Animal Collective - Merriweather Post Pavilion (2009)

I love this record and I'm super happy that everybody else loves it too.

Compared to other latter-day Animal Collective records, I don't love the mix. It's bright and compressed and lacking in subtlety and it makes my ears ring. This record reminds me of Jagged Little Pill, or Is This It... it'll sounds great on the radio but not on the headphones.

so you're saying that this is basically our generation's "jagged little pill"?

i don't know about this/last year as a whole, but between MPP, fever ray and gang gang dance, this season is totally touching me in all the right ways and places.

I don't hate the album, and let's be honest - when it comes to me and the Animal Collective/Panda Bear/Joanna Newsom collective, not hating it might be the best you can hope for.

ugh man, leave Joanna Newsom out of this man. She's awful.

so you're saying that this is basically our generation's "jagged little pill"?

― s1ocki, Saturday, January 17, 2009 4:24 PM (4 hours ago) Bookmark

Exactly not,

(Although I can imagine Avey singing a line like "You're my best friend / best friend with benefits / I am aware now / I am aware now")

do Animal Collective understand Irony better than Alanis?

i love me some of 'is this it' on headphones, actually

ugh man, leave Joanna Newsom out of this man. She's awful.

Let's not make false distinctions.

are we really too cynical to let this masterpiece of an album go to waste?

http://farm1.static.flickr.com/153/421990057_159d0760d9.jpg

i acknowledge that we human beings have difference of opinions and whatever, but i cannot imagine someone sitting down with this album playing and not liking it. it's unthinkable and kind of depresses me.

i honestly think it's kinda depressing that so many people like it. as owen pointed out, the mix is crap, and as other people have said, there are better AC albums out there.

i know everybody needs an album to 'get behind' lately so they can feel better about the state of music, etc, but i have listened to this record several times and tried to like it and i just DON'T. the production is super blown out, hypercolor vomit; the melodies are too frenetic and clipped together to really stick in my head, and i just think a lot of the loops sound clunky and overwrought.

listening to MPP is like being in the room with somebody who has done way too much coke, basically. it's a visceral experience, but one i'd rather avoid if given the chance.

I think Owen's JLP comparison is spot on, and that's part of what nauseated me about the record. All high end, no bottom.

^good point, but i dont think that's always a bad thing necessarily. the walkmen for example

'Daily Routine' is great, it catches the same kind of vibe as the outro on 'Chores', Lennox is really great at that kind of slowing down thing. I've gone from not being bothered about 2/3rds of MPP to loving all but about one track in the space of a week, I do think seeing them live on Thursday cemented all that though.

'Lion In A Coma' sucks such massive balls, although 'Summertime Clothes' hugely redeems Portner for that.

I'm seeing people who loathed AC for some time loving a fair swathe of this record now.

i know everybody needs an album to 'get behind' lately so they can feel better about the state of music, etc, but i have listened to this record several times and tried to like it and i just DON'T. the production is super blown out, hypercolor vomit; the melodies are too frenetic and clipped together to really stick in my head, and i just think a lot of the loops sound clunky and overwrought.

I always think that about every Animal Collective record, for about a month, then it ceases being an issue.

being in a room with someone who has done way too much coke is not a visceral experience.

Unless you're doing it with them??

it can be viscerally repugnant

Conspicuously pregnant

"being in a room with someone who has done way too much coke "

depends who's the guy/girl

I've gone from not being bothered about 2/3rds of MPP to loving all but about one track in the space of a week, I do think seeing them live on Thursday cemented all that though.

^^^ this totally. The whole live thing has definitely changed the way I'm hearing this, though it's hard to put my finger on how exactly. But now I'm definitely hearing pulses and rhythyms that I didn't really notice before, I'm thinking about who's doing what and how the parts are related to each other, I'm navigating my way into what had previously seemed a flat, bright, bewildering wall of sound and it's really coming ALIVE, and damn, I'm still seeing fucking strobe lights going off in my head when I think about listening to it.

http://www.rock107.com/albums/The-Top-107-Albums-Of-All-Time/Peter_Frampton_Frampton_Comes_Alive.jpg

Show me the way, Pete.

(but watch out for the trick behind you, dude)

duh, trick truck

a little btw...

yay

"hip" a capella groups are the worst thing in all the world imo

yes

This thread should be re-titled: Click here for massively unpopular opinions.

I love this record and I'm super happy that everybody else loves it too.

Compared to other latter-day Animal Collective records, I don't love the mix. It's bright and compressed and lacking in subtlety and it makes my ears ring. This record reminds me of Jagged Little Pill, or Is This It... it'll sounds great on the radio but not on the headphones.

I really didn't fall for this record until I listened to it without headphones for the first time. The compression thing is weird... I don't have the vinyl yet, am intrigued to see if there's less compression in the vinyl mastering - I've been listening to it off mp3 ripped from vinyl.

inhibitionist, did your review by chance mention how their singing is often times annoying (maybe in more clever words)?

No, because on Merriweather, the two vocalists' voices are at their least annoying, imo. However, if you can't tolerate Beach Boys-like vocals, you may find this album tough going.
― inhibitionist, Tuesday, 13 January 2009 07:56 (6 days ago)

please don't compare beach boys vocals to animal collective vocals

lol

please don't compare beach boys vocals to animal collective vocals

i half-agree. i think the comparison is justified with panda bear, but i agree it couldn't be further from the truth in avey tare's case. besnard lakes, now that's a band with beach boys vocals.

please don't compare beach boys vocals to animal collective vocals

i half-agree. i think the comparison is justified with panda bear, but i agree it couldn't be further from the truth in avey tare's case. besnard lakes, now that's a band with beach boys vocals.

This.

I do, however, adore the new AC record. I think I like it a little bit more than Strawberry Jam, but a little less than Feels. That could change after a few listens though.

there actually *is* a great deal going on more that I wasn't hearing on the mp3 leak really.

So, I'm actually really digging this album. I like about 4 of the songs on it (My Girls, Summertime Clothes, Taste, and Bluish). The more I listen to it, the more I like it (unlike, say, Person Pitch where the more I listened the less I liked it).

After the obv ("Brother Sport") my current favourite is "Guys Eyes" - it's like all these waves crashing over each other, but much more tuneful than that implies.

Album has really grown on me after getting used to the production. The good songs are utterly fantastic, and the weaker songs not as blah as I originally thought. Guys Eyes, though, reminds me somewhat of Ben Folds Five, which is somewhat off-putting.

like if Ben Folds recorded 4 or 5 different melodies over the same piano line, and then played all of the versions on top of each other

I wanna say that I'm liking more and more of this every time I listen, and I'm really shocked by that.

no love for 'in the flowers'?

sure. i love it.

Really the whole album is great. I even love "Lion In A Coma" now (initially the awkward time signature threw me off - it's in 9/8 I think, but it's difficult to count out).

Still, this album makes me even gladder that they made Strawberry Jam. As great as they are, the Avey Tare songs on this (at least: "Summertime Clothes" and "Bluish" - I can't work out whether "Also Frightened", "Guys Eyes" and "Taste" are Avey songs, Panda songs, or co-writes) are kinda what you would expect if you drew a line from Feels into dense electronic pop. Animal Collective may not ever make songs like "Peacebone" or "For Reverend Green" again, which accords with their restlessness, but I'm glad they Avey had the chance to do those songs.

I didn't like "Lion" too much until I saw the live version last week. It was pretty fun. "Bluish" is so wonderful.
Actually, following many people's advices I've listened to "person pitch" in the meantime and I don't like it that much. some songs are fun but it lacks something compared to MPP. Maybe Avey's songs !

I can't work out whether "Also Frightened", "Guys Eyes" and "Taste" are Avey songs, Panda songs, or co-writes
Guys Eyes is Panda, he did a solo version on this Portuguese radio show 2 years ago http://mafama.blogspot.com/2007/01/panda-bear-m-fama.html It was orginally built around a a Zombies sample.
The others are Avey's, I think.

Guys Eyes was called Song for Ariel back then.

could someone put the tracklist of the album with the songwriter for each track ?
so far, it seems I prefer Avey's, except "brothersport" by Panda.

My Girls
Daily Routine
Guys Eyes
Brothersport

these are panda's, the rest are avey's.

ah ok, thanx. so the only 2 tracks I don't like too much are by Panda. But then he also did "My girls" and "Brothersport" so it more than makes up !
That explains why I don't like "person pitch" much since, for me, it's Avey's tracks that give the substance to the album and "person pitch" doesn't have "hits" like "my girls" and "brothersport".

Altough MPP is going to be one of my albums of the year, the album is bit of a dissapointing for me. I think it's a missed chance to make it one of the best albums ever:

- Why is the record this compressed and aren't the songs dissolving in each other?
- "my girls": why is it so fast? why are the vocals so high? where's is the 2 minutes kompakt-esque start?
- "taste": where's the "am I real" ('a mili' modus) part at the end of the song?
- A few screams by Avey would also fit nicely

Well it's clear that I love the MPP live experience more then the actual album though I don't see a reason why these things wouldn't work at home. The record misses a bit of subtility for me. Was Ben Allen the best producer for this album?