Animal Collective - Strawberry Jam Poll

Love this album. Toss up between "For Reverend Green", "Fireworks", and "Derek" iirc.

me too -- it might be a different pick on another day, but i went w/ "fireworks"

Rev. Green all the way. Really wish they would do more "insane" sounding stuff like that...

This is probably my favorite AC record, tbh. Definitely my most played.

could definitely see that

it's not included in this poll because it isn't part of the album, but i also really like "safer"

Fireworks, and if it was a poll of everything they've ever done, it would still be 'fireworks'

this is my introduction to this band and consequently my favorite. love, love, love "For Reverend Green," though i pretty sure he says "Forever in Dream" as few times.

this is not a good album.

^^^

you're not a good person

this was never up for debate.

yeahhh the backlash against this album is kinda funny, i mean ppl are all mean mugging on this shit when it's twice as good and half as popular/praised as MPP

i hate mpp too, so

Fireworks, and if it was a poll of everything they've ever done, it would still be 'fireworks'

this, i've no idea how many times i've listened to it but it has a ridiculously visceral effect on me every time.

Cuckoo Cuckoo 4EVA!!!

It's kind of an odd album - the production is harsh and sandpapery and the tracks are grouped together like this: (1-3)(4,5)(6)(7)(8)(9), like the last four songs are just different iterations of the band that don't really cohere but who cares i guess.

still got alot of love for it because they recorded in downtown Tucson when I lived there and they used to order pizza from the restaurant I worked at all the time for like 2 months. The album came out a month before I moved away so I jammed it all the time as my goodbye desert soundtrack.

also Reverend Green->Fireworks is the best this band ever got.

"For Reverend Green" or "#1".

it's not included in this poll because it isn't part of the album, but i also really like "safer"

― through being dave cool (markers), Wednesday, August 17, 2011 4:40 PM (Yesterday) Bookmark

I would have voted for "Safer". This is far from my favourite AC album...in the end I decided to vote for "Fireworks" and accidentally clicked on "#1" instead.

i think its the big stompy drums and glammy keyboards on this album that kills it for me, especially after feels which is a similar attempt at a pop sound but is liquid and diffuse and ripply. this and mpp are definitely their worst two along with maybe danse manatee which is p annoying to listen to.

Maybe my least favourite AC album? There was no deliberation in my choice though - Fireworks every time. A little while ago when we were doing the Beatles' poll, someone described "Your Mother Should Know" as a melody that never settles down or repeats itself, just keeps flowing. Fireworks is also one of these songs. Actually there are a lot of AC-related songs that could be deconstructions of classic sixties records - see "Last Night At The Jetty" / "Kiss Me Baby".

It's kind of an odd album - the production is harsh and sandpapery and the tracks are grouped together like this: (1-3)(4,5)(6)(7)(8)(9), like the last four songs are just different iterations of the band that don't really cohere but who cares i guess.

This is kind of amazingly mind-blowingly OTM.

plax what do you think of Fall Be Kind.

<3 Fall Be Kind - their EPs tend to be remarkably consistent. See Prospect Hummer.

Wow, Safer is great. Never heard it before. The loop that's under the second half of it - is that the same loop (pitchshifted) as the first half of What Would I Want Sky?

this is not a good album.

― you've got male (jim in glasgow), Thursday, August 18, 2011 1:41 AM (Yesterday) Bookmark

^^^ it's truly bad

played it twice to check

Even as an AC fanboy, I'll admit that if I'd come to the band via Strawberry Jam (or possibly even MPP), I'd have had trouble working out what the big deal is. They're a narrative band really, and half the appeal for me was discovering them in their acoustic-savant chimpdrum mode (Sung Tongs, Campfire Songs, Prospect Hummer) - still by far my favourite period - and then working back and forth through their catalogue as they added and took away effects and electronic influences. All this is fine, but they're a much better band when they're not burying their sound under tons of FX and synths. I also blame them partially for the ongoing trend for unintelligible vocals and washed out instruments in underground music. Field Day festival the other weekend was testament to this - a dearth of sing-a-longs - literally every band was reduced to indecipherable ululations, and by the end I was craving clarity and focus.

It's not as if AC aren't able to bang out a decent release these days: Fall Be Kind and Panda Bear's "Tomboy" both manage to strike the right balance between sample/synth-based compositions while maintaining a sense of space. The last two AC albums proper were just muddy - so many nice ideas for songs dashed on rocks of granular distortion and deliberate ambiguity.

It's (kind of) interesting how AC fans generally disagree on what their best albums are (obv Lex thinks they're all shit). They don't have a canonical album that everyone loves. I prefer them in immersive soundworld mode rather than yelpy or acoustic-savant, the releases I listen to most are MPP, Feels, Here Comes the Indian, Fall Be Kind.

I agree with Mr. latin that they're the standard bearers (with GGD, maybe?) for the noise-goes-pop sound that's dominating the indie underground at the moment...I was saying in Outloud yesterday that while I do enjoy the aesthetic of Not Not Fun/OESB, I kind of wish at this point that something new would come along.

Never got my head round Here Comes The Indian.

my first animal collective is feels, which i still think is great. out of their last three records, it'd be a tossup between feels and strawberry jam for my favorite, with mpp coming in third

my first animal collective record was is feels

feels has their best song (loch raven). none of their albums are entirely amazing, even my favourites, sung tongs and here comes the indian have bits i find p offputting. hollindagain is probably the one i like most consistently.

i still really love them but i never really actually listen to them anymore

i remember when i first started college and i lived really near my studio and if i pressed play on did you feel the words as i got out of my seat, it would end at the exact moment i put my hand on the handle of my front door.

"loch raven" owns

Automatic thread bump. This poll is closing tomorrow.

if "Fireworks" doesn't take this in a landslide I'll eat my copy of Campfire Songs

Sometimes all I want is one favorite song, 2 to 3 minutes doesn't seem so long

Voting Cuckoo Cuckoo for them writing one lucid line in their career.

"the other side of takeout is mildew on rice" is p lucid

like i said up thread, this was my first Animal Collective album. i bought it, played it and hated it. i thought this was the biggest piece of trash that music has ever seen, so all over the place with no rhyme or rhythm. first play hated it, second hated even more and by the third time i thought no more. i was going to sell it back and even put it up for sale. i was thinking, at this point, that Animal Collective fans were just off. something compiled me to keep playing it and somewhere around the fifth or six listen it clicked. so i understand the hatred for this band, because i was there. but for some reason it does eventually, at least for me, click. i think i would have been better if i heard something else first but now this is my favorite record by them. i really don't think i hated an album more than this one, ever.

awesome

#1

This is my least favorite animal collective. I don't hate anything they've done, but I def prefer the "acoustic savant chimpdrum" mode that dog latin was referring to upthread.

still got alot of love for it because they recorded in downtown Tucson when I lived there and they used to order pizza from the restaurant I worked at all the time for like 2 months.

What kind of pizza does an animal collective eat

BONEFISH

Automatic thread bump. This poll's results are now in.

Well that's a surprise.

"loch raven" owns

― markers, Friday, August 19, 2011 9:49 PM (4 days ago) Bookmark

yo the actual loch does too!

Yeah, that's about right for the results.

the disrespect for Cuckoo smh