ANIMALS

Major part of western popular music is sung in English. This blocks out a lot of outsiders who understand written and spoken English, but who can't hang on with the finer nuances of poetry in English. Inevitably, this leads to non-native speakers to treat even most prog rock only according to music, and to overlook lyrics. Thankfully there's also a lot of instrumental prog!

I've read through the lyrics of Pink Floyd's Animals so many times that I can appreciate the philosophy behind them. One could wish Floyd were more outspoken, but then the power of poetry is in whispering, not screaming.

The problem with Animals is that its music is ashtonishingly dull. I know perfectly well it's a concept album, but that isn't an excuse to make a record out of one or two ideas only. With a similar duration as a typical romantic symphony has, Floyd doesn't have here one tenth of the musical ideas of, say Brahms, Liszt and their ilk. And you simply cannot compensate that with deep lyrics.

The only word that springs to my mind without an effort is pretentious.