ANIMALS

I say this because after this release, keyboardist Richard Wright was fired from the group, but still played on "The Wall" and toured for that album technically as a "hired sideman". Also, "The Wall" involved heavy feuding between Gilmore and Waters, thus making the recording similar to the Beatles "White Album", where Lennon and McCartney did their work as seperate as possible. As for "Final Cut", that was basically a Waters solo album, with minimal contributions by Gilmore, and plenty of "outside" musicians to fill in the rest...

(..now back to this review..) "Animals" was recorded during the later 70's, when original Prog. was in it's "beginning-of-the-end" phase. Punk rock was gaining momentum in it's hatred for fine-musicianship and long epics, so this Floyd release was the final gasp of their "collaborative" era..

"Pigs on the Wing..(pts. 1 & 2)" bookend the album with a "love song" (according to Waters) because he didn't want the album to be completely "angry", since it deals with an "Orwellian" theme.

"Dogs" is my favorite because of a very meaningful guitar solo (after the section where various barks fill the background of an acoustic piece by Gilmore). This song (17 min. plus) deals with the businessman and his shortcomings..

"Pigs" entails the rulers of society, Waters angrily attacking everybody from Margaret Thatcher to the Whitehouse (..remember, Carter was president then.., so thanks Roger!!). Again, Gilmore's solo is amazing since he skillfully uses a wah-pedal to imitate pig grunts and squeals..

"Sheep" is started with a neat Fender Rhodes solo by Wright, then burst into the meat of the song with Waters angry vocals decrying the "sheep" of society who stand idly by, moving with the rest of the herd towards eventual slaughter..

If you can locate it, there's a wesite devoted to this album with extra pictures, live photos from the tour (featuring extra guitarist Snowy White"), and an interesting story about how the "flying pig" on the cover broke loose and floated away, causing an air-traffic dilemma and finally being shot-down in a field.

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