Animals (Pink Floyd album)
- Harvest Records ( Europe)
- Columbia Records (USA)
New editions:
- EMI ( Europe)
- Capitol Records (USA)
Occupation
- David Gilmour - guitar, vocals
- Nick Mason - drums, percussion
- Roger Waters - bass, vocals
- Richard Wright - keyboards, vocals
Animals is the tenth regular album of the English band Pink Floyd. It was included in the Britannia Row Studios in London and released on 23 January 1977.
Content
Roger Waters announces this album socially critical people in three classes, which he compares each with animals ( cf. George Orwell's Animal Farm ). The dogs (dogs) are the capitalist -oriented people who are only interested in money, not care about their fellow man and go for profit even corpses.
Swine ( Pigs ) are the " moral high ground " preach to people every day, as they would have to behave properly for Waters. It just would these people make the most mistakes and behave particularly immoral.
Among the sheep ( Sheep) finally heard the masses, which can be exploited by the dogs, things are not questioned, but to be guided by others. The sheep did not have their own opinion and just want to be left alone.
Each of these three genera man dedicates Waters a title. Nestled are the three tracks from the short intro and outro Pigs on the Wing.
Compared to Animal Farm, the roles are a little different when Animals; in Orwell 's novel, the pigs are the ruling and oppressing class and the dogs their loyal servants and guards. In contrast, the sheep correspond to those of the template.
Musical performance
On this album, Pink Floyd are comparatively hard rock and therefore. The information presented on earlier albums backing choirs and elongated synthesizer sounds in the background almost completely eliminated, the music sounds clear and dynamic. Most pieces are dominated by the guitar playing of David Gilmour, who was also responsible for the composition of Dogs. The rest of the music and lyrics are all essentially by Roger Waters. The album is often interpreted as a musical response of the band on the emerging punk movement.
A little out of line fall intro and outro Pigs on the Wing. Here are Waters ' only to hear an acoustic guitar and the vocals.
Instrumentation
Although synthesizers have a lower status than on Wish You Were Here, they are still present in the music. On Dogs as the two-voice guitar theme is accompanied in the slower part of the string sounds of the ARP Solina String Ensemble, which also in the keyboard -heavy midsection takes a supporting role. The keyboards take here the unusually jazzy chord progression, which also introduces the song. Richard Wright also plays a distinctive solo on the Mini Moog. The Mini Moog is heard in the central part of Sheep also in the typical trumpets sound ( cf. Shine On You Crazy Diamond on Wish You Were Here ). He was doubled in recording technology to produce a two-voice sound. The strange vocal guitar sound on Pigs ( Three Different Ones ) was achieved with a talk box, the guitar sound was passed through a tube to David Gilmour's mouth - to be with lips, tongue and oral cavity modulated - similar to the Jew's harp. A vocoder is fitted in the central portions of both dogs and of Sheep. This is an electronic filter that lets the sound of the human voice and analyzed their can be impressed a different sound.
Cover
The cover of the album shows a photo of the coal power plant Battersea Power Station with a flying pig between the chimneys. To obtain this image, the band had a 9 x 4.5 meter large tube filled with an helium fuel pig on the power plant to rise. The pig was held by thin cables, which should be no longer visible on the photo later. In the event that the pig broke away, a sniper was hired to guide the pig to be able to shoot if necessary. The band called explicitly for this complex procedure because they wanted to allow any cheaper but low quality photo montage for the cover. On the first day of the photo shoot the pig floated perfectly between the chimneys, but the sky was blue and cloudless. Since the album cover should act sombre, another shoot the next day was recognized in the hope that dark clouds. Since the sniper was too expensive, was on the second day waived. Ironically, the pig broke free on the second day, rising to an altitude of 18,000 feet (about 5900 meters) on. Due to the size of pig and uncontrolled flight of the air traffic at Heathrow had to be diverted to provoke an accident. The pig fell off later on a sheep pasture and was repaired for a third shoot. The cover was ultimately produced as a photomontage that combines the images of the first day with the clouds of the other shootings.
History of the title
The origin of the title Dogs and Sheep is already in the year 1974. Dogs emerged from the title ( You) Gotta Be Crazy, Sheep from the title Raving and Drooling. Both original titles have been played live by the group in 1974 along with the original version of Shine On You Crazy Diamond. The group had decided not to include the two titles for the album Wish You Were Here. Only in 1976 was Roger Waters on the concept of categorization of people into animals, reactivated the title and changed the lyrics. The actual idea of this categorization, however, came from the book Animal Farm by George Orwell, in which the people, and in particular the various character groups of people are represented as animals.
The two-part title Pigs On The Wing in 1976 was originally a uniform, in which both components were connected by a solo. After David Gilmour had refused to play the solo, the new Come as a touring guitarist in the band Snowy White played a solo. On the album finished the piece, however, was divided and the solo removed. The original version was initially released only as an 8- track tape and later on the Snowy White Goldtop album.
The band was not playing all songs of the album on the accompanying tour, but after this. As Pink Floyd once again went around 1988 and around 1994 without Roger Waters on a world tour, the band played no pieces of Animals. Although the album does not contain a particularly popularized song, it is especially true for music critics today as underrated masterpiece.
Title list
Occupation
- Vocals, bass - Roger Waters
- Vocals, Guitar - David Gilmour
- Keyboards - Richard Wright
- Drums - Nick Mason
As a guest musician: guitar - Snowy White on the piece of Pigs on the wing.