The cover is a thing of beauty, though a striking gatefold photo of a giant pink pig floating between two stacks of Battersea Power Station, an immense coal-fired power plant on the south bank of the River Thames in London. It is not clear where Waters thought he himself fitted in, though it was notably the album where he really started to fall out with his bandmates. Inspired by George Orwell’s Animal Farm, it divided the human race into three animal species: tyrannical pigs, aggressive dogs and mindless sheep.
What is it?Īnimals was Pink Floyd’s 10th studio album, conceived by chief lyricist Roger Waters as a savage critique of capitalist society. But Floyd and Hipgnosis almost overreached themselves with their most ambitious sleeve ever.
Their sleeve for Wish You Were Here in 1975 boasted particularly elaborate packaging, with a striking burning handshake image hidden inside a black shrink wrap. They formed Hipgnosis and became the most influential album design company of the era. It was the work of Storm Thorgerson and Aubrey Powell, friends of the band who were still students when they created the dazzling psychedelic cover for Saucerful of Secrets in 1968. Few were better at it than Pink Floyd, whose prism for Dark Side of the Moon (1973) remains one of the most iconic images in rock history. Progressive rock in the Seventies brought an overblown grandeur to sleeve design, involving elaborate gatefold covers featuring abstruse concepts and impossible scenes.
0 kommentar(er)
