Pink Floyd - Animals (Poll and discussion thread)

Animals (a great album; I listened to it two days ago) is overrated on ILX. Out in the real world, the response is generally, "Oh yeah...they did make one between Wish You Were Here and The Wall! You're right! Wow, I'd forgotten all about that! What songs are on that one?"

Most underrated? Neither More nor Obscured by Clouds appears on Acclaimed Music's Top 3000 albums. I think Ummagumma should get equal credit with The Court of the Crimson King for ushering in full-fledged progressive rock.

of all the major floyd records, animals is prob still the least thought-of and canonized on u.s classic rock radio so it is hard for me to think of it as overrated. maybe it’s overrated in the uk and on ilx

Not only on ILX tbf. RYM rates it ahead of Meddle and right behind Dark Side of the Moon. Its reputation seems to have greatly improved over the past decade or so, which is totally warranted, just… not to this extent.

the response is generally, "Oh yeah...they did make one between Wish You Were Here and The Wall! You're right! Wow, I'd forgotten all about that! What songs are on that one?"

yeah I think the main thing is it's the one "peak" Waters era album that didn't produce any radio staples

i guess for me, someone whose gone through several phases of disowning the waters-era stuff in favor of the barrett-era (piper still rates high for me and i think it's a really special record) and later the sort of headless exploratory unit they became after barrett left (their live peak, it takes a really incredible band for me to seek out their bootlegs but pink floyd rules), rediscovering animals was revelatory; i know there was a really black mood growing among the members at this point but they all sound like they're at the peak of their powers and are responding to each other's ideas even as these ideas were growing increasingly siloed from each other. also anytime wright stretches out it is just beautiful. every song brings something to the table sonically, melodically, and thematically, which is also true of wish you were here (i love dark side and would include it but i lost the ability to actually hear it decades ago) but it's not necessarily true of my previous favorite floyd record meddle. in conclusion pink floyd rules and i think debating what is internally overrated and underrated in their discography may be really silly

also as many ppl have pointed out animals is really groovy

I think among Floyd buffs, "Animals" is especially highly rated in a kind of "Let me shock you" way. I think I said my piece on it somewhere else itt.

I think Animals is about accurately rated. It’s a little bit like Presence - it has one all time epic track and a few other very good songs that are neither masterpieces nor hits. Real heads get burned out on the more popular albums and convince themselves it’s really the best one, but a little distance reveals that to be an absurd claim - this band made fucking Dark Side of the Moon.

it's the one "peak" Waters era album that didn't produce any radio staples

otm. even meddle had 'one of these days', which got some radio play

when you're burned out from overhearing dsotm/wywh/wall, where else can you go? (don't say the final cut)

Obscured By Clouds & More! also, bootlegs like those BBC sessions

and also

https://www.discogs.com/Richard-Wright-Wet-Dream/master/43573

i know there was a really black mood growing among the members at this point...

It's interesting that "Shine On" and the early "Dogs" and "Sheep" ("You've Got To Be Crazy" and "Raving and Drooling") were all written and played live in 1974--so this wasn't the Animals-era black mood, but one of their earlier black moods. In Nick Mason's memoir, he calls it a "gloomy period for the band" in the time between the "Household Objects" experiments and actually starting to work on Wish in earnest.

The 1974 Wembley concert versions that came out on the Wish Expanded Edition show how much of the sound, structure and specific instrumental parts of "Dogs" and "Sheep" were already set at that point. Gilmour may have played the bass on "Sheep" in the studio, but Roger was playing that chugging bass backbone for years before.

On a bit of a Floyd revisit, this is the album that’s really doing it for me. Partly because it’s the one I listened to least during my adolescent Floyd phase so it sounds freshest to me of all their post-Meddle stuff. Gilmour’s playing is really great throughout, and it also has a stripped-down four-guys-in-a-room vibe compared to the grandiosity of most of the ‘70s albums.

Animals sounds extremely nice and unique in the floyd cannon; there's kind of a muted quality to the bass in particular, and a lot less synth driven than the previous two records.

The latter apparently both a symptom and cause of Wright's slow fade from the band. Nice synth work on "Dogs" tho.

it's the best floyd album, it's very proto-balearic. propulsive, groovy and spacey

I'm pretty into this album but I checked out the 2018 mix when it was released last year (?) and I struggled to remember any differences from the regular one. I kind of remember thinking, hmm, ok well the exceptionally dry drums have a little bit more of an in-the-room sound to them, and the bass is louder? Am I missing something? Also isn't there the Quad 8-track release where a version of Dogs (IIRC) that has a completely different guitar solo not even played by Gilmour? Would seem like a cool thing to release more widely at this point.

Not Dogs, but there's this Snowy White solo on Pigs on the Wing (which ties it all together into one song). It's pretty nice.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eFY171Ui7gI

apparently it's only ever been re-released on a compilation of snowy white's session work? it's the sort of thing you'd expect to have ended up on a deluxe reissue at some point, but i guess tensions between waters & gilmour were too bad to do any digging in the vaults for the recent reissue & i'd imagine there's not much else anyway for animals beyond maybe some live recordings

Gilmour and Wright both released solo albums the following year, but IIRC neither of those were made up of any unused Animals material. I wonder if there any alternate (alternative directions?) of "Pigs" but I think that was pretty much built as is. We're well into Imperial Roger and his fait accompli for outside contributions was in force.

i think both gilmour & wright said they were relatively low on ideas during the animals sessions due to issues in their personal lives, and waters was very set on what he wanted to do and wasn't too interested in anyone else's ideas anyway

Probably significant that they both put out solo albums the year after.

I've never heard Wet Dream but Gilmour's 1978 self-titled solo début is a drab affair. If those were all the ideas he could muster up I'm not surprised Waters dismissed them.

Wright's album is pleasant (some nice piano chords as per!) but he hasn't really got the voice for an entire album.

The Snowy White version of "Pigs on the Wing" seems like it could have actually been a single, I wonder if that was contemplated.

it was!!

https://www.discogs.com/release/5513999-Pink-Floyd-Pigs-On-The-Wing

That "combined" Pigs on the Wing doesn't work at all, no fault of the lead guitar. It's not interesting enough to justify three uninterrupted minutes, splitting in half and putting 35 minutes of much better music in between was smart.

he hasn't really got the voice for an entire album.

Wright only sings on half the songs on "Wet Dream", but more to the point he doesn't have the vision to make a whole record sound like more than "Shine On parts X to XIX" (though I haven't heard it in 35 years).

stripped-down

a lot less synth driven

What record is this?