“Animals” is Pink Floyd’s tenth studio album, originally released on 21st January 1977. It is a concept album critiquing mid-1970s British society, using allegorical animals to represent social classes: predatory dogs, despotic pigs, and the conformist herd of sheep. The iconic cover, designed by Storm Thorgerson, features an inflatable pig floating between the chimneys of Battersea Power Station. The album reached number 2 in the UK and number 3 in the US, and is now regarded as one of the band’s greatest works
Pink Floyd are marking the 50th anniversary of Animals with an expansive multi-format reissue featuring rare recordings, previously unheard material and a newly unearthed live document from the band’s 1977 tour.
In anticipation of the official announcement , Animals 50 is coming out. Operation similar to the one for “Wish You Were Here”. they’re released “Sheep (Original Radio Edit)”; a four and a half minute, promo-only edit made for radio in 1977, which has never been commercially available until now.
“Animals 50” will be available as a deluxe box set, 2LP, 2CD, Blu-ray and digital release. As well as “Sheep (Original Radio Edit)”, also included are early versions of “Dogs” and “Sheep”, a previously unreleased studio jam and an unheard Roger Waters composition, “Young Nicholas Jon”.
Roger Waters says: “I’d driven past Battersea Power Station every day going to and from my house in Clapham. I guess I just loved the building. I liked its symbolism that it’s a power station and that it belches smoke, so there’s something menacing about it. It’s got four phallic chimneys, and it looks like an upside down table. And there were four people in the band that had been turned upside down. It seemed like a really cool place for a pig to fly.”
Speaking on “Animals”, David Gilmour says: “The mood in music was changing in ’77. Punk music was hitting everything and I suspect that had a little bit of an influence on the way we were working on the “Animals” album. I mean it’s quite an aggressive, stripped-back album. It was moving away from the sort of soundscapes that we had on “Wish You Were Here“. This album is more in your face and more rough and ready. And definitely the lyrics are a lot more aggressive from Roger. We had a lot of fun making it.”
Nick Mason says: “There were all sorts of differences beginning to surface within the band but in some ways “Animals” was a remarkably cohesive enterprise. The big thing was the development of Britannia Row. Britannia Row was this building we’d bought some few years before in which we’d actually started building our own recording studio. We tried to design the studio in such a way that any of us could operate it and all the trunking was labelled clearly so anyone could plug in a set of headphones without someone else having to do it for us.”
The deluxe edition also contains a complete recording of Pink Floyd’s May 1977 concert at Oakland Coliseum Arena, captured during the band’s In The Flesh tour. Long known among collectors, the performance is presented officially for the first time and includes live versions of the entire “Animals” suite alongside material from “Wish You Were Here” and “The Dark Side Of The Moon”.
This is one of the most famous bootlegs of all time, gathering millions of views across its time on youtube and other platforms. Taped by Reinhardt “Rhino” Hohlwein, this is one of the defining recordings of the band ever. It’s simply stunning in its quality and stereo. Reinhardt would go onto tape February 12th and 13th, 1980 during the early Wall tour shows. It’s a great show with all time performances from the band, including a very rare one off; “Careful With That Axe, Eugene!” It’s the first time it had been performed in almost 3 years, when it was played for a couple of dates during the French Summer/Gini promotional tour in June 1974. This is also the last time the band would ever perform this song, a set list staple since early 1968. They very rarely did one offs during this tour, the only other recorded one off is More Blues (referred to as ‘Drift Away Blues’ by the community) at the final show in Montreal. Rumors of “Echoes” and even “Time” exist within the community, but no recorded proof exists as of writing this. Maybe one day a recording of either will show up?
A 64-page hardback book accompanies the box set, featuring new notes by author Jonathan Lethem, an interview with concert taper Reinhard Hohlwein and a memoir extract from Hipgnosis co-founder Aubrey “Po” Powell. Previously unpublished photographs documenting the album’s creation, the Battersea Power Station cover shoot and the ensuing world tour are also included.
Double CD and Double LP with stereo album and unreleased tracks. Blu-ray with all audio formats and the Oakland bootleg.
Box with vinyl album, 2018 vinyl remix, vinyl unreleased tracks, Blu-ray, CD album, 2018 vinyl remix, vinyl unreleased tracks and double CD with Oakland, book and poster.
