Pink Floyd Put Bickering Aside to Finally Announce ‘Animals’ Reissue

Pink Floyd have finally announced the release date for the long-delayed reissue of their classic 1977 LP Animals.

Animals 2018 Remix will arrive starting Sept. 16, with the Orwellian concept album also receiving its first-ever 5.1 Stereo Sound release. While the reissue doesn’t feature any bonus tracks, it does include a polished-up mix overseen by engineer James Guthrie of the original five-song album on CD, vinyl, Blu-ray, and SACD. 

As the title suggests, the remix was completed in 2018 and originally intended for release around that time; however, the reissue was delayed as former band mates Roger Waters — who largely penned the album himself, with the exception of “Dogs” — and David Gilmour sparred over liner notes that were intended to accompany the reissue.

“These mixes have languished unreleased because of a dispute over some sleeve notes that [journalist] Mark Blake has written for this new release,” Waters said in June 2021. “Gilmour has vetoed the release of the album unless these liner notes are removed. He does not dispute the veracity of the history described in Mark’s notes, but he wants that history to remain secret.” 

Waters ultimately released the liner notes on his own website in 2021, and while the upcoming reissue comes with a 32-page booklet of never-before-seen photographs and live images, it’s doubtful that Blake’s sleeve notes made the final cut.

‘Animals 2018 Remix’ cover

In addition to the new remix, Animals 2018 Remix also sports updated artwork of the album’s legendary cover — an inflatable pig hovering over Battersea Power Station, an image created by Hipgnosis Studios’ Storm Thorgerson — by Aubrey ‘Po’ Powell, who worked alongside Thorgerson.

“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,” Powell said in a statement, “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 2018 Remix is available to preorder now on CD, vinyl, Blu-ray, and SACD as well as a deluxe box set that boasts all four formats as well as the album’s original 1977 stereo mix.

From Rolling Stone US.