Pink Floyd - Animals

8.5 - England - 1977

Compared to Wish You Were Here and The Wall, this is a sorely underrated entry in the Floyd canon.  A concept album built around the idea that people can be categorized into three animal groups: the appetitive pigs that run everything, their vicious dog servants, and, comprising the bulk of the population, a bunch of passive sheep.  A better, less lazy man than I would do a Platonic reading of the record and compare it to the class system of The Republic. 

Waters' lyrics are at their most cynical and pointed here (with none of the over-wrought emotionalism of The Wall), and the music is generally good.  The two "Pigs On The Wing" present the underrated folky side of the Floyd, and "Sheep" is one of their best rockers.  "Dogs" is the multiparted epic that "Shine On" should've been, but "Pigs (Three Different Ones)" is shamefully ruined by an obnoxious talk-box solo (but I repeat myself: all talk-box solos are obnxious).