Photo Credit: Pink Floyd
No word on Pink Floyd’s $500 million catalog sale — but there’s a new Animals 2018 remix.
It’s been nothing but the sound of crickets as we wait for updates on the sale of Pink Floyd’s $500 million catalog. In the meantime, Warner Music/Sony Music has released Pink Floyd’s Animals on deluxe gatefold, CD, LP, Blu-ray, and SACD. The individual versions are now available, while the deluxe version will be available starting October 7. This is the first time the album will be available on 5.1 Surround Sound.
Pink Floyd originally released Animals in January 1977, the tenth studio album by the band. The album peaked at Number 2 in the UK and Number 3 in the US, considered among the band’s most significant works.
Animals 2018 Remix is released on CD, LP with gatefold artwork, Blu-ray, audio DVD, with a 32-page book. The Blu-ray and DVD include the 2018 remix in both Stereo and 5.1 Surround by James Guthrie and the original 1977 Stereo mix. The booklet features rarely seen behind-the-scenes photographs of the album sleeve photo shoot, along with live images and memorabilia. The album’s original artwork has been reimagined for the release.
The album’s iconic cover art shows an inflatable pig — who would be known as Algie — floating between two chimneys of the Battersea Power Station. The art was conceived by Roger Waters and designed by long-time collaborator Storm Thorgerson of Hipgnosis Studios. The new release features the artwork re-designed by Storm’s Hipgnosis partner Aubrey ‘Po’ Powell.
“With the original 1977 album cover being such an iconic piece of stand-alone art, I had the chance to update it, which was a rather daunting task,” says Po. “But Hipgnosis took the opportunity to re-photograph the image to reflect a changing world, and by using modern digital coloring techniques, I kept Pink Floyd’s rather bleak message of moral decay using the Orwellian themes of animals — the pig, ‘Algie’ — faithful to the message of the album.”
Animals is a concept album that focuses on the social-political conditions of the mid-1970s Britain in which it was conceived. It was a diversion in style for the band, developed from a collection of unrelated songs into a concept album that tells of society’s apparent social and moral decay. Though 1977 was quite a while ago, the album’s narrative still resonates today.