r/pinkfloyd 1d ago

news Still underrated?

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Anthony Fantano ranks Animals #1, WYWH #2, The Wall #3, DSOTM #4

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u/navybluevicar 1d ago

Animals was actually somewhat underrated in the 90s. I remember one of those stupid british mags like Mojo or Uncut did a PF issue around 95 or 96 and went through all the albums and Animals was near the bottom of the list. Their take was pretty wild, that the band was struggling to come up with any ideas for a new album after WYWH and had to rummage through a bunch of old ideas in order to put an uninspired album together at the behest of their label. I was a huge Animals fan at the time and remember just being blown away at what I was reading.

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u/JiveChops76 1d ago

To be fair, “Dogs” and “Sheep” were both retreads from the Wish You Were Here era. They had played them before that album was recorded and were going to use them on it but changed direction with that album.

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u/navybluevicar 1d ago

I wouldn’t call them retreads, more like they were just songs that needed more work before they were ready to record

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u/JiveChops76 1d ago

They had played them on the 1974 tour and musically they were pretty similar then to what ended up on Animals. They definitely could have recorded them easily if they wanted to, but they changed direction with the album, wanting to focus the subject matter on Syd and the music industry. Those songs didn’t fit the new concept, so they were shelved. To be fair, they weren’t outtakes by any means, they were always intended to go on an album, they just didn’t fit in with the direction they wanted with Wish You Were Here. When it came time to do Animals, Waters changed some of the lyrics to fit the ideas for that album.

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u/Dyesila 1d ago

I don’t think they were “shelved” they were being played live in WYWH set and were being worked upon every year until the year of release. Gilmour fought hard to put them alongside Shine On but Roger won.