Animal Collective - Merriweather Post Pavilion (2009)

"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

"my girls" is still dope imo-- the rest is aight

but dont take my word for it-- http://link-protector.com/673613/

it saddens me, but i'm not all that into this. a few great songs, lots of others with really weak melodies and ideas. and seriously, every damn song is drowning. SJ was so consistent comparatively!

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.

^^^OTM

xp whiney would like this album

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.

― Turangalila

xpost Turangalila, so from what I gather you've never really liked them (except for one e.p.) and still don't like them now?

I don't get it, I've not been too fond of them for a lot of the same reasons (and their supposed weirdness HAS always sounded like posturing to me, maybe not 'cartoonish' but still...) if anything I feel like they've dialled back some on the preciousness/affected qualities here for the better. I mean, couldn't you say all the same things about the Panda Bear record?

I'm never quite sure about this line of argument that anything genuinely happy sounding and emotionally uncomplicated and open about it in music has to be "balanced" by some darkness/tension/weirdness. I doubt there's anyone that doesn't have at least ONE record they love that makes a mockery of this.

and all the people complaining about the "underwater"-ness just sound like people hearing MBV for the first time and asking "is this the right speed??" a little.

anyway, I'm mostly enjoying this so don't really want my buzz harshing just yet lol, or to become a cheerleader for it just yet (i'm probably in the 'new fan' category here)

and about listening to this "irl" yeah, cheap lols & and a good zing but have you heard how popular MGMT are? This doesn't sound any more embarrassing to me than that, maybe if AC work their nipples a bit they too can be in the charts :P

(sorry didn't mean to requote the whole post there..)

this line of argument
Heh. Dude, you make it seem like favoring particular musical signifiers is somehow bigoted. Or that I'm implying that certain musical signifiers are inherently wrong.

I felt nauseous and uneasy after listening to this. Personally, I look for chiaroscuros in music. To me, this is mostly a grotesque blot of pastels. Or like the musical equivalent of Nutrasweet.

there is a lyrical reference to that obv
"saccharine sheen"
u almost got to wonder how the language of these comments are planted, though always as if the band somehow does not seem to be aware of what it has wrought...

xpost - sorry, I don't mean to. I just suspect there are whole swathes of music that could be dismissed with a very similar sounding argument (I'm probably thinking of your, at least I think it was.. hating of that one bjork record that Mel W hates too, which I don't agree with at all). You're right about this being pastel-ly though. For me it's more of a gorgeous pulsating jellyfish like blob of pastels though. I don't find it sonically ugly at all. Or artificial sounding (for the first time really w/r/t this band!).

again though, on first impressions I'm starting to think the bottom of this record is hit very quick. I felt the same way about the Panda Bear thing really, but that seemed deliberately surface-ish at least in construction. A few bass hits might not actually signify much depth here after all....

this thread used to be so much fun :(

it's the new BOC (again)...

mad hype & hijinks until the leak actually arrives

http://www.mynewplace.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2008/02/tumbleweed.jpg

or I'm just draining the fun :/ soz

Still haven't heard the album in full but I expect I will be quite happy if it's all "superficial" and saccharine.

Superficial in scare quotes because I'm wary of surface/depth metaphors for music.

Food metaphors also annoy me. Unless they're taken to more specific and less value-laden extremes. i.e. I dislike talking about music in terms of fast foods, fine wines, artificial sweeteners etc. but I'm totally cool with people saying "this song sounds like a snickers bar whereas that song sounds like a cherry ripe."

(To my mind artificial sweetener comparisons never quite signify what they're intended to signify, because I never find nutrasweet or other artificial sweeteners terribly sweet. Milk chocolate vs dark chocolate (with milk chocolate as the superficial option) makes a lot more sense I suppose, but I actually prefer milk chocolate. Maybe it's just that I'm a sweet tooth both when it comes to food and when it comes to music)

First pat so otm. What I hate about the food comparison is that fast foods etc are scientifically proven to be bad for people whereas music can never be proven thus.

This album is probably giving me bigger buzzes than anything I can think of in oh...fuck knows how long. It's like Underworld and the Beach Boys in an elevator in a blender on drugs on acid.

*first par

I like this and all, but it seems a little straight forward somehow? Their previous work had a slightly looser feel which i liked but these songs don't really seem to fly off in too many different directions, despite all the nice weird noises

I never find nutrasweet or other artificial sweeteners terribly sweet
Right. They're a sort of toxic, quasi-sweet that tends to make people sick.

No music has ever made me sick I must say. If your doctor has warned you off listening to this album Salvador I'd encourage you to follow his or her advice!

I'm assuming this album is relentlessly cheerful in the same way as Since I Left You, which also has its fair share of lovers and haters.

"It's like Underworld and the Beach Boys in an elevator in a blender on drugs on acid."

Woah.

I think it was Tobias who first suggested the Underworld comparison. It's certainly nowhere near as dark or as conventionally UK prog/techno as Underworld but some of the use of vocals in that flailing almost instrumental way reminds me a lot of them. I keep thinking of terms like "indie-dance" etc as lazy impulsive reactions to this album, even in the sense that I want to compare it to past definitions of such terms, but the truth is this deserves to be considered as a good psychedelic record in its own right, free from the kind of cheap genre mashing terms that are so prevalent...

Have you heard the Gang Gang Dance album Ronan? I think you would like it.

I pretty much am never sure how much I like whatever AC affiliated release for about 3 months, then I end up either loving it and overlistening to it or never listening to it again, and again, I'm not sure with this. I ended up loving (most of) Strawberry Jam but I can't say I don't have massive reservations about some of it. But then, when they're good ('Chores', 'My Girls', 'Brothersport', 'Prospect Hummer', 'The Purple Bottle'), they're totally beyond wow.

Panda Bear >>> Avey Tare lyrically though. In a brilliant way.

this reminds me a little of disco inferno, around the "second language" e.p. "lion in a coma" = "the atheist's burden" with rubber balls bouncing on the bass

So, I posted a tell-all all blog about this rickrolling escapade.

animal cololctive: what happened?

hahaha

i'd like to think it's worth it just for the laurence bell pic

web sheriff email is pretty priceless

woohoo!

o michael chornomaz

Music can be provable to be actually bad for you in the same way as food can.

laurence bell could be played by a healthy john goodman

denzel as the web sheriff

also lol @ "forcing me to behave more and more like the Joker as portrayed by Heath Ledger in 2008's critically acclaimed "The Dark Knight.""