Pink Floyd - The Studio Albums

[Slim]

Animals [January 1977]

I briefly pondered buying this album a few times in my early 20s, while browsing the racks in Hartlepool's various record shops. But I didn't. I bought the 1994 CD remaster about twenty years ago and that's what I listened to today, for probably the third or fourth time.

In my previous piece in this modest thread I opined that Wish You Were Here is the overextended product of a band short of ideas. That's even more obviously true here. In fact a large proportion of the album (more than twenty-seven minutes of it, no less) is reworked from material that was considered for the previous album (Dogs and Sheep).

Apart from Dogs which was co-written with Gilmour, the entire album is written (and sung) by Waters. Rick Wright later claimed that Rog wouldn't let him write material for it - which does ring true, doesn't it? To be fair Gilmour was supposedly distracted by the arrival of his first born. I suspect that this is the point in the Pink Floyd story at which Roger's ego kicks in and he takes charge, so much so that he starts to think of the other three as his backing band. Personally I've always thought of him as the critical creative force in the band anyway but there's no doubt that Gilmour and Wright made important contributions to their best albums.

The album is bookended by two versions of a simple but effective acoustic ditty called Pigs On The Wing. Exactly the same tactic as the last album; the same tune offered twice at opposite ends of the record - but to be fair it's only about 85 seconds long, in both versions.

Dogs is just over seventeen minutes long; you might assume that it's an 'epic' in the grand tradition of Atom Heart Mother or Echoes, but it isn't. It's just a fairly straightfoward song, padded out with long and not-very-interesting subdued instrumental parts. I do like it, but I'd like it a lot more if it lasted for about six minutes. Very nice vocal by Gilmour, clever lyrics, lovely chord changes, nice guitar part.

Pigs is at least only eleven minutes long (ish) but it's a very ordinary tune that would struggle to sustain three minutes. Sheep I do quite like, albeit not a lot. There's just about enough variation and energy to justify its ten minute duration. I like Gilmour's shimmering broken chords toward the end.

I've always felt that there's something depressingly low-key about this album. I get that it's supposed to be "dark". The subject matter is supposed to reflect the grim sociopolitical conditions of mid '70s Britain, and as far as I can tell the animals represented by the various tunes are allegories of social classes, a bit like Animal Farm. But the production feels really flat. There does exist a 2018 remix that supposedly addresses this. I've never liked the tunes enough to bother with it. The bigger problem is that there are none of the irresistible melodies or sophisticated instrumental passages that the previous two albums had. A bit of the trademark wash of atmospheric synth or a few delicately plucked echoey guitar arpeggios might have improved the long tedious part in Dogs, for example.

Anyway - more positively, that cynical, astringent edge in Waters' vocal really starts to come to the fore on this album. I like that.

Glad I had a listen one more time, but there's nothing to draw me back to Animals. I can't see myself investing forty-one minutes in it again. It ought to be an EP, really. In truth there's about fifteen minutes of worthwhile music on the whole record. Maybe even less.

[Thenop]

I like Animals, the long winding songs suit me. Not always, but I do return to this one a bit. The double guitar solo in Dogs is great, in fact Gilmours solos shine quite a bit on this album. I guess I am more a long form song guy than a short form. Always have been, long intros, extended solo parts - bring it on. Probably why this one resonates.
Dogs I like best, but really all three songs are great to me.

[dom]

I enjoyed Shine On for the first few times I listened to it, but nowadays find it too repetitive.

Never understood why Roy Harper was brought in to sing Have A Cigar.  An outward sign of the power struggle between Waters and Gilmore. Perhaps they both wanted to sing it, couldn't agree in who would so they got a third party in.

Welcome to the Machine and Have A Cigar are essentially the same song

Overall WYWH is a drop in standard between the 2 albums either side of it