Baltimore Sun

Remix gives ‘Animals’ new shine

- — George Varga, San Diego Union-Tribune

Nothing is easy when it comes to Pink Floyd and its legacy, which explains why the 2018 remix of the band’s 1977 release “Animals” is just now seeing the light of day.

Lead guitarist David Gilmour wouldn’t sign off on the liner notes, according to Floyd songwriter and co-lead singer Roger Waters, who agreed to letting the remix out without any notes. So fans are left with the music, now in

5.1 surround sound for the first time, a newly imagined cover, a 32-page booklet with previously unreleased photos, but none of the back story. There are also no bonus tracks or previously unreleased songs.

“Animals” is a concept record much like its predecesso­rs “Wish You Were Here” and “The Wall,” which would be released two years later.

Taking its inspiratio­n loosely from George Orwell’s “Animal Farm,” the record assigns animals — pigs, sheep and dogs — to different types of people. The three main songs all run at 10-plus minutes, bookended by two slightly different versions of “Pigs on the Wing” clocking in at around 1:30.

“Animals” is a dark and brooding critique of capitalism and greed, making it perhaps among the least accessible of Floyd releases. Even so, its themes feel just as relevant today as they did when it was first released, and the remix gives the sound a new shine.

Floyd fanatics, of which there are legion, will be certain to hear nuances in the new mixes that will go right past first-time listeners. At the very least, it provides an excuse for those who haven’t listened to “Animals” in years, or maybe even decades, to give the new version a spin. — Scott Bauer, Associated Press

The good news for Madonna

is that she is the only artist who has topped Billboard magazine’s Dance Club Songs Chart 50 times.

In fact, she’s the only artist to have topped any of Billboard’s many national charts 50 times, a feat memorializ­ed on “Finally Enough Love: 50 Number Ones,” a three-CD collection of remixed versions of those hits.

While vocal prowess has never been her strong suit, Madonna is undeniably a master of self-promotion and image. And she has no equals when it comes to transformi­ng undergroun­d dance music trends often born in Black, gay and Latinx nightclubs — “Vogue” is a key example — into mainstream hits for a mass audience.

The bad news about “Finally Some Love: 50 Number Ones,” at least for all but Madonna’s most devoted fans, is that it would be a much more effective album if it were trimmed down to a single CD. It would still be flawed, but not nearly as much.

That may well be why “Finally Some Love” was first released in June as a 16-song, single-disc album before the 50-song edition came out in August. In either form, one CD or three, there are problems here that even someone as tenacious as Madonna can’t overcome.

Most curious is her decision to feature edited remixes of her hits. Remixes, by definition, are almost always extended versions of songs that have been lenghtened specifical­ly so that dance club patrons can get their groove on at length.

Madonna’s first allremix album, 1987’s 5 million-selling “You Can Dance,” was built on that premise. The original version of “Into the Groove,” her 1985 hit, clocked in at three minutes and 51 seconds, but was extended to over eight minutes on “You Can Dance.” On “Finally Some Love: 50 Number Ones,” it is inexplicab­ly reduced to four minutes and 44 seconds. That same template of truncation is used on other selections, including “Express Yourself ” and “Everybody.”

To further compound matters, she favors remixes by such marginally skilled collaborat­ors as producers Offer Nissim, Bob Sinclair, Deep Dish, LMFAO and the lone-named Sasha.

Moreover, where she once helped set trends — by skillfully co-opting them from undergroun­d dance clubs — her more recent work (that is, in this century) reflects rather than anticipate­s the rise of EDM as a major commercial force. The result on this album is an uneven hodgepodge that finds Madonna doing a disservice to her fans and her legacy.

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