Richard Wright’s keyboard solos and moody introductions to “Pigs” and “Sheep” set the tone for both songs in completely different ways (frightening on “Pigs” and foreboding on “Sheep”). David Gilmour’s guitars bit like the dogs portrayed in the title track, and his use of a talk box (a first for a Pink Floyd album) added a nasty sting to “Pigs.” Nick Mason’s pounding drums carried the entire album forward with a propulsive energy. The music and singing were equally corrosive. It wasn’t just the finger-pointing in the lyrics that made Animals so harsh. (Little did anyone know at the time, but in two years, the interplay between self-loathing and society’s ills would reach its apex with the release of The Wall.) With Animals, it was if Roger Waters took all the fears and neuroses from the previous two albums and pointed them outward toward the forces of society that had caused them. Wish You Were Here was a melancholy meditation on loss and regret. The Dark Side of the Moon famously explored themes of madness, aging, and the pressures of modern-day life. Both those albums were largely reflective and inward looking. To Pink Floyd fans, Animals felt like a departure from the Floyd’s two most recent albums, Wish You Were Here (1975) and The Dark Side of the Moon (1973). But whereas Animal Farm was a rebuke of communism, Animals was an angry indictment of capitalism.

Animals was based loosely on George Orwell’s book Animal Farm. Composed largely by principal Floyd songwriter and bassist Roger Waters, the album depicted a brutal society in which greedy pigs and vicious dogs rule over docile sheep. “Animals”: A Toxic BombĪnimals hit record stores like a toxic bomb on January 23, 1977. More than 40 years later, the album cover art for Animals continues to demonstrate how powerful design can take something from the everyday world and present it in an entirely new context. But in January 1977, the massive brick cathedral structure became something else: an oppressive symbol of a dystopian society depicted on the cover of Animals, the 10th album from Pink Floyd. The Battersea provided as much as 20 percent of the city’s electrical needs. Throughout the 20th century, London’s Battersea Power Station symbolized modern energy efficiency. Pink Floyd’s “Animals”: The Story Behind the Album Cover

The 1975 album cover lyrics