Pink Floyd announce Animals 50 with an unheard Roger Waters song and a 1977 live show
Pink Floyd will reissue Animals on January 22, 2027 with five rarities, a 1977 Oakland concert and the 'Sheep' radio edit, out now for the first time.
The essentials: Pink Floyd announced on November 5, 2026 a 50th anniversary edition of Animals, their 1977 album. Animals 50 comes out on January 22, 2027 through Sony Music. It adds five rarities, including an unheard Roger Waters song, and a full concert recorded in Oakland in May 1977. The original radio edit of “Sheep” is out now and is on sale for the first time.
What is in the reissue?
The new edition is built around four elements, according to the track list published by Official Charts:
- the original 1977 album;
- the 2018 stereo remix by James Guthrie, the band’s long-time engineer;
- a five-track rarities disc, with every track officially released for the first time;
- the band’s concert at the Oakland Coliseum Arena in California on May 9, 1977, also previously unreleased.
The rarities are early rough mixes of “Dogs” and “Sheep”, the original radio edit of “Sheep”, a studio jam and “Young Nicholas Jon”, a Roger Waters song nobody has heard before, according to SuperDeluxeEdition. JamBase notes that the two album tracks first took shape on stage under other titles, “You’ve Got to Be Crazy” and “Raving and Drooling”, which appear on a 1975 Los Angeles concert release.
Which formats are available?
| Format | Contents |
|---|---|
| 2 CD or 2 LP | Original album + rarities |
| Blu-ray | 1977 stereo mix, 2018 remix in stereo, 5.1 and Dolby Atmos, rarities, Oakland 1977 concert |
| Digital | Original album, 2018 remix, rarities, Oakland concert (14 tracks) |
| Deluxe box set | 5 CDs, 3 LPs, the Blu-ray and a 64-page hardback book |
Sources: Official Charts, SuperDeluxeEdition, JamBase.
SuperDeluxeEdition lists UK prices of £16.99 for the 2CD, £35.99 for the 2LP and £199.99 for the deluxe box on Amazon UK. The box’s book includes new sleeve notes by the American novelist Jonathan Lethem, an interview with the man who recorded the Oakland show and an excerpt from the memoir of Aubrey “Po” Powell of the design studio Hipgnosis, which created the album cover.
Who recorded the Oakland concert?
The live recording was made by Reinhard Hohlwein, who was then 19, according to SuperDeluxeEdition. The show came from the “In the Flesh” tour. According to JamBase, the band opened with all five Animals songs, starting with “Sheep”, then played Wish You Were Here in full, and closed with a third encore, “Careful With That Axe, Eugene”.
Why does Animals still matter?
Animals was released on January 21, 1977. It reached No. 2 in the UK and No. 3 in the US, according to Ultimate Classic Rock. It was the band’s tenth album and their tenth consecutive Top 10 record. Its three long songs cast society as dogs, pigs and sheep. Its cover shows an inflatable pig floating above Battersea Power Station in London.
“I’d driven past Battersea Power Station every day going to and from my house in Clapham,” Roger Waters recalled in the press material quoted by Ultimate Classic Rock. David Gilmour said: “The mood in music was changing in ’77,” adding that the album was “more in your face and more rough and ready”, according to Official Charts.
Why was the remix delayed for so long?
James Guthrie’s remix dates from 2018 but was only released in September 2022. JamBase recalls that a dispute over sleeve notes by the Pink Floyd biographer Mark Blake held it up. Waters said in 2021 that Gilmour had blocked the release unless the notes were dropped. In the end the remix came out without them.
Animals 50 follows Wish You Were Here 50, released in 2025 for that album’s half-century. It arrives a day after the 50th anniversary of the original release.
