Politics is one of our most interesting fields of study available. While many claim not to subscribe to any particular set of beliefs, each of us is a mishmash of many views, some of which contradict each other. "To contradict thyself is human," if it's not a famous quote by now, really should be. Because every time you go to the grocery store and the shredded cheese costs too much, that's politics. When your lightbulbs burn out too fast because the lightbulb corporation was cutting corners for profit, that's politics. You walk outside and your local park is littered with bums smoking crack. It's politics. And when Roger Waters digests the words of George Orwell and pens a masterpiece, well, I think you get the picture.
What's interesting about
Animals is it tackles politics in a different way from most political music. Meditative keyboards and crazy guitars crafting layers of beauty seems more like the recipe for another fantasy prog epic, yet here we have a defiant Waters acting as a punk rock maestro, like Johnny Rotten if he had a conductor's wand. There is rage and attitude here, yet the album is still very good for smoking pot and chilling. This duality is not unlike the duality of man, something both Waters and Orwell specialize in describing for us. We see this duality in politics ourselves. One side promises something, yet they do the thing the other side wants to do while pretending like they did the thing they told us they were going to do even though they didn't. Sound familiar? I'm reminded of the John Kerry flip-flopper urinal cakes that sold like they were going out of style in 2004. Turn on CNN today for some politics, and you'll see we're engaging in the same old song and pony show.
If alll political activists were as methodical and, frankly, maniacal as Roger Waters in their zeal, perhaps we wouldn't have ended up in this mess in the first place.
