Animals (1977)
1. Pigs on the Wing (Part 1)
2. Dogs
3. Pigs (Three Different Ones)
4. Sheep
5. Pigs on the Wing (Part Two)
It was right about the time that this
album came out that bassist Roger Waters sort of evolved into the band's
"leader". Yes, there would always be debates about who contributed what
in this band, but it was Waters that was pushing them into the
directions that he thought best. He was, after all, the band's chief
lyricist, so it's not completely surprising that he would be the one
that took the reigns of control. It should also be pointed out that he
was writing most of the band's music at this point as well.
On a heavier note, Waters was never really a cheerful kind of guy. His
themes and ideas were always awfully depressing, and listening to
Pink Floyd for many, just became too miserable of an experience. His
writing would be become a bit more personable on future albums, but it
was clear that "success" hadn't helped his demeanor at all. If
anything, it made it worse and he found himself becoming a much more
distant human being.
This is probably the band's most depressing album. It's
impossible to talk about this album without discussing, to some
degree, the concept of the album. Especially when there are only
three songs (in addition to an "intro" and an "outro", that is) and
they're all, well, named after a different animal. The concept is
loosely based around the George Orwell novel "Animal Farm" in which all
the characters are one kind of animal or another, and based on certain
stereotypes, we watch the animals interact, and to some extent, destroy
themselves.
According to Pink Floyd, we're all either a dog, a pig or a sheep. None
of them are really "good" guys. The dogs chase and want to eat the
sheep, but the sheep are too submissive to do anything about it, so they
just allow themselves to be eaten. The "pigs" are the fat, bloated ones
in power who get to make all the rules and live "high on the hog" (if you
parden the pun). Yes, it's heavy, too heavy,
to be frank, and Roger Waters just flat out sounds a tad too pissed off.
It becomes a little too much, lyrically to hear him beat up Margaret
Thatcher and Mary Whitehouse in Pigs (Three Different Ones), and
his bastardization of the 23rd Psalm in Sheep is mightily
offensive to many as well, but Waters is Waters and you just had to take
his crabby persona if you wanted to be a fan of this band.
Fortunately, the music here is excellent. This is quite possibly
the best album of pure songs that this band ever released. True,
there's really only three, but they average probably about twelve
minutes in length, so the band has plenty of opportunity to screw things
up, yet they never do. A lot of Pink Floyd albums are filled with
noises and/or sound effects. They paid the bills a lot on their
records by being different and just a tad bit weirder than most of their
contemporaries. So unlike, for example, their last album Wish You Were Here, we hear a lot more
guitar, bass, drums and keyboard as opposed to just dreamy
synthesizers throughout the album.
Another curious thing about the album, is that it really was impossible
to have singles from this album. The pieces are just to varied
in their scope in addition to being very long, so unless your listening
to a "classic rock" station, you couldn't expect to hear these songs pop
up on a top 40 playlist anywhere. I thought it was sad that in the
later years, the Roger Waters-less Pink Floyd ignored this entire album.
Bad feelings were deep, and it wouldn't surprise me if they stayed away
from playing parts of the album just because most of the songs
were written by Waters.
It's also worth noting that this album was really the beginning
of the end. Yes, they were now selling out stadiums, but their mass
popularity became more about wanting to be associated with this group
rather than really caring about what they had to say. It has become a
bit of a legend that there were times during this tour that Waters
became so enraged that he would either stop songs in the middle and
berate the crazed, out of control audience, and one time he even actually spat on a fan. So
yes, all great things must come to an "end" even though the Floyd
machine still had some good work left in it. It was sad to see what
this band was turning into though, even if they were churning out great music.
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