[New Zealand]

lol

[ROYGBIV]

AFTERWORD: just talked to my bf/life partner bout this (who is v respectful/doesnt nag on me at all for suddenly listening to AC 24/7 , doesnt know their music at all/EDIT: doesn't ever even get annoyed when I don't hear him the first time because I have headphones on all day/night) his outside instinct on them is "chubby lesbian art school girl" music

10/10
<3 u guys <3 this place

[terrestrialjane]

^ AMEN ! see were not so bad of people .. : )

Victor still reaking the place up in this b ...

[ROYGBIV]

AFTERWORD 2: in the same conversation he said that every time I mention animal collective/the forum (i bagged fb since ive been back here) I immediately apologize...like every time. dang yall is that weird? i guess i just assume anyone talkin about their fav band is annoying but I guess its weirder to apologize all the time...especially because I AM SO HAPPY

also I was thinking about how if im listening to any band and it happens to be a live recording my gut is like UGH like I don't wanna listen to that shit..there are exceptions i guess? but i can't think of any. but live recordings are so important to ANIMAL COLLECTIVE because theyre always experimenting which is cool, but I also feel JOY when I listen to live recordings and can hear everyone getting stoked...which is weird because i don't know those assholes but it feels like A TRUE THING and im stoked too. yall know what Im sayin?

[Gazehound]

wow this is a rly gr8 thread really lovin reading all ur thoughts guys. heartwarming to see the affection for AC

i don't think i rly have anything worth adding to this conversation but it's something i've been thinkin about periodically ever since i first started listening to them (freshman year of high school). AC was single-handedly responsible for my transitioning from listening to shitty 'middle school' music and onto the music i now enjoy and perceive as 'good music'. so it's cool that they are capable of bridging that gap, even if other 'big-name indie bands' do it more consistently....i just found their music to be SO beautiful/life-affirming/human that everything else rly paled in comparison

hoping that their music will retain that ability and maybe in the future as ppl are combing through the archives of music from this time period, AC will be remembered as a gem of our era, possibly regarded more highly than they are now, but who's 2 say what will happen

[dapta]

The reason I know about AC is because I searched on the limewire search panel (Around 2004) with the topic: Weird Music, and the first name to appear was AC with Winters Love. Since then the interest snowballed big, emotions grew bigger and bigger for each album they made. I live in a country where the culture is very spirited or influenced by the belive of something greater, and growing up with many mythical stories and beliefs I tend to keep an open mind in general up till this date. I believe AC is something greater you listen to, and not just any music you can hear in the radio. So I think sometimes maybe it depends on your cultural background, wether or not you're into something.
One time in Guthenburg Panda Bear was playing, and I met and joined Noah backstage and talked about everything from personal stuff to how good the beer we were drinking tasted. He asked me if there were many who liked AC where i come from, when I said i knew 3 persons who likes it he said it was a common thing and that not many are into his or AC's music.
I really think the ones who like AC has a good music understanding, and the ones i know who like AC tends to be really kind and good people.

[jetski]

^Wow! That's an awesome story! How did you get to go backstage?

I love this bit at the end:

dapta wrote:

...and the ones i know who like AC tends to be really kind and good people.

[jetski]

As a small side note, I actually think there is definitely a case to be made that people who listen to AC are generally kind and open-minded people.

When the average person (aka a non-fan) hears AC's music, they're sometimes put off because of the way the music sounds—whether it's harsh high-pitched noise, or yelling/screaming, or any of the other polarizing qualities of their music. I think this is because sometimes people think, "Wow, this band is trying to torture their listeners."

BUT as the seasoned AC fans we are, we know from interviews with the band that they're not trying to torture their listeners, and in fact they're just making music the way they think sounds best. As one listens to more and more AC, you get more accustomed to the music, and you begin to understand that it all comes from a place of benevolence. The band doesn't want to hurt anyone with their music; they're totally genuine in that they play music because they want people to enjoy it, not hate it.

So I think in some way, every AC fan has to sort of assume the benevolence of the music. And my theory is that that assumption usually also extends to people—assume the benevolence of people, until they prove you wrong. Thus, AC fans are (theoretically) good and kind people, generally speaking.

Of course, I don't think you can completely generalize a group in this way. But anyway, those are just some of my thoughts. Would be curious to see what others think. Sorry if that was all a jumbled mess...

[bansheebeaten]

no victor that was such a nice post. and I agree. makes me happy to read.

[terrestrialjane]

Well said Victor ! We know good music that is certain ... : )

[Vovenarg]

all the ac fans i know are huge dicks.....

[Vovenarg]

Spoiler: show

[coollodges]

Vovenarg wrote:

all the ac fans i know have huge dicks.....

Spoiler: show

[michael]

i only got lil weeny dick??

[coollodges]

must not be a tru fan sorry

[coollodges]

Spoiler: show

[Vovenarg]

LOL michael, cracked me up

[tender]

[Miss Amanda Jones]

There are a lot of hipsters who listen to Animal Collective, mainly because they have the reputation of being innovative or arty. Let's face it, much of the current music scene is dominated by the Williamsburg hipster scene. It is just what is in right now.

AC is ultimately a band that appeals free-thinking individuals who most likely majored in the Humanities in college. Many of those people tend to be hipsters, but certainly not all. And really, I tend to have more in common with hipsters than I do with most other subcultures, which I don't know the names of.

[Fovrodi]

Miss Amanda Jones wrote:

There are a lot of hipsters who listen to Animal Collective, mainly because they have the reputation of being innovative or arty. Let's face it, much of the current music scene is dominated by the Williamsburg hipster scene. It is just what is in right now.

AC is ultimately a band that appeals free-thinking individuals who most likely majored in the Humanities in college. Many of those people tend to be hipsters, but certainly not all. And really, I tend to have more in common with hipsters than I do with most other subcultures, which I don't know the names of.

[coollodges]

wrote:

AC is ultimately a band that appeals free-thinking individuals who most likely majored in the Humanities in college.

lol what

[robgnarr]

AC basically took over my life while I was in high school, but nobody I knew personally was as into them as me. So basically my routines consisted of smoking bowls by myself and blasting any of their albums through my headphones. I tried introducing my other stoner friends to them, they thought it was cool, but I don't think any of them actually got the same impact from it that I did. This made me realize that they aren't just a band that you can get high to and say "woah man this is cool", they're a band for people who can fully engage in the music and not judge it off of any expectations that they have whilst going in.
Now that I've branched out from my little town I've met other people who love them just as much as me and what do ya know but most of them are not "hipsters" and they engage in little to no drug use. I think AC's music is more so appealing to outsiders..those who would rather chill and listen to Feels than go to a sports game or a frat party. Dave, Noah, Josh, and Brian grew up as those kids who liked tripping in the woods and watching horror movies, so its only natural that their music is going to speak to those who grew up in similar circumstances. So while they might not have the largest cultural imprint on society as a whole, they succeeded in creating a dedicated following of fans who feel like they can relate on an extremely personal level that many bands will never reach.

[hatredcopter]

some people will remember that Animal Collective was the band that Panda Bear was in.

on the subject of Animal Collective fans: I think people who like Animal Collective really like music.

[CokePotCrack]

Damn. This discussion makes me sad and happy. I've never met anyone quite as obsessed with AC as I am in the RDub (real world), and it FEELS good to have a place to talk to fellows fans, though I wish we could meet in person some times, wouldn't that be interesting?

Idk, I can't say for sure about any of these questions, but I think that most AC fans have an appreciation for spirituality, peace, and maybe exploration/experimentation. And I like what some of you have said about AC listeners being really into just listening to music and attaching to that world fully.

I love ya'll, I really do.

Maybe in a few years when technology has gotten to the point where it's just super easy to sort of "facetime" people on any kind of device, we can have video chat rooms and we can all talk to each other and enjoy each other's company in that way. Then we would all understand what CA/AC is about a bit better.

I wonder... will it be just like we're dreaming?

[amber]

hatredcopter wrote:

on the subject of Animal Collective fans: I think people who like Animal Collective really like music.

I agree with a lot

[terrestrialjane]

CokePotCrack wrote:

but I think that most AC fans have an appreciation for spirituality, peace, and maybe exploration/experimentation.

Pretty much what attracted me to the band ... there was no other artist that even came close to the representation of what they were putting out , at least to the extent that AC has provided with ...

Everything just seemed so right and basically that is how I can word it the relationship that I felt with the band ... it just grew and grew over time to when Merrywheather came out it completley took over ...

It's my true love ... I will not give up on you

[amber]

This thread makes me really happy. It's just really great that there has been a community thriving off of this band and because of that I've met (hopefully will meet irl) some of the best/most interesting/most caring/funniest human beings alive. AC opened my eyes to the world of music and because of that I'm forever grateful.

[TetsuoUnderFire]

GoodCarrot wrote:

This thread makes me really happy. It's just really great that there has been a community thriving off of this band and because of that I've met (hopefully will meet irl) some of the best/most interesting/most caring/funniest human beings alive. AC opened my eyes to the world of music and because of that I'm forever grateful.

the first time i heard about animal collective was on another music forum in a noise thread titled "noise general - and no fuckbuttons and animal collective don't count"

[dapta]

This subject is so goodly personal at some point.
After reading all these comments on AC, it really makes me think that AC is quite something else.
I have recurring thoughts sometimes in the "daily life" that there must be something out there that is different than all of our "real world", which is what I feel whilst I'm listening to AC.
When I'm trying to explain why I listen to AC for someone else I ask if they've seen ¨Hitchhikers Guide To The Galaxy¨, and then make them imagine how Arthur Dent thinks while he realises how the real universe is like, I'd say I get the same feeling and say proudly that's why I listen to AC.

Thank you guys and girls for being so honest and make me feel not alone with all this AC emotions going on.

[weirdradio]

Great vibes in here!

I often wonder if the contemporary music I like now will be the "classic rock" of the future. It's a pretty strange thought, haha. I think Animal Collective is one of the most creative bands of my generation and has really pushed the bar for what music can express and how it expresses it. When I walked out of the theater after I saw ODDSAC, one of my thoughts was "Why don't other bands try to do stuff like that?" It's a really basic idea but only a group like Animal Collective could make it such an artistic statement. I feel like they are the Pink Floyd of my lifetime. The music of AC inspired me just as much as when I first discovered Pink Floyd. I am a musician and bands like these shape how I view the world.

Twenty years from now bands are still going to be catching up to Sung Tongs, or MPP. And in a way not unlike the VU, more people will be able to see the profound influence their experiments with sound had on the bands around them

[stash]

ac has stomped all over my culture. seriously i work at a lab and they played a show there and their bass rattled all the cultures off the counters and avey and deakin jumped all over them. and thats how babies are made

[roopn]

nice... did they play any spirit jams?

[weirdradio]

I think ODDSAC was a pretty innovative thing that I'm surprised more bands these days don't try to do. No one could pull it off like AC and Danny Perez tho, of course

[user54723]

it's important to consider the historical period of AC's tenure. A variety of broad forces have contributed to ID, success and impact. A few big dogs: the digital home recording technology of the period, the mainstreaming of MDMA, the internet's diffusion of 90s underground, millennials as a large generation (compared to E.G. gen X), whiteness post-90s culture wars, post-9/11/internet-advent reconceptualizations of kitsch/irony/sincerity, in Noah's solo work - the changing role of fatherhood, economics/DIY culture of baltimore, the death of new york, the separation of psychedelia as a drug or religious experience from the psychedelic aesthetic as Leary/Manson/etc history floats pastward...

[Texas Trill]

Animal Collective Fans: kind, intelligent, pretentious weirdos. With a healthy portion who like to experiment with psychoactive drugs

[Texas Trill]

weirdradio wrote:

Great vibes in here!

I often wonder if the contemporary music I like now will be the "classic rock" of the future. It's a pretty strange thought, haha. I think Animal Collective is one of the most creative bands of my generation and has really pushed the bar for what music can express and how it expresses it. When I walked out of the theater after I saw ODDSAC, one of my thoughts was "Why don't other bands try to do stuff like that?" It's a really basic idea but only a group like Animal Collective could make it such an artistic statement. I feel like they are the Pink Floyd of my lifetime. The music of AC inspired me just as much as when I first discovered Pink Floyd. I am a musician and bands like these shape how I view the world.

Twenty years from now bands are still going to be catching up to Sung Tongs, or MPP. And in a way not unlike the VU, more people will be able to see the profound influence their experiments with sound had on the bands around them

I really like your VU and Pink Floyd comparisons. They did a lot of positive, avant garde moves back in the day that had huge impacts on their respective scenes. They also informed so many other rock bands and subgenres that followed

I think AC's noisey pop sensibilities will be remembered and mimicked in twenty years time, but more within the broad 'electronic' genre than within Rock. I also think their approach to the 'collective' side of their line up will be influential to future pop music acts. Their history as long time friends and the come-and-go nature of its members is pretty unique in comparison to big acts like the VU and Floyd. Those bands, like the Beetles, were unable to overcome inner turmoils and fueds, which were the main causes of their declines/break ups. AC's longevity will be reflexive of their relationships as friends as well as their lack of being into hard drugs and constant partying

[denjanenna]

it's probably a size 10 1/2

[paralleoneirdwell]

SpritBear wrote:

I love all of you. I love that we all have this weird thing in common and y'alls my soup family. let's eat soup together.

it is not impossible to see the floridada video as somehow created based on this thread! it may have happened by chance! the video does depict in many creative ways a soup family!!

[paralleoneirdwell]

stash wrote:

and thats how babies are made