Pink Floyd Animals released

Animals Pink Floyd

Released: January 21, 1977 Peak: 3 US, 2 UK, 12 CN, 3 AU, 12 Click for codes to charts. Sales (in millions): 4.0 US, 0.1 UK, 12.4 world (includes US and UK) Genre: classic rock/progressive rock

Tracks: Click on a song titled for more details. Pigs on the Wing, Pt. 1 [1;24] Dogs [17:04] Pigs (Three Different Ones) [11:28] Sheep [10:20] Pigs on the Wing, Pt. 2 [1:24] Total Running Time: 41:40 The Players: Roger Waters (vocals, bass) David Gilmour (vocals, guitar) Nick Mason (drums, percussion) Richard Wright (keyboards)

Rating: 4.140 out of 5.00 (average of 26 ratings) Awards: (Click on award to learn more).

About the Album “Of all of the classic-era Pink Floyd albums, Animals is the strangest and darkest, a record that’s hard to initially embrace yet winds up yielding as many rewards as its equally nihilistic successor, The Wall. It isn’t that Roger Waters dismisses the human race as either pigs, dogs, or sheep, it’s that he’s constructed an album whose music is as bleak and bitter as that world view.” AM “Arriving after the warm-spirited (albeit melancholy) Wish You Were Here, the shift in tone comes as a bit of a surprise, and there are even less proper songs here than on either Wish or Dark Side. Animals is all extended pieces, yet it never drifts – it slowly, ominously works its way toward its destination.” AM “For an album that so clearly is Waters’, David Gilmour’s guitar dominates thoroughly, with Richard Wright’s keyboards rarely rising above a mood-setting background (such as on the intro to Sheep). This gives the music, on occasion, immediacy and actually heightens the dark mood by giving it muscle. It also makes Animals as accessible as it possibly could be, since it surges with bold blues-rock guitar lines and hypnotic space rock textures.” AM “Through it all, though, the utter blackness of Waters’ spirit holds true, and since there are no vocal hooks or melodies, everything rests on the mood, the near-nihilistic lyrics, and Gilmour’s guitar. These are the kinds of things that satisfy cultists, and it will reward their attention – there’s just no way in for casual listeners.” AM In a review of the album, Jason Thorpe enlisted his wife to offer analysis of the lyrics and themes of the album. She says, “Animals portrays a young man’s rage using obvious references to George Orwell’s Animal Farm. At the beginning, Waters separates himself from the barnyard animals. If we didn’t care about each other, we would be barnyard animals.” SU The Songs Here’s a breakdown of each of the individual songs.

Pigs on the Wing Pink Floyd

Writer(s): Roger Waters Released: B-side of “Sheep” promo single (1/21/1977), Animals (1/21/1977), In the Flesh (Roger Waters live, 12/5/2000) Peak: 13 DF Click for codes to charts. Sales (in millions): -- Airplay/Streaming (in millions): -- radio, -- video, 70.469 (Part 1), 25.02 (Part 2) streaming About the Song: “’Pigs on the wing’ was World War I code for an enemy pilot in your blind spot. In [George Orwell’s] Animal Farm, the pigs are the covert enemy on a cooperative farm where the animals have revolted and kicked out Mr. and Mrs. Jones. However, the animals don’t recognize the new enemies. Pigs are the new despots of the farm.” SU “In ‘Pigs on the Wing (Part Two),’ Waters is a dog who’s grateful he has a companion.” SU

Dogs Pink Floyd

Writer(s): David Gilmour, Roger Waters Released: Animals (1/21/1977), In the Flesh (Roger Waters live, 12/5/2000), Us + Them (Roger Waters live, 10/2/2020) Peak: 9 CL, 17 DF Click for codes to charts. Sales (in millions): -- Airplay/Streaming (in millions): -- radio, -- video, 70.04 streaming About the Song: In the 17-minute epic “Dogs,” Roger Waters see himself as “a dog interrupting corruption and avarice around him.” SU “Dogs are really only tools, used by more powerful shadows, and will most certainly be disposed of when they’ve outlived their usefulness.” SU “The dogs are like the nine dogs in Animal Farm, puppies kidnapped from their parents and raised to be loyal only to Napoleon, the pig. Initially they chase off his competitor, the idealist Snowball. Soon, following Napoleon’s orders, they’re ripping out the throats of animals who have been forced to make false confessions.” SU The song features “unsettling images…underscored by David Gilmour’s driving acoustic guitar, Richard Wright’s minor-key sound washes, and those slashing guitar solos, and the music is as disturbing as the lyrics.” SU

Pigs (Three Different Ones) Pink Floyd

Writer(s): Roger Waters Released: Animals (1/21/1977), Us + Them (Roger Waters live, 10/2/2020) Peak: 10 CL, 17 DF Click for codes to charts. Sales (in millions): -- Airplay/Streaming (in millions): -- radio, -- video, 71.00 streaming About the Song: In “Pigs (Three Different Ones),” Roger Waters rages against “three classes of pigs.” SU In the first verse, “the animals rage against the greed of the fat capitalist willing to consign people to lives of misery, forcing them to work under unsafe conditions in mines while greedily slopping up the profits.” SU In verse two, he rages against Margaret Thatcher and her “austerity measures and privatization schemes that will create financial hardship for the people of Great Britain.” SU “He’s speaking of Iron Lady Margaret Thatcher and accusing her of not possessing femininity. Femininity should be about kindness, love, and nurturing – or so says an angry young man.” SU In verse three, the rage is directed at “the prude Mary Whitehouse who…dares to try to censor albums, books, and films to shield British children by stemming ‘the evil tide.’” SU

Sheep Pink Floyd

Writer(s): Roger Waters Released: 1/21/1977 (promo single), Animals (1/21/1977), A Collection of Great Dance Songs (compilation, 11/23/1981), Echoes (compilation, 11/6/2001), This Is Not a Drill (Roger Waters live, 8/1/2025) B-side: “Pigs on the Wing” Peak: 12 CL, 18 DF Click for codes to charts. Sales (in millions): -- Airplay/Streaming (in millions): -- radio, -- video, 49.21 streaming

Awards: (Click on award to learn more).

About the Song: “The first part of the song is very powerful, creating an image of the sheep being led down the metal corridors but still trusting their leader, until finally, the horror of their situation dawns on them.” SU “Suddenly the sheep go from being cutlets to choosing to do karate.” SU This is Waters expressing that he “has no faith in elected leaders, or in democracy.” SU

Resources/References: SU SoundStageUltra.com (8/1/2023). “Animals – Pink Floyd’s Classic Album Deconstructed” by Jason Thorpe WK Wikipedia Related DMDB Pages: First posted 3/22/2008; last updated 9/5/2025.

David Bowie Low released

Low David Bowie

Released: January 14, 1977 Peak: 11 US, 2 UK, 56 CN, 10 AU Sales (in millions): -- US, 0.1 UK, 2.5 world (includes US and UK) Genre: classic rock

Tracks: Song Title (Writers) [time] (date of single release, chart peaks) Click for codes to singles charts. Speed of Life [2:46] Breaking Glass (Bowie/David/Murray) [1:51] (11/17/78, 41 CL, 15 CO, 54 UK) What in the World [2:23] Sound and Vision [3:03] (2/11/77, 69 US, 88 CB, 18 CL, 5 CO, 3 UK, 74 AU) Always Crashing in the Same Car [3:29] Be My Wife [2:55] (6/17/77, 29 CL, 20 CO) A New Career in a New Town [2:51] Warszawa (Bowie/Eno) [6:20] Art Decade (Bowie/Eno) [3:43] Weeping Wall [3:26] Subterraneans [5:39] Songs written by David Bowie unless indicated otherwise. Total Running Time: 34:34 The Players: David Bowie (vocals, multiple instruments) Brian Eno (keyboards, etc.) Carlos Alomar, Ricky Gardiner (guitar) Dennis Davis (percussion) George Murray (bass) Roy Young (pianos, organ)

Rating: 4.244 out of 5.00 (average of 27 ratings) Quotable: Low provides “a new direction for the avant-garde in rock & roll.” – Stephen Thomas Erlewine, All Music Guide Awards: (Click on award to learn more).

About the Album: After living in Los Angeles and dealing with drug addiction, Bowie and his friend Iggy Pop moved to France in 1976 to sober up. The pair of them recorded The Idiot, Pop’s debut solo album. They traveled to Hansa Studios in West Berlin to mix the album and Bowie became fascinated with the city. In September 1976, Bowie began work on his own album, Low, the first of three albums which became known as the Berlin Trilogy. Brian Eno, who’d explored ambient music in his work, heavily influenced Bowie during this period. He has been mistakenly attributed as the producer of the Berlin Trilogy albums, but they were actually produced by Tony Visconti, who’d worked with Bowie on previous albums. Eno, however, “functioned as a conduit for Bowie’s ideas, and in turn Bowie made the experimentalism of not only Eno but of the German synth group Kraftwerk and the post-punk group Wire respectable, if not quite mainstream.” AMG “The record is defiantly experimental and dense with detail, providing a new direction for the avant-garde in rock & roll,” AMG including experimental rock such as post-punk, electronic, and ambient music. Side one consisted of “short, direct avant-pop song fragments.” WK “The guitars are jagged and the synthesizers drone with a menacing robotic pulse, while Bowie’s vocals are unnaturally layered and overdubbed.” AMG “Sound and Vision has a shimmering guitar hook” AMG and doesn’t feature Bowie’s vocals until the 1:45 mark. Eno said it was done to “confound listener expectations.” WK The lyrics reflected Bowie’s mental state after his drug addiction. He called it his “ultimate retreat song.” WK Always Crashing in the Same Car referenced an incident during Bowie’s time in Los Angeles when he kept ramming his car into that of a drug dealer’s who was ripping him off. Lyrically, it was a metaphor for repeating mistakes and Bowie’s obsession with travel and constant lifestyle change. WK On Be My Wife, Bowie was lyrically reflecting on his “feelings of loneliness, inability to settle, and plea for human connections.” WK Musically, it “subverts soul structure in a surprisingly catchy fashion.” AMG The second side consists of longer, mostly “atmospheric instrumentals.” AMG “The electronics turn cool, which is a relief after the intensity of the preceding avant pop.” AMG Warszawa was named after the Polish city of Warsaw. Bowie visited it in April 1976 and wanted to capture the desolate landscape in music. The haunting song was mostly composed by Eno. Biographer David Buckley called it the album’s “most startling” piece. WK Art Decade, about West Berlin, was a pun on “art decayed.” It was Bowie’s reflection on “a city cut off from its world, art and culture, dying with no hope of retribution.” WK Weeping Wall was “meant to evoke the pain and misery of the Berlin Wall.” WK It featured Bowie playing all the instruments himself. It was influenced by composer Steve Reich. Bowie described Subterraneans as a portrait of “the people who got caught in East Berlin after the separation.” WK it was originally recorded for the soundtrack for The Man Who Fell to Earth, which starred Bowie. The director, Nicolas Roeg, decided against the music, wanting a folksier sound. WK The album was originally rejected by RCA, who wanted something in a more commercial vein like preceding albums Young Americans and Station to Station. Bowie refused and RCA delayed the album from its intended November 1976 release because they considered it “distinctinly unpalatable” for the Christmas market. WK It was eventually released in January 1977 and received little promotion. Sounds magazine’s Tim Lott called Low “the most difficult piece of music Bowie has ever put his name to.” WK Phonograph Record’s Bud Scoppa said it was “the most intimate and free recording this extraordinary artist has yet made.” WK NME’s Ian MacDonald described the album as “stunningly beautiful…the sound of Sinatra reproduced by Martian computers.” WK The New York Times’ John Rockwell said “the instrumentals are strange and spacey. Nevertheless, the whole thing strikes this listener as remarkably, alluringly beautiful.” WK The Observer’s Ron Hart said “Low is an album that will make you dance, think and weep all in the span of 38 minutes.” WK Notes: The 1991 Rykodisc reissue adds a remixed version of “Sound and Vision” as well as previously unreleased songs “Some Are” and “All Saints.”

Resources and Related Links: DMDB encyclopedia entry for David Bowie AMG All Music Guide review by Stephen Thomas Erlewine WK Wikipedia First posted 2/20/2008; last updated 7/31/2021.

Stevie Wonder “Isn’t She Lovely” hit the adult contemporary chart

Isn’t She Lovely Stevie Wonder

Writer(s): Stevie Wonder (see lyrics here) First Charted: January 8, 1977 Peak: 23 AC, 94 UK, 4 DF (Click for codes to charts.) Sales (in millions): 0.5 US, 0.4 UK, 0.9 world (includes US + UK) Airplay/Streaming (in millions): -- radio, 57.04 video, 104.22 streaming

Awards: Click on award for more details.

About the Song: Stevie Wonder capped one of the most amazing album runs in history with 1976’s Songs in the Key of Life. It was his third consecutive album to win the Grammy for Album of the Year after 1973’s Innervisions and 1974’s Fulfillingness’ First Finale. The three albums generated three top-10 hits and three #1 songs. Key of Life became Wonder’s biggest album, spending 14 weeks at #1 and selling ten million copies in the United States. It also produced one of Wonder’s most beloved album cuts, “Isn’t She Lovely.” Even though it wasn’t released as a single (because Wonder refual to cut it down from its six-and-a-half-minute run time to fit on a 45 rpm) it became the song from the album that “generated the most requests and touched the deepest chords.” SS Airplay pushed the song onto the adult contemporary chart WK and, in 2012, it charted in the UK on the strength of downloads after Wonder performed the song for the Diamond Jubilee celebration of Queen Elizabeth II. WK Wonder wrote the song in celebration of the birth of his daughter, Aisha Morris, on April 7, 1975. Her voice is used in the recording when Wonder is giving the toddler a bath. WK Music historian Steve Sullivan said “one would be hard pressed to find a more emotionally touching song about the joys of new parenthood.” SS The “lyrics are simple and unaffected, perfectly expressing the emotions of the occasion.” SS Other than some of the keyboards, Wonder played all of the instruments on the song, including an improvised harmonica part SS which biographer John Swenson called “one of the best things Stevie ever recorded.” SS Resources: DMDB Encyclopedia entry for Stevie Wonder SF Songfacts SS Steve Sullivan (2013). Encyclopedia of Great Popular Song Recordings (Volumes I & II). Scarecrow Press: Lanham, Maryland. Pages 569-70. WK Wikipedia Related Links: First posted 1/14/2023.

Fleetwood Mac makes way onto chart with “Go Your Own Way”

Go Your Own Way Fleetwood Mac

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