Pink Floyd – Animals Review

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After finding contempt for the music industry, Pink Floyd went a step further and assessed their surroundings. What appalled them about their cog-in-a-machine experience of peddling new sounds was even worse when they found themselves looking at the culture they had influenced, and the take-home messages now laid out in the lands. Agitated and in-fighting members would soon come to a head on this concept album and there the groundwork was placed for what would become The Wall. Roger Waters’ seething ideas paired with the consistencies of David Gilmour on guitar bring about the bulk of fun to be had with Animals, a double-edged sword which would tear through the culture around it and the band. Careless escapes in the brief opener Pigs on The Wing 1 should be a sign of those furies, and they settle in well before the crashing heroics of Dogs.  

Pink Floyd was no longer top of the musical pile yet responded to the challenges of their legacy. Dogs does just that – a demand for people to have a real need to create and thrive. Where Waters provides some masterful vocal strikes, it is Gilmour who takes his place as the integral Pink Floyd member here. They work against one another on Dogs. A slick arrangement of booming, beautiful instrumentals matched by Waters’ desire for trust in a decade lacking anything of the sort. Battersea Power Station serves as a representation of the industrialisation of sound and the worries they featured on Wish You Were Here continue. A marvellous collection of themes run through and though it may sound like the argument continues, it is more an elevation of Waters’ initial points against where capitalism was headed, headfirst into art and with no signs of slowing. He was right. Hindsight is a chilling experience, and Animals remains as biting as it was on release. 

Though it swerves away from the Animal Farm influences and the obvious George Orwell imagery fluttering through its vocal range, the impact of the Orwellian tone is clear. While Waters never found his way out of the maze which he rallies against on Dogs it leads him to tight instrumental blurs with Gilmour, the last of their glorious collaborations worth listening to. Pigs (Three Different Ones) is nothing short of an instrumental pleasure. A wonderful and clawing Gilmour essential. Animals certainly is a glorious piece of his best moments. Their jagged and uncertain attempts at instigating a fight with the concepts of punk rock of the time is a fascinating experience because it comes at a time of trying to mark a new turn of conceptual listens. They are trying to keep their feelings out there in the open despite pressure elsewhere. Record deal collapses, new studio power and a mixture of talents gunning for the same, prog-rock evolution goal.  

Therein lies the great beauty of Animals. It has all the same expectations of the Pink Floyd albums before it – the introduction of nature as a bridge into the next track (as is the case for Pigs (Three Different Ones) into Sheep) but also the fadeouts and keyboard classiness which kept the band afloat when they found themselves unchallenged and at the top of the pile. Animals have them return to the highest point of the pecking order, but they are bruised and bloodied, retaliating once more after the exertion of Wish You Were Here fractured their identity. A glorious piece of work where they hope to roam the fields and find a purer state of the world than they entered with, but their luck is up. Pink Floyd accepts their responsibility in the new face of gritty and smoky worlds despite their keen desire to bring out the best in their listeners. Pigs On The Wing 2 lingers as a promising high which lays out their love in a shocking clarity. It could have proven fatal, but it makes Animals a masterclass.  

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