animal collective

https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/c/ce/Thlittlecreates.jpg

I really like this record. It sounds like they were tired of Foster the People eating their lunch and decided to make a pop record to show people they could do it. "Floridada" is probably the catchiest song they've written literally ever.

Also, the "ah we were so young and naive once" talk from pitchfork is fucking hilarious in the shadow of stanning for PC Music

Animal Collective always felt like a "career band" even in the way that their first "big" statement was a 2xCD re-release of their first two albums.

Floridada is good but I wasn't grabbed by anything else. not sure rereleasing your first two obscure albums to a wider audience counts you as a career band.

I like the new album better than the one prior to it, but I don't know yet it's the equal of that mid-00s rarified DAMN zone. Pros: great pop steez + it feels like they got back to the LP as a balanced, unified thing that isn't making concessions to a larger public or trample it. Cons: they're a bit frantic vocally and there's next to no drift (these were issues I had with CHz too btw).

Y'all will think I'm crazy for saying this but I'm gonna say it: I kinda want an AC era where the LPs sound like the AC equiv of killer Grateful Dead shows. Time to stretch out, lose their minds.

I am probably alone in this but I've always equated Animal Collective in the 00s with Tortoise in the 90s. Tortoise was this lightning bolt of WOW to a lot of indie kids and they spawned an obsessive fanbase. They felt fresh and unpredictable for about 7-8 years. Then they got older, their sound ossified, and they just sort of became this career band that you can depend on if you're into that stuff. Sort of feel like Animal Collective is heading in that direction.

That seems accurate, this feels like the most prototypically 'Animal Collective' sounding album they've made, and it seems to have been pretty well received by their core fanbase while not being a real stylistic shift or leap forward like they were regularly making during their creative peak. I guess they seem more interested in exploring new territory for them in their solo projects these days, though none of that has really been successful or interesting recently.

I like the vocal interplay on this one. A song like Hocus Pocus could be arranged for acapella.

Cons: they're a bit frantic vocally and there's next to no drift (these were issues I had with CHz too btw).

Yeah, since Strawberry Jam they seem to be obsessed with filling the entire dynamic and temporal range and there's a claustrophobia prevalent throughout a lot of their work. That's why I especially like the more ambient/ballady moments on MPP than anything else. It's kind of mad to think that this band once came out with Campfire Songs, which is a masterclass in dynamic restraint.

Savaged by The Quietus:

http://thequietus.com/articles/19709-the-lead-review-animal-collective-painting-with-review

Though the reviewer claims that they didn't go in with an agenda, the second sentence reads: " Sure, they were overpraised at first, as American man-bands so often are" which reeks of 'OMFG white ppl are so lame SMGDH'.

lmao it's true, the british have never once overrated their own bands.

funny how he calls 'strawberry jam' their 'deserter's songs'. always saw that as an awkward, transitionary album.

i can't believe they've just released a song called 'lying in the grass' in 2016. jeeeeeesus.

"With Animal Collective's tenth studio album out tomorrow, Lee Arizuno explores the latest and most disappointing of offerings from "Little Donkey, Hello Kitty and Crazy Frog"

ouch

Quietus review loses all credibility when it reps for Grumbling Fur but I'm sure this album is horrid

Haven't heard the album and may not hear the album - don't think I heard the last? - but "you can't go one bar without wanting to shout, "Go to bed!" is a really funny putdown.

That review is terrible, reeks of shame and embarrassment, and calls out the band for the very things they were praised for in 2005. It isn't criticism, it's someone trying to speak for/to/at an audience he imagines is craving that particular opinion. It has zero to do with anything on that record, and mostly to do with how out of fashion "faux naif" lyrics and garishly colored productions are (to him) in 2016.

It isn't bad journalism or criticism to point how trends change, or even to point out how a band's music isn't as "relevant" to the current music landscape. It's bad to offer critique without justification, eg explain why "faux naif" lyrics or "sing song numbers" are bad. One could effortlessly apply the exact same things to Sung Tongs, and even to the reviewer, that is a good record.

Of course, I haven't heard this record. Maybe it's terrible (tho the songs I have heard strike me as "more of the same" with perhaps more studio polish). I don't really even care about AC anymore (like, for the last 10 years) -- but that review is a good example of why I avoid reading most pop music criticism.

i mean, yeah. credibility had already been lost

I would agree with you, Dominique but to be fair to the writer, he does say in the final paragraph something along the lines of wide-eyed naivety speaking to him when he (and the members of AC) were in their 20s, but now he is approaching 40, he'd be more interested in their take on adult themes rather than this less-than-subtle attempt.

I feel that they were a lot better at doing the psychedelic whimsy thing in their 20s. By MPP, it started getting embarrassingly infantile.

That review is terrible, reeks of shame and embarrassment, and calls out the band for the very things they were praised for in 2005.

exactly, neither this nor the Pitchfork review really explain why this is so much worse than their other albums, besides "well it's 10 years later and we're all older so.."

Quietus review is truly embarrassing, reads like a bad Maddox article

DL, I can see your point -- I might even agree that I'd be interested in hearing AC make songs that spoke to what their lives are like these days, or how it feels to be 35 and in a band like Animal Collective. I might even counter that stuff like "My Girls" and some of Panda Bear's solo stuff does exactly this. However, you can't criticize a band because they don't make the songs you want them to make. You can really only talk about what they *have* made, and if the music's primary failing happens to be the same thing you (and I'm using "you" haphazardly here -- I haven't read anything by this writer on AC prior to this piece) praised them for years earlier, it comes off badly imo.

Yeah, I agree on that point. I think it would be fairer to say ' You've been in this game for years, peddling this kind of thing album after after album. The schtick was tolerable at first, but it's been verging on the parodic since the one before last and now it's seriously embarrassing'.

Something that frustrates me most about the concept of this album (and it's something the Queitus writer touches on) is the 'meta' conceit of actively referencing avant-gardism. Like, just because you're singing about Dada and have vaguely cubist/collagey artwork, it doesn't put you up there with those people. It feels weak. 'Animal Collective presents Surrealism', like a Channel 4 arts season.

It isn't criticism, it's someone trying to speak for/to/at an audience he imagines is craving that particular opinion.

very otm, good post dominique.

since Strawberry Jam they seem to be obsessed with filling the entire dynamic and temporal range and there's a claustrophobia prevalent throughout a lot of their work

hmm. interesting take. i've always gotten a rollercoaster feel from it, maybe it's been the vocals that are UP and down and then UP and DOWN combined w the electronic squishy rhythms, actually conjures a "queasy" feeling, not that it makes me want to vom but it has that sense of, you are at a party, and you are really buzzing, and you are trying to maintain. this could just be me reacting to their general sound compared to other things i listen to (maybe it would go away if i listened to modern AC all the time) but for example the bass synth on "Golden Gal" has that phased effect that makes me think of the weird noises you hear when your stomach is turning.

just because you're singing about Dada and have vaguely cubist/collagey artwork, it doesn't put you up there with those people

eh i thought breaking down artworld elitism was one of the big themes of the day. automatic writing can be done by anyone, "artiste" or craftsman, they all dream. i like it, i think their stuff has always been cubist in its way.

"you know that what follows isn't some stunt hatchet job on a band I don't care for...co-founding member Teddy Bear has said"

yeah talk about hedging your bets

this band has always been an easy target for assholes.

not really interested in them condensing their sound further into a pop format, and i can see how that experiment might be a failure, but this quietus writer was free to describe that failure in a way that wasn't self-righteous and condescending

i don't think centipede hz or any solo panda bear release has been about "bouncing around in neverland", really, so maybe my issue is with this guys' premise that the band has never expanded its thematic palette through the years

just read the pitchfork review. liked it. seemed like a much more thoughtful critique

I've always had a problem with the strawmanny accusation that AC are all about being childlike/infantile/faux-naif, or at least I never used to get that vibe from them. The earlier stuff was more about deconstructing things like folk music into a kind of pre-formalised primitivism. increasingly though, the 'childlike/neverland' stuff is becoming harder to eschew though. I still think it's a bit unfair but AC certainly don't seem to be interested in proving those people wrong.

these guys are probably really going to embarrass their kids when they get older haha

The last two solo records by Panda Bear and Avey Tare were both really preoccupied with death and disease and loss. Centipede Hz was pretty intense & dark, too. This is the first thing they've done that's up all the time. and yea xp doglatin it always bugs me when people dismiss the AC as goofy or immature... most of their records are pretty somber and melancholic, haunted... Henry Darger, not Alice in Wonderland...

AC has always been about moving forward. I don't know why a longtime fan would be disappointed that they tried something new and made a record without playing it live first.

just picked up Here Comes the Indian, and I love it, as does my cat. I swear, when is the damn hype machine gonna catch up: NYC isn't no wave, it's NEW AGE!

― Hurlothrumbo (hurlothrumbo), Thursday, July 31, 2003

there is some gold on this thread. gotta revisit HCTI soon.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CW5-bz3JQcE

Reviews are wrong. This is the best thing to come out of America since the polio vaccine.

:D

I don't know why a longtime fan would be disappointed that they tried something new and made a record without playing it live first.

it just made me lose interest in their live show, not the records

2009 and 2013 were the only years they didn't tour an album or two ahead. and tbf, there were still a lot of surprises in the way they re-arranged old songs to fit the MPP and Centipede style.

the 2013 show was v. good. father time was way better live iirc

listening to this right now on moka's recommendation

xp Yeah! I saw their re-scheduled show in DC on December 1, 2013. Father Time finally clicked. The Live at 9:30 album is great, too. The Centipede show really benefits from soundboard mixes. I remember listening to an audience boot of the first Centipede show in April 2011 and thought they had lost it. Just a total mess. After one full listen, I think the new one is much better than Centipede.

I think it's as good as Centipede, but those albums are trying to do two completely different things

this album is very short

only two minutes shorter than strawberry jam

i lost track of this band years ago but if i love Floridada should i check out the rest of it? i assume so but i am bored and this blank box was in front of me.

yes! hocus pocus is even better

it's definitely an improvement over centipede hz & all the solo albums after MPP, but it's still a step below their peak. the backlash feels disproportionate but i guess for anyone who wasn't sold on them years ago or has since tired of their sound this would be very easy to hate.

the burglars is thrilling, definitely my favourite on this.

quietus review leads like a long bout of clinical projection. dude might need to see someone about that

They played Alvin Row for the first time ever last night.

Which songs are Panda Bear's? So far I have:
Hocus
Bagels
Golden Gal