We would zigzag our way through the boredom and pain

Continuing my trip back through the 1977 album charts.

13/03/77 : Animals - Pink Floyd

Oops - time to 'fess up!  I should have played this about six weeks ago but I've been skipping it because I KNEW I'd already written it up, but when I was looking for the link to include it in a write-up for a completely different album (which fortunately I will be reusing very soon), I couldn't find it, obviously because I was completely wrong.  I do know I've listened to it though and I remember not liking it, so expectations are not high.

But - it appears I have mis-remembered AGAIN.  I didn't mind this at all - it's got some interesting sounds and intriguing lyrics which I can imagine resulting in much late-night discussion.  I can't say any one track particularly stood out for me - in fact, I'd be hard-pushed to say how many tracks there are on the album (five, after checking).  But I get the feeling there's a load of meaning in there that totally passed me by and I wouldn't mind listening to it again to try and work on understanding it (but let's face it, I won't).  It's an iconic album cover as well, isn't it?

We're at #4 in the charts this week on their fifth week of a 32 week run, with it peaking at #2 for its first three weeks and it was last seen in the charts in '22, reaching #5 for a remixed and remastered version which was delayed for a couple of years because of a dispute between Roger Waters and David Gilmour over, of all things, the liner notes.  The rest of the top five this week were The Shadows best-of, the Heartstoppers compilation, the Status Quo live album and Bryan Ferry (what, no ABBA?) and the highest new entry was a Frank Sinatra best-of (#12). 

Wikipedia has loads on the album (196 milliPeppers) - by far the most interesting stuff is about the album cover.  It is, obviously, a Storm Thorgerson/Hipgnosis design, although the initial concept came from Roger Waters - the pig was 12m long and built by the German firm that used to build Zeppelins.  They then filled it with helium and securely moored it, having hired a marksman to take it down if required - unfortunately the weather took a turn for the worse and the marksman was sent home, at which point the pig broke free and flew over Heathrow, causing flights to be cancelled before it landed in a field in Kent, scaring some cows and making the farmer very angry!  A nice postscript (which I didn't know) is that Danny Boyle included a pig above Battersea power station in his Isles Of Wonder opening for the London Olympics (at 1:27 - it was nice to watch that again).

The critics were pretty mixed on the album at the time, but retrospective reviews are kinder although the band members hate it, because they hate everything these days.  It did well commercially though, particularly in Europe with it getting to #1 in Germany, The Netherlands, Italy and Spain, but it didn't exactly do badly in the US, getting to #3 and selling four million copies over there.

"Customers also listened to" David Gilmour, Roger Waters, Syd Barrett and Led Zeppelin - one of those things is not the same!  I didn't mind this at all though and I've no idea why I thought I didn't like it - it was quite different from most of the other stuff we've had this year and definitely warrants a relisten.

06/03/77 - An odd album
20/03/77 - Perfectly bearable background noise