For Nick Mason, the best thing about this week’s release of Pink Floyd‘s Animals 2018 Remix album is that people may stop asking him when an updated Animals will come out.
“It has taken a while,” the drummer tells Consequence with a laugh via Zoom from his home in England. “But we’re very pleased with it, I think.”
Originally released in January of 1977, Pink Floyd’s 10th studio album debuted at No. 3 on the Billboard 200 and was certified quadruple platinum by the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA). But it’s been conspicuously absent as other albums, including The Dark Side of the Moon (which we just named the No. 29 best album of all time), Wish You Were Here and The Wall, have been given deluxe treatments with remixed sound, expanded track lists and opulent packaging.
The 2018 date in the new Animals‘ title gives some indication of how long the project has been underway, while in 2021 bassist Roger Waters, who left Pink Floyd in 1985, issued a statement that the release was delayed because he and guitarist David Gilmour had clashed over proposed liner notes by British writer Mark Blake. Waters subsequently posted the rejected essay on his web site.
Animals 2018 Remix, out Friday, September 16th, was helmed by longtime Pink Floyd engineer James Guthrie, comes in Stereo, 5.2 Surround, Blu-ray and DVD audio mixes, as well as the original 1977 version. A 32-page booklet will feature rare photos and memorabilia, but no liner notes. And Hipgnosis’ Aubrey “Po” Powell updated the late Storm Thorgerson’s iconic original cover of the inflatable pig floating over London’s Battersea Power Station.
