"Raving and Drooling" and "You've Got to Be Crazy", two songs previously performed live and considered for Wish You Were Here, reappeared as "Sheep" and "Dogs" respectively. Īnimals was engineered by a previous Floyd collaborator, Brian Humphries, and recording took place at Britannia Row from April to December 1976, continuing into early 1977. Its construction took up most of 1975, and in April 1976 the band started work on their tenth studio album, Animals, at the new facility. Their deal with Harvest Records' parent company EMI for unlimited studio time in return for a reduced percentage of sales had expired, and they converted the building into a recording studio and storage facility. In 1975, Pink Floyd bought a three-story block of church halls at 35 Britannia Row in Islington, north London. Waters' agitation with audiences during this tour inspired their next record, The Wall. The band released no singles from the record but promoted it through the In the Flesh tour. The album's cover shows an inflatable pig floating between two chimneys of Battersea Power Station, conceived by the band's bassist and lead songwriter Roger Waters, and was designed by long-time collaborator Storm Thorgerson. Tension within the band during production culminated in keyboardist Richard Wright being fired two years later. 3 in the US.Īnimals is both a progressive rock album and a concept album, focusing on the social-political conditions of mid-1970s Britain, and was a change from the style of their earlier work. The album received positive reviews from critics and was commercially successful, reaching No. The album continues the longform compositions that made up their previous works, including Wish You Were Here (1975). It was recorded at the band's Britannia Row Studios in London throughout 1976, and was produced by the band.
Animals is the tenth studio album by the English rock band Pink Floyd, released on 21 January 1977 through Harvest and Columbia Records.