Animal Collective - Merriweather Post Pavilion (2009)

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?

maybe youre just (too) used to the live version songs

it's a major disappointment that dusted didn't let andrew beckerman theorize this one

I heard this today, and it was really bad. I thought the earlier stuff was fine, but this album makes the earlier stuff sound like godhead in comparison. "My Girls" was especially bad and boring.

Animal Collective vs. Fleet Foxes in Band That Makes You Hate The Beach Boys More

I kinda wish it was all rickrolled instead :-/

This place.

I kept an eye on this thread during the rickrolling and had lots of good lols but now I'm convinced this album doesn't exist and that all the commentary surrounding it is a huge cosmic joke.

Hey you figured out the secret message on the cover, then.

I. Love. This.

love can be so misleading
animal collective fans remind me of joy division fans in that - how can you listen past that voice?
my ian curtis vocal comparison is interpol and she wants revenge.
my animal collective vocal comparison is too those 'hip' a capella chorus groups but with nasally lead singer(s?).
-I dunno what the appeal of animal collective is at all, is every song just a ambient technoish build up filled with flights of fancy? matched with terrible vocals that either drive people to love them or hate them. Once again vocals play a vital role in judging this band.
<your fan base

these kids should have stayed in church

vocals play little to no role in judging this band. no one who likes Animal Collective likes them because they really really enjoy the sound of Avey Tare's voice.

The sound of Avey's vocals aren't very important on this record - esp. compared to Feels where his vocals were consistently marvellous and totally crucial to the sound/feel of the songs (e.g. the wonderful chorus on "Banshee Beat"), or Strawberry Jam where his grunty/moany/squealy angst really set the tone of his songs.

Conversely, I can see how Panda Bear's backing vocals (present even on most of Avey's songs here) could form a stumbling block for anyone who didn't like them.

I'm nowhere near the stage of being able to pick out individual vocals. I'm still luxuriating in its glorious entirety. It gets better every time I listen. (And really: I was deeply unsure about it from what I'd read.)

I am finding it weird how when I say I like this record people act like I am a member of some Divine Light Missionary Cult...is this how Animal Collective fans really are?

I politely told a couple who knocked on my door a few days ago that, sorry, I couldn't afford a magazine subscription.

Conversely, I can see how Panda Bear's backing vocals (present even on most of Avey's songs here) could form a stumbling block for anyone who didn't like them.

http://www.sciencebase.com/science-blog/images/sign-with-sharp-edges.jpg

xpost to Tim

okay, perhaps i was overstating it. i guess i figured that that melody and creation of mood were the band's more obvious strengths (mood far past simply what the singer's voice sounds like, that is). i just imagine that when someone says that they don't like a singer's voice, it has less to do with whatever processing is or isn't done to it or whether or not you can hear it easily in the mix or whether at any given point you are being breathy or screamy or yelpy, and more just to do with simply the quality of the voice (not the best choice of words, i know). and this is coming from someone who DOES enjoy both these guys' voices and the way they inform the tone of their songs, but it just doesn't seem quite as essential an aspect - i.e. someone else could be singing the same notes and i'd enjoy it almost as much.

having been listening to it in lieu of just about anything else for the past month, I am beginning to be a wee bit embarrassed by how much I like this album.

"someone else could be singing the same notes and i'd enjoy it almost as much."

Yes, but I think probably the vocals-haters (which i am certainly not) would dislike the vocal arrangements * on songs like "Also Frightened", "Guys Eyes", "No More Runnin", "Taste" and "Brothersport" regardless of which voices were actually singing them.

* i.e. use of close harmonies, Beach Boys-meets-barbershop style overlapping etc.

The Beach Boys comparison thing didn't happen before 'Person Pitch' did it? I think some of that record does exhibit a big Beach Boys thing but I can't hear it on MPP unless all vocal harmonies = Beach Boys. It's lazy journalese, no?

Knowing how huge a fan of the Beach Boys Mackro is, say, he would not have have busted out the comparison if he did not feel it was applicable, and in the case of AC's use of the sound, an example of how not to do it.

to give AC (and by proxy Panda Bear) some credit here, these guys have been able to use (not all the time as has been stated) Wilson-esque vocal harmonies that don't resolve in an expected way. Sure, AC harmonizes a lot, but it's a basically a genetic code in the listener whether one detects resolution in places in songs or not. On the flip, the Beach Boys and certainly many groups influenced by them in between (High Llamas, Fleet Foxes kinda, etc.) have followed more Beach Boys traditions than just the vocal harmonizing and the resolutions. AC just use the harmonizing as one of many colors in their palette -- which may drive people more attuned to Beach Boys type songs crazy. So, yeah, I admit I'm probably in this latter ol' fogey category.

I have this same issue with the Fleet Foxes album. The techniques are superb, but the results aren't always all that. I like that album more than this new AC one.. however, the Foxes are certainly trying harder to emulate Beach Boys, whereas it's just a relatively smaller part of AC, me thinks.

So yeah, i'll put the whole Beach Boys thing to rest here. sorry folx.

Keep in mind that I've been on a steady diet of Slade, Sweet, Flipper, and The Free Design lately.. so my concepts of harmonizing are kinda uncalibrated right now.

whoo boy, terrified to even get involved here but "college" on sung tongs is unexplainable as anything other than a bboys homage

dumb video http://www.myanimalhome.net/