(December 20, 2022 at 11:11 pm)Thumpalumpacus Wrote: Right, The Wall suffered the same fate of most doubles, being overstuffed with filler (not to mention Waters's self-pity, which makes me nauseous). WYWH is actually my favorite Floyd, with Animals a close second. Both feature long instrumental segments that are musically very interesting to me. "Dogs" can still torque me out of shape at times, though that whole album is great commentary on the human condition, to me.
Dogs is the last Pink Floyd song to be of such epic length, and it is the direct descendant of Shine On You Crazy Diamond from the preceding album, which in turn can trace its lineage back through the side-long Echoes on Meddle, Atom Heart Mother on the album of the same name, and the progenitor of them all, A Saucerful of Secrets. Structurally, Dogs resembles Echoes the most, with a slow lead-in, a furious main section, a contemplative "night" section, which then gives way to a reprise of the main section, but far more furious.
Pigs (Three Different Ones) is my least favorite track, because Roger Waters snarls some very nasty lyrics about some very nasty characters. I suppose that is the point of the piece. David Gilmore uses the same device made famous by Peter Frampton which lets him make his guitar sound like a pig talking. To me the highlight is Waters' ascending and descending bassline in the long outro.
It gives way to Wright playing an expressive solo with the Rhodes electric piano as Waters rumbles in the background on bass, a pastoral setting that soon gives way to a storm of sound very much resembling Run Like Hell on The Wall. Not to be missed (you get it twice): Roger Waters' trademark maniacal scream giving way seamlessly to a shimmering synthesizer howl with exactly the same pitch, which then crashes along with the drums and guitars in a virtual rock explosion. They called this one "Punk Floyd" but there was just as much synth as on WYWH.
