Obviously, not everyone is enamored of Waters’ long, nasty lecture against life; some found the numbing sameness a concession to waning creativity, others a relentless dressing-down at once mesmerizing and powerful. (For the record, I fall into column B.) If Animals finds itself shy of an arkful of musical ideas, guitarist David Gilmour steps in to fill the void with his poignant commentary. His leads are easily the album’s most distinctive musical element, biting where the remaining instruments feel muted. In structure, it’s not so different from Wish You Were Here, but in sound the arrangements are stripped down to the lean muscle. Animals doesn’t make any pretense of a positive spin; Wish You Were Here offered the chance of escape, Animals the option of ignorance. Unlike The Final Cut, which was equally bleak, Animals is considered “classic” Pink Floyd. Those listeners in a meditative mood will find in this music a self-sustaining world where the air is not only breathable but pleasurable, albeit acrid. It’s a heavy trip, but it’s also intense in the best possible sense.

JC 34474 inner gatefold	JC 34474 lyric sleeve

TRACK LISTING

1. PIGS ON THE WING (PART ONE)    (Roger Waters)   
2. DOGS    (Roger Waters/David Gilmour)   
3. PIGS (THREE DIFFERENT ONES)    (Roger Waters)   
4. SHEEP    (Roger Waters)   
5. PIGS ON THE WING (PART TWO)    (Roger Waters)   

CREDITS

DAVID GILMOUR --
NICK MASON -- graphics
ROGER WATERS -- sleeve design
RICK WRIGHT --
Brian Humphries -- engineer
E.R.G. -- inflatable pig design
Storm Thorgerson -- organisation
Aubrey Powell -- organisation, photography
Peter Christopherson, Howard Bartrop, Nic Tucker, Bob Ellis, Bob Brimson, Colin Jones -- photography

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SUGGESTED READING

Of course the working literary reference point here is George Orwell's Animal Farm. This was actually required reading in American grade schools during the '70s (part of our Democratic indoctrination I suppose), and I hope it continues that way (the sword cuts at both ends). Anyway, if you haven't read it in a while and want a copy, there are used copies of Animal Farm for sale on GEMMbooks. And aren't I becoming the whore for capitalism, he wryly noted...

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