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Thishere is music for ferocious turds.Grandmas beware.steer clearrr from zis mess.animals are nerdy.Hektor Af.
But it is not beyond me to become a Pig in this contemporary age. Not to try and bring you down, but by displaying this metaphor, Pink Floyd helps us to understand we are not alone in our misery. The album transcends pop music, and has become an underrated iconic work of art portraying modern humankind. Everybody likes quick snappy songs that you can dance to, and very few understand that music is probably the most emotional and powerful artform in existence.
For me, this one paints pictures in your head about who you really are in this society, and leaves you feeling empty, wondering what it is we are missing. Pink Floyd is probably the best artistic music group to come out of the Twentieth century, and this album is as good as anything in their discography. Which animal do you resemble. Pink Floyd was so ahead of their time in everything they did; they still sound futuristic here in the twenty-first century. By releasing this album, as well as many others, they show us what they are feeling, and it is the same emotions we are feeling.
The music is great, but most people don't get the long, meloncholy metaphorical compositions. If you like music as an artform, this is for you, if you like mindless music industry products, go buy the latest American Idol winner's CD. But I could also say that about most of their albums. This music takes time to listen to. I usually consider myself a Sheep, but have often related to the Dog story as well.
Especially the line, "And when you lose control, You'll reap the harvest you have sown. It is an album to play whenever, whether you are working, driving, relaxing, self medicating, sleeping, this is the soundtrack to your life. In my humble opinion, it is better than The Wall, and Dark Side of the Moon, but not by much.
How often in Rock Music history has one artist or band managed the feat of creating four supreme efforts on the trot. I don't quite understand why Animals is not considered by the majority of fans to be the equal of the two records that preceded it and the one that followed.
Stylistically and lyrically it is clearly a Roger Waters opus. Animals is another Pink Floyd masterpiece.
On the other hand ten years had passed since Piper and one cannot really quibble if the band decided to explore new territory. However, I suspect that without David Gilmour's contributions the LP would have been just as interesting but not nearly as listenable or enjoyable.
I do miss the spacey psychedelic sounds of the band's previous output going back to 1967. For me each of the records is unique and brilliant.
The Beatles (Rubber Soul through to White - five records), Springsteen (his first four or six or seven), Stones (Banquet through Exile - five including the very fine live Ya-Yas), Dylan (1963-1969) and Van Morrison (Astral through Saint Dominic) are a few that come to mind.
Animals is another powerful, cohesive work during their best stretch in the mid-late 70's, sometimes overlooked in favor of surrounding material. It does lack some of the profound production power inherent in Floyd's more unforgettable sonic landscapes, but was always trying to be a different beast altogether, coming across in may ways as the most down to earth (in a good way) output they've offered. Consider it the first one to grab after you've polished off the obligatory must-owns.
the blasphemous re-writing of the "23rd Psalm") in which God's so-called "apathy" rallies the docile flock of "Sheep" into violent rebellion that ends with them attacking their Creator and trying to "make the bugger's (slang for a sodomite) eyes water". So Bassist Roger Waters (and guitarist David Gilmour) reworked them a bit and overhauled the lyrics to suit a new concept album whereby the human race is catagorized into three different species of animal (a la George Orwell) locked into a fierce socialist struggle. A Christian empowered by the Holy Spirit is not some docile wimp who cowers before the Devil and the endless cruelties of man, but is likened to a well-trained soldier who fights AGAINST such evil and thus fights on the side of God Jesus who is the living representation of all that is good and just and kind and holy and righteous. To open and close the record on a more positive note: a gentle, acoustic ballad ("Pigs On The Wing, Part One and Two") was also added as a counter to the excessive, downbeat nature of Waters' lyrics.
No matter if its David Gilmour's slashing guitar on "Dogs", the brutal funk of "Pigs", or Roger Waters' pounding, warbling bass on "Sheep": this is an extraordinary LP that makes a bolder musical statement than the more popular Floydian concept albums "DARK SIDE OF THE MOON" and (especially) "THE WALL". But it is precisely that bitter, cynical tone which has rendered "ANIMALS" the most difficult Pink Floyd album to listen to even though it highlights their instrumental prowess better than any of their previous LP's. Although an artist may be granted a certain degree of pessimism: the record eventually slips into an exploitation of pure evil (i.e. REVIEW: "ANIMALS" was compiled from two songs ("Gotta Be Crazy" and "Raving And Drooling") written and played on the Pink Floyd tour prior to the "WISH YOU WERE HERE" recording sessions yet were never acutally committed to tape. VIOLENCE: about 13 instances. It was the determination of Christ Jesus to do the right thing that enabled him to die not as a coward or for a pointless cause: but in order to save the whole of humanity from the evil of ourselves and from the evil of that same apathy which Waters condemns.
To give in to the darkness of Satan by fighting against the One True God who loves us and who is fighting for us is about as intelligent as shooting yourself in the foot and blaming someone else for your own stupidity. But regardless of its theological/sociological shortcomings: "ANIMALS" is still the hardest rocking Pink Floyd album ever released.
SEXUAL REFERENCES: none. Thus "Gotta Be Crazy" and "Raving And Drooling" were re-christened as "Dogs" and "Sheep", and a new song called "Pigs" was composed to complete the trilogy.
If you can handle the pitch-black cynicism and the "cinematic" horror of its presentation then "ANIMALS" should rank high on the scale of classic Pink Floyd releases. In that song: Roger Waters has taken the Biblical call for Christians to be "sheep among wolves" as a calling card for allowing everyone to walk all over you.
But the example of Christ is one not of "conforming to the herd" (if you will): but of doing the will of God in spite of the will of man. HARSH LANGUAGE: 1 f-word and two uses of the slang word "bugger".
DRUG REFERENCES: none.HIGHEST BILLBOARD ALBUM CHART POSITION: Number 3.HIT SINGLES: none.
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