well adam apparently you live in a cave if your sn is anything to go by :p
https://media.giphy.com/media/c6NARXsgpItVfejVVb/giphy.gif
― Hazy Maze Cave (Adam Bruneau), Thursday, 3 May 2018 23:13 (five years ago) link
the one line of note I find interesting is that they refer to their social status as a "material thing." maybe that classification ...
― ( ͡☉ ͜ʖ ͡☉) (jim in vancouver), Thursday, May 3, 2018 6:56 PM (yesterday) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink
I always thought it was poor writing; that the 'like' should have been 'as'. ("I don't mean, To seem like I care about material things Like as our social status") Which still isn't correct but makes more sense.
One of the worst things about AC is something that seems to be forced onto them: that the world suddenly thought it extremely important to completely dissect and interpret what is just a dumb lyric. Dumb lyrics do not deserve such scrutiny. I'm not saying it's through no fault of their own; I'm pretty sure they did not mind being the posterboys for Carles/Hipster Runoff ~ironic~ schtick. Still though, that seems like decades ago (gladly so).
I don't care about AC any more, but My Girls is still a jam. And 'false modesty' is a meaningless indictment against pretty much every lyricist, or author, or poet imo.
― lbi's life of limitless european glamour (Le Bateau Ivre), Thursday, 3 May 2018 23:33 (five years ago) link
good mourning!
― morning wood truancy (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Thursday, 3 May 2018 23:34 (five years ago) link
lmao
― lbi's life of limitless european glamour (Le Bateau Ivre), Thursday, 3 May 2018 23:35 (five years ago) link
Adam - my main man
― done and dusted (Ross), Friday, 4 May 2018 05:21 (five years ago) link
I saw them on the feels tour and they were playing strawberry jam.
― done and dusted (Ross), Friday, 4 May 2018 05:23 (five years ago) link
I still really like the run of Animal Collective albums from Sung Tongs to this one but have never really paid much attention to their lyrics, or even thought much about the lines that stand out like the My Girls one. They're a 'sound' band for me. Adam Bruneau's anecdote about people trying dance to them in a club rings very true though, definitely experienced that at least once.
― Gavin, Leeds, Friday, 4 May 2018 10:09 (five years ago) link
Yeah, I've tried to put them on at parties as well, and it didn't work. And Peacebone worked much better than anything off of MPP. There was a misreading of them at that point, I also think In the Flowers got a lot of credit for having a 'dubstep drop', which sounds quite weird today. I think many writers struggled to figure out how they were as inspired by electronic music as they claimed to be, even on Sung Tongs, and overcorrected.
I'd still say Here Comes the Indian is their best, btw.
― Frederik B, Friday, 4 May 2018 12:54 (five years ago) link
merriweather.....POOP pavilion
― The Desus & Mero Chain (upper mississippi sh@kedown), Thursday, 10 May 2018 15:49 (five years ago) link
🎶 i want to scoop di poop with you 🎶
― flappy bird, Thursday, 10 May 2018 16:47 (five years ago) link
Shakedown otm
― Ross, Thursday, 10 May 2018 18:50 (five years ago) link
http://daily.redbullmusicacademy.com/2018/11/animal-collective-oral-history
― Jersey Al (Albert R. Broccoli), Tuesday, 6 November 2018 21:09 (five years ago) link
oof
Brian DeRanI remember turning down very large licensing requests and making light of the whole thing, many times to the exasperation of the label. A Pizza Hut request came in and one of them replied with, “We will take that pizza with pepper-NO-ni.” Another came from Volkswagen for which the reply was, “That’s going to be a “PASS-at.”
I remember turning down very large licensing requests and making light of the whole thing, many times to the exasperation of the label. A Pizza Hut request came in and one of them replied with, “We will take that pizza with pepper-NO-ni.” Another came from Volkswagen for which the reply was, “That’s going to be a “PASS-at.”
― frogbs, Tuesday, 6 November 2018 21:56 (five years ago) link
More unnecessary dissection of what is essentially just a clumsily-written line: “I don’t want to seem like I care about material things, like (a) social stats” ... I dunno why this line carries so much weight. It goes round & round in my head, an awkward earworm. It’s pretty self-evident what he wants to say, & that he’s just stonedly shoehorning the words in, errors & all, to scan. “I don’t want to give the impression of caring about material things or the social status associated with them. I just want the barest of necessities for muh girls, WOO!” But the funny, sticky thing about it for me is the SEEM. That hipster-looking-over-his-shoulder self-consciousness: not that he’s actually striving not to care, driving for some ascetic sainthood, but that he doesn’t want to SEEM like he’s a (scuse the term) normie. The narrator probably authentically doesn’t care, but over and above the really-not-caring is a more overriding sense of caring quite a lot about whether he’s perceived to care.
Anyhow, “My Girls” is a jam, flaws & all. I never listen to these guys anymore, but I can be counted on to bust out my old-man dance moves when this reverb-drenched mess of a mini-masterpiece comes on.
― bumbling my way toward the light or wahtever (hardcore dilettante), Wednesday, 7 November 2018 06:57 (five years ago) link
agreed
― niels, Wednesday, 7 November 2018 10:58 (five years ago) link
The line does scan very awkwardly but I think the "seem" makes sense if you think of the second line as not being about requiring the "barest of necessities" but wanting to pay for a house. Which is an expensive material thing that is only able to be acquired with a substantial amount of money which, in turn, requires AC (and him as a solo artist) to make money which in turn requires that they/he be popular.
I suspect the audience for what he ~seems~ to care about is his family rather than people who might judge him: the song always struck me as being an apology for wanting the band to be successful (and devoting time to that at the expense of family time), justified by it creating the opportunity for him provide for his family.
But it's so awkwardly constructed that it's not surprising people reach different views.
― Tim F, Wednesday, 7 November 2018 12:47 (five years ago) link
10 years old this weekend
― bros before HOOS (voodoo chili), Friday, 4 January 2019 21:05 (five years ago) link
thinking the answer is Also Frightened, for its hypnotic swing and gleefully strangled harmonies
― bros before HOOS (voodoo chili), Friday, 4 January 2019 21:07 (five years ago) link
ringer retro if that sorta thing is interesting ~
https://www.theringer.com/music/2019/1/4/18167715/animal-collective-merriweather-post-pavilion-10th-anniversary-panda-bear-avey-tare
― reggie (qualmsley), Friday, 4 January 2019 21:41 (five years ago) link
in retrospect, 'No More Runnin' is the best song on here
― frame casual (dog latin), Friday, 4 January 2019 21:58 (five years ago) link
also like Bluish and Lion In A Coma. the rest falls prey to being horrifically of its time and way shrill. Still I can't believe it's 10 years old, that's crazy
― frame casual (dog latin), Friday, 4 January 2019 22:00 (five years ago) link
I can’t bring myself to listen to this in 2018 at all
― (•̪●) (carne asada), Friday, 4 January 2019 22:20 (five years ago) link
2019 either
― (•̪●) (carne asada), Friday, 4 January 2019 22:21 (five years ago) link
the worst of GAPDY
― Blues Guitar Solo Heatmap (Free Download) (upper mississippi sh@kedown), Friday, 4 January 2019 22:33 (five years ago) link
noooo way! I hardly revisit MPP, honestly can't remember the last time I did, as opposed to all of their other records (including the new stuff). I'll never forget listening to the leak on Xmas night 2008, absolutely mind-blowing experience... but it is very "hi fi" for lack of a better term, and that polished sheen wears your ears down after a while. Is this how people regarded Nevermind in 2001?
― flappy bird, Friday, 4 January 2019 22:44 (five years ago) link
Not sure about polished. they as a band were making some quite deliberate sonic choices including this sort-of pixilated electronic harshness that they'd grown increasingly keen on.
They'd always been a band that had experimented with noise, or more often drones - the acoustic pastoral phase between Campfire Songs and Feels made great use of that.
And before on the early Avey and Panda albums, you still got the sense they were experimenting with lo-fi noise-making equipment.
But from Strawberry Jam onwards, the songs started getting smeared in this chippy synth ooze; Avey took to doing his chimp-screech voice a bit too much; there was less subtlety, less space for the band to breathe; and everything just felt claustro like looking at an old CRT far too close-up.
By MPP, the songs had matured but their content was starting to align with the Kinfolk lumbster set of that time - big beardy men with soft voices and a fondness for log cabins - a watering-down of the freakfolk scene that AC had also been lumped in with.
I can see why people weren't and still aren't so hot on the album, but I also felt that ILM at the time was unnecessarily cruel about it, and AC, at the time.
Almost all the hate was aimed at 'My Girls' - not a particularly great song, and neither particularly representative of their overall sound. MPP, despite its flaws, is a diverse album with at least three 'hits', a good few deep cuts and of course a good bunch of unmemorable or just plain annoying songs.
― frame casual (dog latin), Saturday, 5 January 2019 03:02 (five years ago) link
great post dog latin
I do love My Girls
― Dan S, Saturday, 5 January 2019 03:04 (five years ago) link
I recoiled from this album on contact.
― Your sweetie-pie-coo-coo I love ya (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Saturday, 5 January 2019 03:07 (five years ago) link
really their first five albums - Spirit They're Gone Spirit They've Vanished, Danse Manatee, Campfire Songs, Here Comes the Indian, and Sung Tongs are their best imo
of those, Campfire Songs is the one that means the most to me
― Dan S, Saturday, 5 January 2019 03:14 (five years ago) link
it's a decent, not great album that was way overrated at the time with corresponding excessive backlash. one of their better albums but certainly not their best or some sort of defining album of the 00s or anything
it's definitely a more polished sound than anything they'd done before, their previous works were all relatively lo-fi in sound, sometimes to good effect but often just sounding like a muddy mess like on strawberry jam
i probably love about half the album and don't really care for the rest much at all - that organ arpeggio on 'daily routine' is still really grating to me, something about the beat drop on 'in the flowers' doesn't quite work for me, 'also frightened' is ok but feels a little empty, 'taste' is pretty nothing-y
the 'also frightened' issue applies to a lot of this album i guess, it's so heavy on the reverb that things don't quite hit as hard as i'd want them to and often leaves nothing between the psych-y ambience and the fairly low basslines
my girls still rules though
― ufo, Saturday, 5 January 2019 03:24 (five years ago) link
Thing is, the EP that came out around the same time, 'Fall Be Kind' was excellent.
Everything I liked about the band but balanced by their more electronic-infused sound (sans the horrible mid-range cacophony).
Lots of ideas, plenty of room to build a vibe, a more obviously melodic angle. I really like it.
― frame casual (dog latin), Saturday, 5 January 2019 03:26 (five years ago) link
had to look up whomst the Y in "GAPDY" referred to. earnestly thought it was Yeasayer lol
― resident hack (Simon H.), Saturday, 5 January 2019 03:29 (five years ago) link
xp "their previous works were all relatively lo-fi in sound, sometimes to good effect but often just sounding like a muddy mess"
don't agree with this for their earliest works, only with strawberry jam onwards
― Dan S, Saturday, 5 January 2019 03:29 (five years ago) link
oh yeah the reverb too. so many bands were doing this super washy reverb thing, but rather than sounding cool and shoegazey, it felt synthetic, like a software reverb had been applied liberally to each instrument, including the ones you wouldn't normally add reverb to.
― frame casual (dog latin), Saturday, 5 January 2019 03:30 (five years ago) link
still really like this album though the chorus to "My Girls" is arguably the worst lyric of all time
― frogbs, Saturday, 5 January 2019 03:30 (five years ago) link
really?
I don't care for fancy thingsOr to take part in the freshest waveBut to provide for mine who askI will, with heart, on my father's grave
I love those lyrics
― Dan S, Saturday, 5 January 2019 03:42 (five years ago) link
Sung Tongs will always be my favorite but I can hang with this one. it does have a little too much of that 2000's era technicolor vomit effect going on though, and Avey's yelps are always intolerable
― sleeve, Saturday, 5 January 2019 03:47 (five years ago) link
love the album, it's all tracks, the lyrical sensibility on the record is something they'd been organically working towards for several years (as the article points out). I wasn't here on ILM for the thrashing, but this was a major album at my high school. I think I burned a dozen or so copies not only for my friends, but people that were maybe casual music fans and just discovering them. suddenly me and my friends' favorite band was 'breaking thru' in a meaningful, observable way. it was awesome.
I do think it's funny how the article frames the Xmas leak in nostalgic terms, I mean give me a break. they were freaking out at the time. and the idea that albums don't retain peoples' attention for an entire year anymore? please. maybe not animal collective records, but DAMN. was inescapable for all of 2017.
also, when I figured out what GADPY stood for, I couldn't believe it. lumping those bands and those albums together with MPP is insane. and I like Bitte Orca. I remember the YYYs being really good. but give me a break. Fleet Foxes? ok Veckatimest had some tracks, but still. absolutely not.
― flappy bird, Saturday, 5 January 2019 04:57 (five years ago) link
GADPY?
― austinb, Saturday, 5 January 2019 05:09 (five years ago) link
2009:Grizzly BearAnimal CollectivePhoenixDirty ProjectorsYeah Yeah Yeahs
I dunno, in retrospect I think all of those albums were pretty good
― Dan S, Saturday, 5 January 2019 05:13 (five years ago) link
lumping in the Phoenix record is especially insane. and yea, I agree the rest are pretty good. MPP was a major milestone. it was the tall tree.
― flappy bird, Saturday, 5 January 2019 05:18 (five years ago) link
xp a Whiney thing if my memory is correct
credit to him that it's stuck
― Dan S, Saturday, 5 January 2019 05:19 (five years ago) link
it's "GAPDY" fwiw
― Dan S, Saturday, 5 January 2019 05:21 (five years ago) link
Phoenix is the one I most want to go back to, especially in light of the Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez video
― Dan S, Saturday, 5 January 2019 05:38 (five years ago) link
one of my favorite albums. i know they're not everyone's thing, but this honestly was one of the great bands of the centuries.
listening to it now makes me sad though for some reason.
― Trϵϵship, Saturday, 5 January 2019 06:44 (five years ago) link
also i strongly disagree with the person who said they hate the lyrics to my girls. i'm with dan s -- they're poignant and perfect
― Trϵϵship, Saturday, 5 January 2019 06:49 (five years ago) link
They're dangerous and stupid
― flamboyant goon tie included, Saturday, 5 January 2019 07:00 (five years ago) link
!
― Trϵϵship, Saturday, 5 January 2019 07:02 (five years ago) link
why because they're heteronormative and glorify homeownership, which isn't sustainable?
My Girls is the most egregiously American song I've ever heard, with a song about and for black queer safe spaces re-appropriated to be a song about a rejection of community for safe ensconced family units built on acquired family money in remote ex-pat locations, a literally "I'm stealing from Detroit house to reject 'community' and build a house for my wife and child in Lisbon" realness, it is Donald Trump as a song good luck with it, and I'm a fan of this band and the man who wrote it, still: probably the worst song ever written, it is "Taxman" except built on a Frankie Knuckles sample
― flamboyant goon tie included, Saturday, 5 January 2019 07:05 (five years ago) link