DJay32 Listens: Animals, Pink Floyd

I have yet to actually see someone start a blog with "Hello, my name is ____ and my favourite colour is ____."

Methinks some people simply don't know how to give advice.

In other "news," I decided to give Pink Floyd another try. I mean. They're... not bad. I don't.. dislike them. But their work really isn't my thing, with the exceptions of some stuff off Meddle, as well as all of Animals. I'll always love Animals. But that's because those albums are more focused on the instrumentation, relatively speaking. They certainly actually have interesting instrumental parts. And hell, Waters' voice on Animals actually sounds-- dare I say it-- passionate about something for once.

I complain about Pink Floyd a lot, but you gotta understand, there's a hugely complicated set of reasons why I don't like them. It's a lot like my relationship with Homestuck, except I admit I greatly enjoy Homestuck.

But how about I start by saying what I like about them? Here's Animals, song by song.

"Pigs on the Wing, pt. 1" is a short little acoustic love song introducing us to this allegorical world of animals. It's simple, it's a little boring, but it's a bookend and it's actually a really nice introduction, as its allegorical nature isn't anywhere near as strong as the rest of the album's.

"Dogs" is just... god, man. This song surprised the shit out of me. It's a seventeen-minute trip telling us about the 'dogs,' representative of the middle class and authoritative figures in a capitalist structure. That's another thing! Animals is an allegory for capitalism. And I have many problems with capitalism, myself. The thing is, as much as I complain about Pink Floyd and Roger Waters, I think I agree with Waters on a lot of political matters. Hell if Pink Floyd didn't influence a lot of my views wait wait wait wait FUCKING GUITAR LINE.

Yeah, that's another thing. Animals is a very instrument-oriented album. There's a ton of focus on long-winded instrumental passages, much guitar riffage in there, much variation, much catchiness, and I really fucking love it. It's a lot like Genesis and King Crimson. And unlike The Dark Side of the Moon, Animals actually has likable instrumental passages. Like, with The Dark Side of the Moon, it feels like they're just playing to let the audience relax, and like they have some clear time limit. I mean, the album's only half a fucking hour long. But Animals, it feels like they've thrown away any time constraints they might have thought they had, and like they've grown a pair in terms of musical composition. It probably helps that they had been building on "Dogs" and "Sheep" ever since before they even did Wish You Were Here, so they had plenty of time to develop them and make them well-fleshed and.. god, man, I'm sorry. I'm listening to it as I'm talking about it, and I just... love it.

And they fucking play with so much in here. They don't just come up with interesting riffs, because that would just be arbitrary. They come up with a riff and play with it. They spend instrumental passages just taking concepts and bending them beyond recognition, and when it sounds like something else entirely, they reintroduce earlier motifs and make it clear that they know what they're doing.

Oh my god, I'm actually talking about Pink Floyd. I felt like I was talking about Between the Buried and Me or something there. And what more, I really like Roger Waters' voice here. WAIT WAIT WAIT REPRISAL, GOD YES. D'okay, that song's over.

"Pigs (Three Different Ones)" is the center of the album, the heart of the problems with capitalism, and putting it in the center was a smart decision, as pigs also bookend the album. This song starts with one nice little proggy keyboard ostinato before segueing into a relatively.. boring and repetitive verse/chorus system. D: Catchy lyrics, though, so there's that. Now, in this animal system of capitalism, pigs represent the upper class rich folk who cause the problems.

BUT. After the second chorus, this song gets orgasmic. We get one cynical and catchy country-esque riff for a few minutes. And then a nice reprisal of the intro, and then another boring verse and chorus. AND THEN A NICE LITTLE GUITAR SOLO. And then it fades into one of Pink Floyd's most famous songs.

"Sheep!" "Sheep" is a fantastic little ditty talking about the lower-class, oppressed and fooled. It has one of the best bass lines in Pink Floyd's whole discography, which is saying quite a lot. The song starts out with a peppy keyboard intro as the bass fades in, and AND AND THOSE VOCALS BLENDING SEAMLESSLY INTO KEYBOARD TRILLS, THE FUCK. @w@ Again, Waters actually seems emotional here. AND IT TURNS INTO ONE HELL OF A shut the fuck up people oh my god ONE HELL OF AN INSTRUMENTAL SECTION WITH MORE GREAT BASS.

Turns into a chromatic progression before giving us one nice little mini-climax which unexpectedly switches riiight back to the ambient bass. But this time with even more keyboard intervals! In the background, we get the baa-ing of sheep as some Bible verse is quoted. Then it transitions into another verse-- BUT THESE ARE NICE VERSES. :D "Have you heard the news? The dogs are dead! You'd better stay home and do as your told, don't go out on the road if you want to grow old." And then we have a super-peppy guitar riff to end the song to.

"Pigs on a Wing, pt. 2" is pretty much the exact same as the first part, but with a couple different lyrics. Taking us out of this animal world by bringing us back to our issues of love and all that jazz.

Well, I'm really busy all of a sudden, so I'm gonna cut this post short here.

Basically, I like Pink Floyd but their more popular works really aren't for me.