ANIMALS

At this point the Floyd were under a lot of pressure from the industry, after having finished two best selling albums, to keep the creative juices flowing and to produce another masterpiece. And the pressure felt is evident in the lyrics here. Indeed, on their last album Waters described the industry as a relentless machine (Welcome to the Machine) run by cold, business savvy executives greedy for more sales - "You've gotta get an album out, you owe it to the people. We're so happy we can hardly count." But on Animals, he essentially devotes an entire album to describing corporate and political greed, and the little people who follow the rules of the powerful like mindless robots (or sheep). Waters is progressively becoming more and more bitter with each new album. Of course, their grand opus of negative energy would be the next one, The Wall. And one distinction that could be made between the pointed lyrics of Animals and The Wall is that on the Animals album, Waters seems to be primarily focused on the problems he sees in the world (at least Britain and America), whereas his observations are more inwardly directed on The Wall (although on The Wall he does blame a lot of the problems in his own life on outward influences before finally pointing the finger at himself and asking, "Have I been guilty all this time?").

Musically, as it's been noted elsewhere, Animals almost hangs with Dark Side and WYWH. Gimour's guitar soars and cries on this album like a desperate child lost in a maze. And his vocals on Dogs are among the most powerful and gripping I've ever heard from him, and his cries match the passion of his wailing guitar.

"And as you lose control you'll reap the harvest you have sown. And as the fear grows The bad blood slows and turns to stone.

And it's too late to use the weight you used to need to throw around. So have a good drown As you go down... all alone... dragged down by the stone."

Can someone slit my bloody wrists for me already? Jesus Christ! This is dark stuff! But it's brilliant and it moves me, as does the entire album. Another masterpiece from Floyd! Long shall the music live on!