Mojo

Being from the North East of England and calling myself a music fan, it is unofficially the law that I must at least know of Brian Johnson's pre-AC/DC days in Geordie (and trust me, I have been quizzed, especially when I used to go out in Newcastle wearing an AC/DC jacket), Dire Straits (even though none of them were born around here, this is where the band were formed and they are loved here), and The Animals.

Given The Animals' members were from all over the North East and not just Newcastle, Alan Price being from my little town, about 2 minutes from here, then it is considered especially important to know their stuff.

I haven't listened to the band for years. It may be time to dig out their self titled and Animalism!

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Last.FM | Echoes and Dust

Scarlett O'Hara

Oh you have to! It's nice to see there are some people out there that appreciate the Animals.

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Necromancer

From a 1965 T.V. show and the vocals are live. This is not a lip-synch. Although the music itself sounds pre-recorded.

Lisnaholic

^ Hey, congratulations !
I saw AP once in a small pub venue; a wonderful, professional set that included songs as diverse as My Girl and Simon Smith. I still remember how he introduced the song that everyone wanted to hear; "We`re going to do a song now made famous by the Animals..." - which of course was a very well-received version of House of the Rising Sun.

I think Winds of Change is one of the Animals most interesting albums; it represented a bold change of direction, but despite including the top-quality pop hit, San Franciscan Nights, it was rather overlooked at the time of its release. Well, maybe that`s because it came out in 1967 and had to fight for attention with albums like Sgt. Pepper, Piper at the Gates, Surrealistic Pillow, and The Doors first. Also, this was the year when American record-buyers enjoyed a love affair with The Monkees. (Little-known fact; for an extraordinary 31 weeks of that year a Monkees album was at number one in the Billboard charts, leaving second-raters like The Beatles to jostle with Herb Alpert for the remaining honours.)

Anyway, Winds of Change has a lot of great moments, not least the first three tracks that run together so neatly. For anyone interested, here are two of them to give you a taste :



Although some of the album`s psychedelic explorations don`t work so well, EB`s voice delivers a mixture of celebration and menace that IMO was only rivalled by Jim Morrison. In fact, when EB chants this line (from the over-ambitious Black Plague), "Diseased eyes roll upwards as if knowing in which direction their souls will travel", it sounds uncannily like a line from Horse Latitudes , which I think JM wrote later the same year.