Pink Floyd Announces Long-Delayed ‘Animals’ Reissue
The long-awaited reissue of Pink Floyd's Animals will finally be released on Sept. 16.
Animals 2018 Remix will be released in CD, LP, Blu-ray and SACD formats, all of which come with a 28-page booklet. The sets will also be available individually on Sept. 16. A deluxe, limited-edition set will come out on Oct. 7 that includes the CD, LP, audio Blu-ray, audio DVD and a 32-page book featuring behind-the-scenes photos. The Blu-ray and DVD audio include the original 1977 stereo mix, the 2018 remix in stereo and, for the first time, 5.1 surround sound. The 2018 mixes were done by James Guthrie, who has worked with Pink Floyd since 1978.
Even the album artwork has been reimagined for the reissue. Aubrey "Po" Powell of Hipgnosis designed the new cover. “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 press release. "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.”
Though the new mixes were created four years ago, the release of Animals 2018 Remix has been delayed due to conflicts among the onetime Pink Floyd bandmates. Roger Waters revealed last year that there were discrepancies over the liner notes, before ultimately agreeing to release the set without any liner notes. Additionally, Nick Mason noted in 2018 that archivists were having trouble finding enough material to complete the set.
The members have also made clear in recent years that a Pink Floyd reunion is highly unlikely. "No, [a reunion] wouldn’t be nice," Waters said in 2020. "It would be fucking awful. Obviously, if you’re a fan of those days of Pink Floyd, well, then you have a different point of view. I had to live through it. That was my life."