Customer Reviews

Animalism

5 star:		(14)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

I've been waiting a long time for this reissue. I'm 57 and bought the LP when it came out. I've wanted to upgrade this one to cd for a long time. It starts a little slow, but picks up steam. Great vocals by Eric and some great guitar by Hilton Valentine similar in style to his work on Animalization, particularly CC Rider, which had a nice solo. He does some nice stuff here particularly on the slow blues. He's always been under appreciated compared to the Yardbird guitarists, but here he puts out work as good as anything they were doing back then. This is a great group of songs and performances, unique in the Animal's canon. Get it while you can. I got it very promptly from Hip-O.

Animalism offers no specials or tunes that didn't make the cut the first time around and the album's length is just a bit more than 43 minutes or so. And you won't find "House of the Rising Sun," "We Gotta Get Out of This Place," "It's My Life," or any of the other well-known Animals' hits on it. So why add it to your collection? For the simple reason that this is one of the most interesting and coherent albums the Animals ever made and also because, as an earlier reviewer noted, it gives Hilton Valentine a chance to show off his talents as a lead guitarist. With keyboardist Alan Price and drummer John Steel leaving the group, Dave Rowberry took over on piano and organ and Barry Jenkins came in as drummer and the group sound changed. Rowberry's organ playing is somewhat more jazzy and laid back than Alan Price's massive R and B and gospel influenced keyboard work. The new group sound comes off very effectively on this album and it's really great that Hip-O-Select has made this recording available on CD. Although there aren't any hit singles on Animalism, there are quite a few highlights especially for blues lovers. For my money, the two best numbers are "Smoke Stack Lightning" (a wonderful rave-up of the old Howlin' Wolf tune) and "Going Down Slow" (an incredible guitar workout by Hilton Valentine). Eric Burdon more than does justice to B.B. King's "Rock Me Baby." It's cool to hear Frank Zappa's guitar work on "All Night Long." Unless I'm mistaken, I think he also plays on The Animals' definitive version of "The Other Side of This Life." Speaking of definitive versions, you won't go wrong with The Animals' take on Donovan's "Hey Gyp" with Barry Jenkins' drumming being a particular highlight. "Outcast" is an interesting cut as well. To these ears, it sounds like the closest Eric Burdon ever came to going the Motown route. Overall, I give Animalism 4 out of 5 stars: as with many albums from this period, there are a couple of throwaway numbers. Bottom line: if you're a fan of Eric Burdon or the Animals, you definitely need to have Animalism in your collection.

1. All Night Long
2. Shake
3. The Other Side Of This Life
4. Rock Me Baby
5. Lucille
6. Smoke Stack Lightning
7. Hey Gyp
8. Hit The Road, Jack
9. Outcast
10. Louisana Blues
11. That's All I Am To You
12. Going Down Slow

The Animals' US/UK discography gets confusing at times.

Animalism(S) (plural) - The UK album is totally different to the US album Animalism. (not plural)

The US equivalent to the UK Animalism(S) (plural) is the album Animalization. And some changes were made to the track selection for the US release LP Animalization.

The tracks on the US Animalism were not released in the UK. This US album was the last to feature the 'first' Animals group. Drummer Barry Jenkins played on this US album, replacing John Steele. He stayed on to be the drummer for the 2nd "Eric Burdon and the Animals".

All the tracks that appeared on the UK 'AnimalismS' and the US 'Animalization', are now available on the "Don't Bring Me Down: The Decca Years", CD.

I was thrilled to order this piece because, although almost all of the material was already released on THE COMPLETE DECCA RECORDINGS CD, I guess that one is out of print, and I wouldn't pay $40 for that. This was reasonably priced and only short one song, I think,
However, when I played this CD, which is the entire British album, plus the Decca reissue of the Animals first demo, and the stereo versions on the few songs released in stereo in America, the sound was horrible. Too much bass, distortion, and too high a level (so typical of many CD's). My feeling was that the source for this CD was MP3's somebody downloaded. That is just a guess, but my American vinyl reissue of the US version of the LP is better sounding on most songs.
The exception is the track, "Inside-Looking Out", which is also over-compressed on the US releases.
I just wish this CD was mastered by somebody else. I could do better off the records, I believe!

Animalism marked the final studio recording by perhaps the preeminent British blues band ever. With its predecessor Animalization, the group had changed slightly. They replaced Alan Price on keyboards with Dave Rowberry and Barry Jenkins, took over the drum kit for John Steel. This new lineup favored a jazzier, more R&B influenced sound, somewhat less raw and traditional, but hard-edged and driving just the same. With Animalism they took aim at soulful covers of BB King's, "Rock Me Baby", Sam Cooke's, "Shake", Little Richard's "Lucille", Howlin Wolf's "Smoke Stack Lightning", Ray Charles smash "Hit The Road Jack" and Donovan's "Hey Gyp". Try stumping your friends by asking them, who penned the opening track "All Night Long"?...Yeah, none other then that old Mother of Invention himself, Frank Zappa. In fact Frank had a prominate role, playing lead guitar on several tracks. The results are tremendous as Eric Burdon's powerful and inspired vocals rivaled the sheer passion and verve of the aforementioned originals. Animalism was indeed a fitting swan song for New Castle's favorite sons.

Unfortunately, Burdon's decision to form a new group called...You guessed it, "Eric Burdon & The Animals", ventured into waters virtually uncharted with eclectic elements such as psychedelic rock, funk, Jazz and even traditional Indian raga. They did however manage to score several top-forty hits like, "Sky Pilot", "When I Was Young", "Monterey", and "A Girl Named Sandoz". And, Eric Burdon's collaboration with the Los Angles funk band "War" produced his biggest hit ever, "Spill The Wine". But much of his original compositions were lyriclly mediocre, even downright silly. Remember the famous line from "Monterey", "If you want to know the truth in life, don't pass music by and you know I would not lie". Come on now Eric!. Had those crazed San Francisco hippies actually exorcised the blues from your very soul?

Thankfully Hip-O Select had the good sense to release this long out-of-print gem. I'm wearing out the grooves, just as I did my old vinyl Lp years back. Now if they'd only dust off Animalization, I could get back into "Don't Bring Me Down", "See See Rider", "Inside Looking Out" and Oscar Brown's old classic, "One Monkey Don't Stop The Show". Now that would really make my day!

The above comments are all spot on. But Zappa is more than just a guy just sitting in. Producer Tom Wilson (Sun Ra, Bob Dylan, The Mothers of Invention, Simon & Garfunkel, and so may more) turned various individual song sessions over to Frank. Just listen to the fuzz-tone and you'll hear soundscapes from "Freak Out." This was also a transitional time, as Eric Burdon mutated the band into "The New Animals" and later "..with War." There are rumors of sonic involvement with Hendrix, but you'll have to ask Hans Glebeek (Univibes magazine) about that.

I got this CD for the special bonus stereo version tracks, 22) Don't Bring Me Down,23)See See Rider,24) Help Me Girl,25) Cheating. I only had these on vinyl.So now I have them on CD.They sound much much better than the record versions I had.The other tracks are OK.

Amazon has stuck the two releases together for some reason. however both are great releases from a truly great blues rockin band that later went psyh rock. both of the releases came out in 1966. In america animalism was called animalization and had several songs different than the brit version animalism. Those songs were singles that were hits like see see rider and 'don't bring me down' etc. Then later that year came out only in america 'animalisms' which had tons of great blues rockin songs and another version of 'outcast' even. That one is a classic blues rocker and even has a cool version of sam cooke's 'shake' on it. So there you have it , two great cd's with similiar names from one of the coolest bands of the sixties. Get both of them if you love midsixties organ driven rock and blues rockin. Animalism has two hit singles on it like I said though, so that one was the HIT release as animalization, in the u.s. at least. Just buy them both though and you'll see why this group is so admired today.

Until the stones did Begger's Banquet two years later, there was never a British Blues album even close in quality. It is criminal this group is so underated. Dave Rowberry shines here on keyboards and is creating a style like Alan Price had, and Hilton Valentine's guitar is in a class by its own. I don't know where to start. For example on Smoketack Lighting, Chas Chandlers bass guitar seems to be playing lead at times against Valentine's Guitar. Rowberry plays amazing hammond organ. Burdon is in a non stop vocal jam, which he did best on the Burdon Declares War Album a few years later. On Shake newcomer Barry Jenkins drums fly against Valentines hard core fuzz and Rowberry's hard hammond organ. Valentine plays amazing guitar solos and riffs on Rock Me Baby and Going down Slow. Rowberry has a spooky organ solo against Burdon's excellent vocals on a slow moody Hit the Road Jack. Two cuts feature old drummer John Steel uncredited, on Outcast [better than the single version with fuzztone and organ ] and the jazzy/ fuzz laden That's All I Am To You. And of course there is the classic Hey Gyp with flute like organ by Rowberry, Bo Didley guitar by Valentine, and a great drumm workout by Jenkins. Zappa arranged All Night Long and Other Side of This Life. The other tracks I failed to mention include a fast hard hitting Lucille and a slow piano version of Lousiana Blues. Both are excellent as well.