Bestiarium - Animals in the Music of the Middle Ages

Advantages: Musically the best Floyd album
Disadvantages: Not easy-listening

...One of the great ironies apparent in the recent history of politics taking root in the flowerbed of popular music was the assault upon Pink Floyd by those useless over-hyped fiends known as the Sex Pistols. They attacked the Floyd for being stale, and synonymously associated with the ageing hippy generation no longer seen as cool to the record-buying public. Call me cynical, but I'm just saying what I'm seeing. Some people might say that the Floyds' 1977 album Animals was a direct retort to the Pistols and their sensationalism, others might say it was a natural progression for the songwriting of Roger Waters - having explored madness and greed on their opus Dark Side of the Moon; distrust of the music industry and odes to his acid-fried companion Syd Barrett on Wish You Were Here; it seemed like a natural step for Waters to turn his... Read review

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Advantages: better than golden age of grotesque
Disadvantages: he won't be returning to this style

...I feel that this album has been wrongly attacked in the media and music magazines that should know better. Manson got a mauling for trying to do something different and not being a one trick pony - it was seen as plastic glam and an example of him wearinghis Bowie influence on his sleeve. I see nothing wrong with this and I think this is his strongest and most accessible album and not the sell-out/plastic record that was "The Golden Age of Grotesque". Manson works best when he has a strong concept or idea behind him and his last album was just an image rather than a fully formed idealogy. I read from the man himself that this is the middle section of his Antichrist Superstar trilogy but the album of the same name is actually the end of the trilogy and Holywood(in the shadow of the valley of death) is the first. When you listen... Read review

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Advantages: Contains those great 60's/psychadelia keyboard mixes and melodies
Disadvantages: Seems too short in my opinion the closing and opening tracks bearly reach over a minute,and 'dogs' just drags on unfortunately

...for some of the greatest album covers in music history.It was by no means cheap.The giant inflatable pig was blown up which took several hours then raised above the fasinating architecture of the power station's huge chimneys.There is a funny story behing this idea,apparently the man who had a rifle to shoot down the pig in case it escaped was fired and sent home mainly to save some money but the pig did actually free itself from the mooring ropes and started to run amoc in downtown london.The pig flew into Heathrown where it disrupted a couple of flights and flew down to the coast where it landed in a farmers field ironically enough in the middle of the night.But the pig was later retrieved and put back into the air over battersea power station and the cover is one of the greatest i have ever seen. ANIMALS is a typical 5 track, Roger Waters... Read review

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