Animals

Following the release of their last album in 1975, Pink Floyd had spent 1976 sinking hundreds of thousands of pounds into their Britannia Row Studios, where Animals was recorded. The bulk of the album had already been written before the session; "Dogs" first appeared in 1974 as "You Gotta Be Crazy," while "Sheep" was previously "Raving and Drooling." Roger Waters again dominates the picture, providing the album's grand and Orwellian concept. Dividing people into groups of dogs, pigs and sheep provided for some interesting lyrical matter (including a spattering of Psalm 23), but never mind a deeper meaning; one ultimately gets the feeling that Waters hates them all. Both memorable and unmemorable at the same time, his brief acoustic "Pigs on the Wing Parts 1 & 2" bookend the record. Waters's "Pigs (Three Different Ones)" is new material, though it certainly wouldn't have been out of place on the preceding album. Rick Wright and David Gilmour both provide some of their most heroic performances on record; in particular, check out the latter's guitar solo on "Dogs." Moreover, the album stands as one of the band's hardest rocking affairs, and perhaps one of their most listenable. The well-matured tracks are perfect constructs, and the production is well-suited for the material. Aubrey Powell's black-and-white photography furthers the Orwellian motif. In fact, the album's visual element—of a pig flying over the smoke stacks of England's Battersea Power Station—would provide a lasting image for the band, and one that featured prominently on the subsequent In The Flesh tour and, a decade later, in lawsuits. Though failing to top the charts, it earned Pink Floyd No. 2 and No. 3 spots in the UK and US, respectively. Not bad, considering that "punk" had just broke.