Animal Collective - Merriweather Post Pavilion (2009)

i rather like this album and I don't like anything else by them very much except for the vashti bunyan album and I only like that because of her.

I dunno, compare with MBV, Slowdive etc... and I still wonder really, is it just the cool sounds they make that trumps all or are they really just a bit like, bogus?

I think that, if you're going to compare them with bands like that, a better band to compare Animal Collective with would be early Mercury Rev. There are obviously major differences in their sounds but they have a lot in common w/ the psychedelia background and the attitude.

yeah, I've thought of and compared them to Mercury rev in the past. I guess I always felt like the approach to lyrics with this band was always just a bit too distant and considered to really actually feel I dunno, honest, genuine "true" those kind of corny qualities ILM likes to stamp on with a boot. Whatever they were doing it just didn't work for me. All the while I could tell they had more creativity invested in it than some other charlatans...

Funny thing is it seems like the more universal the sentiments they sing about lately (here, Person Pitch) the better this weird angle works (Tim describes really well on his round-up thread atm).

This album is also absolutely brilliant btw.

lol @ people raging against the "fucking font choices" and the title upthread :D geeez

I agree and think that one of the things that makes Animal Collective intriguing is that they know how to amplify their own mystique. They do for psychedelic loopiness what Radiohead does for alienation, which may explain why both bands seem to attract a similar type of fan, if not similar people.

The other thing about AC is that, though their influences seem vast, they are very much a part of the general pop culture trend which is looking to late 60s hippie-ism/mysticism with a more romantic eye than the previous generations have.

Mercury Rev did something similar with crazed psychedelia early in their career but Mercury Rev's post-Baker albums revealed MR to be a bit smartass and self-conscious about their surrealism. I remember reading that "Snowflake Midnight," as a title, is a meant to be self-parody. AC has yet to let up on the distancing effects and take the mask off, which is one of the reasons their fans seem to be endlessly fascinated by them. They also benefit greatly, as I alluded to earlier, from the fact that today's college students are too young to remember much original psychedelia - or even the comeback the genre made in the late 80s and early 1990s. Everything that was old is new again, and a band like AC have done a great job repackaging the content.

Oh, and can I get a link to the round-up thread? Is that the tracks and albums nominations thread?

I meant this - 2007 that was (by Tim)

:)

this is pretty awesome. Thought i was past having to listen to these chufters after Strawb. jam, but the Pitchfork shame continues.

Pitchfork is hilarious. and ridiculous. I don't really trust their reviews for, well, anything. AllMusic is great though.

what a beautiful record. totally worth all the rickrolling and viral shenanigans. the closest analog i hear (besides 'tusk' as mentioned upthread) is later boredoms, especially the euphoric looping of vcn. i have no idea how they make these sounds. i'm curious how sample-based it is, whether along the lines of 'person pitch' or what

This album is pretty self-centered and misoginyst: agree/dissagree

its almost racist in its opaque self regard

the only content i've been able to decipher is panda talking about his kids having shoes and stuff. that seems nice?

his kids are named adolf hitler bear and aryan justice bear, so no, its not nice

i was also a little concerned about its pavilion-centric iconography

upon repeated listening, i'm pretty sure "also frightened" is the best track on this.

There are some great songs on here, esp. Brothersport, but seriously did they have to make every single song sound like it was recorded underwater? I mean, I'm fine with hella reverb, but jeez switch it up sometimes

also, I do not get anyone's hate for Strawberry Jam

I do not hate Strawberry Jam. It's just that every once in a while one of those songs will come up on my ipod, and I pretty much always have to make it go away. This is not hate.

also, I do not get anyone's hate for Strawberry Jam

innit. you'd think it was a forty minute record consisting solely of symbol sounds that some people found a little too tinny. such a catchy, lively record

most people dont like it because it's animal collective doing "indie rock"

most people that dont like it dont like it because

i lurv strawberry jam.

interesting. I wonder what exactly about the sound of SJ hits people's INDIE button that's so diff. from this album (or Feels for that matter)

this is growing on me...i really love the middle of the first track

ya this is great and will prolly be their biggest album, but they were so much better when you couldn't understand the fuck they were saying.

^

The lyrics are much tougher to decipher on this one than on Strawberry Jam, at least on the Avey Tare songs.

on first listen, i don't like the hand claps on 'my girls'

keep liveblogging

wishing you a happy liveblogging new year's eve eve.

i wish brothersport extended the arpeggiated middle bit & add amazing 4/4 kick. Even though it is a grebt track altogether, extended raverave would be awesome.

^ siskin, there are a couple of songs where they could've extended A LOT. The "when the sun goes down, we'll go out again" in Summetime Clothes should've been repeated again. The big blast in the first track should've surfaced again.

there is a lot to learn from this time around, the only thing better will be their next album.

I think Bluish should've been re-remixed, it's soft and everything, but it just...eh, gets too soft.

Anyone notice the gaps on the leaked album? At the end of each song? I fixed them in audacity now. I'll re-up for anyone who wants a seamless listen.

I think Bluish should've been re-remixed, it's soft and everything, but it just...eh, gets too soft.

nuh uh. it has that great piano too.
the next lp's the kind of 'visual album' they're making.
i love the live sound of the record, undulating synths bouncing off the walls.

"there is a lot to learn from this time around, the only thing better will be their next album."

"the next lp's the kind of 'visual album' they're making."

i can't say for sure and i hope i'm wrong, but i don't think they are ever going to make a better record than this. i have never gotten into their old stuff but every album since sung tongs has been better than the last (not counting strawberry jam and yes counting person pitch). it's more a feeling than anything else, but i anticipated the album so much for so long and now that i'm listening to it and it actually is the most wonderful fucking thing ever... it feels really nice and conclusive.

lol @ google auto-suggest:
http://i181.photobucket.com/albums/x18/gr8080/fdfsdfsdfsdfsd.jpg

:D

i'm torn on this still. there's parts that i really love ("in the flowers", "brothersport"), but then there's the six minute snoozefest "daily routine" right in the middle. i still dont think what i have is great quality, so im gonna wait for the vinyl

they really fucked up summer time clothes

yeah that and "DR" kinda kill the momentum the first four songs had going. it starts out with four very solid tracks with pretty sublime moments imo, but then tracks 5 and 6 kind of kill it. i still really like "brothersport", but i prefer the live version soso much more. for some reason, the production's the cleanest on "BS"; it's super spacious when the rest of the album is much more cluttered (again, could be the low-qual rip i've got), and i just don't think it works as well. the live version i've got captured the energy and enthusiasm of the song so much better i think

you're all smoking crack too close to the frame

daily routine is the weakest track on the album indeed, but "bluish" is awesome, with it's MBV melody style

it's just that tracks 5-8 are a bit less poppy, but not necessary weaker

must admit they be growin' on me. however, daily routine is neither weak nor the weakest song on the album! that would be either "lion in a coma" or "no more runnin," and even as i type this i'm realizing that i love those songs, too! can we all just agree that this is the greatest album of all time already?

xposts i was referrring to "bluish" not "summertime clothes"

I hate this album so much.

why?

I still like this, but I might want to wait until the CD actually comes out to listen again. I wouldn't say there are diminishing returns... but now the inital shock has worn off. I am occasionally wondering if it's actually that good after all. It definitely skirts very close to some awfully hippy-drippy zone but (I think) mostly pulls off being GOOD hippy music.

It might be that good, next time or another, but I do also find it drops off, or my attention starts to wander somewhere around the last third of the album.

That's still a good run though! and I'm still interested to finish the record (even if I might skip some of this bit).

Which is pretty much how I tend to play "Loveless", this has a similar (prematurely) exhausting feel to it for me, even if it's superficially perhaps, a little more consciously varied. So this isn't a large complaint by any means.

I also think Daily Routine -needs- to be there, for pacing. I mean otherwise are we talking about a 1-2-3-4-5 punch opening?? And don't understand how Summertime Clothes kills any momentum when it's the most uptempo track in that whole sequence? I mean, you can not like it, but that's a different thing really.

"Lion In a Coma" is a bit... iffy. I guess it's the token old-style Animal Collective type song for people who like this record but might not be that enamoured with their previous stuff ?

(esp. Strawberry Jam, which I've reinvestigated, appreciate a bit better now, but am not hugely moved by)

I loved their EP with Vashti Bunyan.
This album just seems to emphasize everything I’ve never liked about them, e.g., that tacked-on, cartoonish posturing which they now seem too comfortable with. Most of the melodies are desperately saccharine---like jingles, even. And there’s no real sense of tension or weirdness to balance it all. The overwrought production only makes it worse.

i actually listened to this irl and yow this band is just unbearably precious - and a big lolwtf to all the animal collectors repping their pop tunesmithiness

wht were you thinking?! wd never listen to this irl

lol