Pink Floyd - Animals (Poll and discussion thread)

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?