#37 - Animals: Pink Floyd (1977)

And here’s our second Pink Floyd album. Like our first, it’s the work of Storm Thorgerson. (The idea, though, was Roger Waters.)

Here’s another (bad) pic of Thorgerson (I swear, he was just totally non-photogenic), plus some other great covers he did for the band.

Believe it or not, that’s a real photo, and a real balloon (of a pig). The site, by the way, is the old Battersea Power Station, in London. It’s actually pretty famous, and has appeared in album art by The Who, Morrissey, and others. It’s being brought to back to life as a chi-chi place to live, work, shop, and eat. One of the main occupants will be Apple.  

The pig is behind one of the great stories of rock ‘n roll. Turns out the balloon escaped, shut down Heathrow, was chased by the RAF, then finally landed in an irate farmer’s field in Kent.  The pig, known as Algie, would become a concert staple. Filled with an oxygen/acetylene mix, it would actually explode at one show.

Though never as popular as some of their other albums, there are a couple of interesting things happening on this one. One, it was very political, a major departure from previous work. The overall theme harkens back to George Orwell’s Animal Farm, but focusing on Margaret Thatcher’s capitalism instead. It was also the first album where Roger Waters really started to take over, as well as the first to be recorded in the new studio the band had built. The five songs on it are titled “Sheep,” “Dogs,” “Pigs,” and “Pigs on the Wing” (two parts for the last one).

Probably my favorite pic of the band:

And, yes, there is some creative stuff out there inspired by the cover.  First, some homages:

And next, what a band called the Australian Pink Floyd Show came up with to honor Algie:

And finally, two parodies:

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