ANIMALS

Musically this be their most satisfying moment for those fans who like hard rock. Everyone in the band is in top muscular form, especially Dave. It's funny how punk rock claimed to hate Pink Floyd. When you read the lyrics to Animals, the truth is that punk and Floyd were allies philosophically at this moment, separated only by age, wealth, and fashion. Punk should have celebrated Animals as it is one big hearty F-YOU to the Establishment.

"Dogs" is a favorite in the Floyd arsenal for many, lamenting the selling out of the human soul for money and power. It pulls no punches as it describes in blissful bloody gore how aspiring-for-power man will work himself to death ("sleep on your toes"), wear the conformist garb ("work on points for style"), lie, backstab, sell out his friends, and convince himself that everyone's as morally bankrupt as he is so what difference does it make. He ends up sad and alone, sinking like a stone, dying. He was "fitted with collar and chain, breaking away from the pack, only a stranger at home, ground down in the end, found dead on the phone."

He then goes after the Pigs with equal ferocity. And then after us, the Sheep, who put up with being abused and exploited. We, who pass the time pretending the danger isn't real, who follow the leader into the valley of steel. Or will we rise in revolution instead? The album succeeds with most fans, but for me I hear the beginning of the decline that would seep into the final three Waters albums. As Roger became more controlling and negative, you can almost feel the other three guys pulling away, certainly by the time of The Wall. They are simply less emotionally invested, and why should they be? Roger just considers them his backing band.

Soon the band would begin to fray and the many fans would divide into the two Floyd factions, those who love David's undeniable performance talents and those who relish Roger's dark songwriting. Animals was perhaps the last moment where the band seemed to be (somewhat) on the same page, but you can clearly hear the drop in quality and passion from the body of work that came before it. The teamwork of the young men who worked together to create that masterpiece on the human condition just four years prior is nowhere to be found here.

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