It was 1977. Punk was exploding in London, screaming about no future and tearing down the old guard. Most of the "prog-rock" dinosaurs were shaking in their velvet boots, but Roger Waters didn't care. He was angry. He was bitter. He was watching the world turn into a predatory wasteland, and he decided to write a record that made the Sex Pistols look like a choir group.
The animals pink floyd album is basically a forty-two-minute middle finger to society.
Honestly, if you go back and listen to it now, it doesn't sound like the trippy, "dark side of the moon" space-rock people expect from Pink Floyd. It’s mean. It’s jagged. It’s got these massive, sprawling guitar solos from David Gilmour that feel more like a serrated knife than a melodic dream. While The Dark Side of the Moon was about universal themes like time and death, and Wish You Were Here was a melancholic tribute to Syd Barrett, Animals was a political cage match.
The Battersea Power Station and the Flying Pig
You know the cover. Everyone knows the cover. That massive, looming industrial monolith in London with a giant inflatable pig floating between the chimneys.
It wasn’t a Photoshop job. Obviously, Photoshop didn't exist, but they didn't even use a composite photo at first. They actually tied a 40-foot helium-filled pig (named Algie) to the power station. On the second day of the shoot, the pig broke loose. It actually drifted into the flight path of Heathrow Airport, grounded flights, and eventually landed in a field in Kent. The farmer was furious because it scared his cows. You can’t make this stuff up.
That image of the pig looking down on the "filth" of the city perfectly captures the vibe of the animals pink floyd album. It’s industrial. It’s grey. It’s heavy.
Dogs, Pigs, and Sheep: The Orwellian Nightmare
Waters took inspiration from George Orwell’s Animal Farm, but he tweaked the metaphor to fit the late 70s UK economic collapse. He broke humanity down into three miserable categories.
The Dogs
"Dogs" takes up almost the entire first side of the record. It’s seventeen minutes of David Gilmour and Roger Waters describing the high-flying corporate predators. These are the people who have to be "trusted by the people that you lie to" so that when they turn their backs on you, you get the chance to "put the knife in."
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The song is exhausting in the best way possible. It captures that frantic, paranoid energy of trying to climb the social ladder while losing your soul. The middle section features these weird, processed barking sounds that shouldn't work in a rock song, but they do. It feels like being trapped in a kennel with a bunch of suits.
The Pigs (Three Different Ones)
If the dogs are the ruthless climbers, the pigs are the ones at the top of the heap. Waters goes after the "charade" of morality. He specifically targets Mary Whitehouse, who was a famous UK "morality" campaigner at the time. He calls her out by name. It’s aggressive. It’s funky in a very dark, distorted way.
Most people don't realize how much of a David Gilmour album this actually is, even though Roger wrote the lyrics. Gilmour's fretless bass work on "Pigs" and his talk-box guitar solo are legendary. He’s making the guitar literally squeal like a hog. It’s gross. It’s brilliant.
The Sheep
Then you have the sheep. This is the masses. The people who just follow along, doing what they're told until they get led to the slaughterhouse. The song starts with this peaceful, pastoral electric piano from Richard Wright—who, by the way, was starting to get pushed out of the band during these sessions—and then it builds into a massive revolt.
There’s a section in the middle where a distorted voice recites a twisted version of the 23rd Psalm ("The Lord is my shepherd..."). It says he makes us into "lamb cutlets."
It’s bleak stuff.
The Internal War Within Pink Floyd
Behind the scenes, the band was falling apart. This is the "mean" album because the guys were being mean to each other.
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Roger Waters was taking total control. Richard Wright didn't get a single songwriting credit on this record. Not one. Nick Mason was just trying to keep the beat while the egos clashed. You can hear that tension in the recordings. There’s no "breathe in the air" warmth here. It’s cold.
When they went on the "In the Flesh" tour to support the animals pink floyd album, things got even worse. Roger grew to hate the stadium crowds. He felt like they weren't listening. It culminated in the famous incident in Montreal where he actually spat on a fan who was screaming at the front of the stage. That moment—that specific moment of disgust—is what eventually led Roger to write The Wall.
So, in a way, Animals is the bridge. It’s the bridge from Pink Floyd being a collaborative "jam" band to becoming the Roger Waters show.
Why Does It Sound So Different?
The production on Animals is bone-dry.
If you listen to Meddle or Dark Side, there’s a lot of reverb. It feels big and spacey. Animals feels like it was recorded in a concrete basement. They recorded it at their own newly built studio, Britannia Row. It was a DIY effort in many ways. This lack of polish is why the record has aged so much better than other 70s prog-rock. It feels "punk" in its attitude, even if the songs are seventeen minutes long.
How to Actually Listen to Animals
You can't shuffle this album. You just can't.
It starts and ends with "Pigs on the Wing" (Part 1 and 2). These are short, acoustic love songs Roger wrote for his wife at the time, Carolyne Christie. They act as bookends. The idea is that even in this dog-eat-dog, pig-ruled world, "you know that I care what happens to you, and I know that you care for me too."
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It's the only glimmer of hope in the whole thing. Without those two minutes of acoustic guitar, the album would be almost too depressing to finish.
The 2018 Remix (That Took Forever to Come Out)
For years, fans complained that the original mix of the animals pink floyd album was too muddy. There was a huge legal battle between Roger Waters and David Gilmour over the liner notes for a new remix. Seriously, they fought for years over a couple of paragraphs of text.
The remix finally dropped in 2022 (despite being called the "2018 Remix").
If you’ve only heard the original, you need to hear the remix. It pulls the veil off. You can hear the grit in Gilmour's strings. You can hear the weird textures Rick Wright was adding in the background that got buried in 1977. It makes the album feel brand new and even more aggressive.
Actionable Insights for the Modern Listener
To get the most out of the animals pink floyd album, stop treating it like background music. This isn't lo-fi beats to study to.
- Listen to the "Dogs" solo at high volume: The dual-guitar harmony section around the 13-minute mark is arguably the peak of Gilmour's career. It’s harmonized beauty over a cynical lyric.
- Track the Bass: Roger Waters is often criticized as a "basic" bassist, but the bass lines on this album (many played by Gilmour) are incredibly busy and melodic. They drive the songs more than the drums do.
- Compare it to "The Wall": Notice how the cynicism in Animals is outward-facing (hating society), while The Wall is inward-facing (hating yourself). It's a fascinating evolution of Roger Waters' psyche.
- Check the 2018 Remix: Specifically, listen to "Sheep" on the new remix. The clarity of the "Psalm" section is chilling compared to the 1977 vinyl version.
The world hasn't really changed since 1977. We still have the dogs, we still have the pigs, and we definitely still have the sheep. That’s why this record still hits like a ton of bricks. It’s not a relic of the hippie era; it’s a warning manual for the modern age.
Next time you’re stuck in traffic or feeling the weight of the "corporate grind," put on "Dogs." It won't make you feel better, but it will make you feel understood.
Experience the animals pink floyd album as a single piece of performance art rather than a collection of songs. The transition from the acoustic vulnerability of "Pigs on the Wing 1" into the snarling opening chords of "Dogs" is one of the most jarring and effective shifts in rock history. Study the lyrics while you listen; they are dense, poetic, and incredibly biting. Finally, look into the 2022 Dolby Atmos mix if you have the hardware—it places you directly inside the Battersea Power Station, surrounded by the echoes of a crumbling empire.