Notes.
1. Remember when every review was written like this? What a nightmare.
2. Speaking of reviews, every reflection on Merriwether's 10th tries to tie some bullshit political narrative like the album being a "celebration" for the beginning of the Obama years when the album was as apolitical as could be. Average write-ups about Merriwether's decade in our ears probably start with a substanceless, ridiculously stupid sentence like "It was 2009. We were eight years past 9/11, in a seemingly new and broken world. The most unlikely heroes - in this case, a collection of synthed out freaks and weirdos (maybe not synth'd out since music publications never reference anything related to music in any animal collective review) put together a much needed plea for sanity as the world went to hell in a handbasket."
3. Before i begin the ac SUCKfest and if im still making straw(berry)men i can basically write every single review for any animal collective on this site: "its not that good!" or "its so tribal/playful/colorful!!!"
4. OK RLLY ONE MORE THING: Stop calling them AnCo!!!! A*C* was an abbreviation created to mock ac by hipster runoff and other assorted no job blogging jack offs in TWO DOUBLE O NINE and the fact taht it caught on by meme loving dufuses is testament to the flawed public perception of animal collective's music and their mission statement!!! this has been an iko psa :3
this album is the greatest album ever and your an idiot if you dont like it. ok not off to the greatest start...this album is SOOO GOOD!!! in 2007 ever making depression anxiety strawberry jammeroonies The AnCo were touring in support of THE Jam of a lifetime of course playing completely new songs...but wait...this time they were playing oldies too! To throw in something for some oldheads since in 07 they been doing it for a while they played CLASSICS. Like when ppl not familiar with ac see ac they get bummed out they werent playing greatest hits...but these sets were greatest hits. In 2009 they were LITERALLY playing greatest hits sets! Picture it: u in a club, seeing the animal collection, and they open up with DOGGY, into HEY LIGHT, into WHO COULD WIN A fucking RABBIT? Give me a fucking break. And then, since people in the audience probably knew who ac were and expected them to play new shtuff, they break the ice on the then called "Fam Jams" with In the Flowerz...and...
They made this album basically sending eachother audio stems off of dropbox...and knowing the amount of random shit they put in their songs that could mean mr noah lennocks was getting very angry when his sample of the girl falling in willy wonka the chocolate factory wasnt sending to mr avey tare becuz of shit internet...WHAT AN IMAGE!!!
when they played these bitches, they were SPARSE. something like "house" had its piano arpeggio maximalized in studio to become "MY GIRLS", which is a song you mightve heard about. song for aerial stopped being sunflower by the beach boys and started being GUYS EYES, a pulsating, piano driven romp that isnt about touching yourself (but most ppl think it is...you SICKOS). the dancer stopped resonating with cicadas and crickets in the climax, and got fuckin loud, all starting with davey tare saying one of his post personal lines...well ever
"i guess sometimes i just miss my wife"
which, in studio, is turned into the almost transcendentalist idea of "if i could just leave my body for a night" and in that explosion of sound all our homie sings about is dancing wit someone he loves. ending with "to hold you in time" basically puts a bow on like..some of my favorite ac lyrics ever. ever!!!
so obviously from live to studio producer ben allen said fugg this silent shit yall gotta get loud and mixed the bass and the vocals high, which is something ac never really did. the rhythm in all ac albums are pretty nuts, but for inexplicable reason in studio ac likes to hide it away so to hear it in the forefront of merriwether is pretty amazing. but still, the songs stay basically the same as their "fam jam" forms aside from everything getting louder and Taste becoming a different song. look up taste bbc (which looks HORRID written down but trust me its the radio station u pervert ;3) to hear what tastey place sounds like...and theyre are many arguments over which is the superior version, which is all subjective which begs the question, do you appreciate the subtleties of taste, bud? :3
they said fuck the loud stupid electric guitars and moved to synthesizers with a focus on arpeggiated chords for this group of songs, with songs like my girls, daily routine, taste, and in the flowers (though this being acoustic guitar) really going do do DO DO do do on C chords and clean no arpeg songs like guys eyes, bluish, and lion in a coma creating dense electronic atmospheres with all the wacky sounds ac puts in their projects. atop the basic compositions are about 300 vocal overdubs and assorted sounds geologist put of water dripping and giraffe sounds, with a focus on rhythmic repetition which has been a factor in EVERY animal collective song composition.
the themes of these songs are ALL about family (hence fam jams), love, and generally being thankful for the environment and people around you. i would bargain the whole damn THESIS of this album is, in fact, "its sick to be grateful" because through all the love songs, when avey tare sings "i want you walk around with you" it becomes apparent every loving line said in this damn thing can almost be quantified as being lovingly appreciative of someone's presence. even in the darker songs like also frightened, where panda bair sings about his fear for his children and the anxieties that come from being a parent it all comes from a place of love and a feeling of respect towards his children and wife. in daily routine, panda bear sings about his daily routine of bringing his child to school and in taste, avey sings about how reactions to our surroundings shape us and understanding the subtleties and cruelties of human subjectivity. i promise guys eyes is not about touching urself.
IKO FUN FACT TIMEE: DID U KNO, in 2007 perfomances of Daily ROutine in a transition to another song (cant remember exactly) a sample from the same children's audio book that the infamous "MY SINGING VOICE IS GONE" sample at the end of Alvin Row is used? as the song shimmers down, we hear "mr. bear, can you help me find my singing voice?" crazy shittt huh!additionally, the tree forg sample used in live versions of "the dancer" is the same treefrog sample used in SPONGE LUKE, which is a feels era song that sadly was only played once...one of my favorite feels era tunes evar btw.
there is nothing more that animal collective love doing than putting fucking water noises in their music. and u kno wat? it works so well. and they never did stop - in 2018, they brought back BEES, with a trance beat, and looped a sample of homer simpson going "the king of nowhere." unfortunately, it works and its a fuckin bop!!!
the album maintains a pretty constant energy, with it dipping with daily routine's panda approved structure of poppy first half, blissed out second half then continuing a middle-tempo introspective arc of tracks 6-9, which then comes into maybe my favorite song on this album...no more runnin. i fucking love this song man. this helped me so much when i was faced with ALL problems in life, and i'm sure it will just continue to help. its the song i played on loop when i had my first ever crush on a boy, which was fucked up espesh when u never confronted those feelings before lol. at every anxiety i faced and every fugged up trauma filled time this song would fill me with hope! so thats my personal connection, its placed perfectly as the penultimate track, calming us down before that song. when they sing the title, and the chord progression repeats (with the frogs ribbiting :3) it centers me and its sick that 4 minute fucking bell noise fest has that amount of profound effect at all.
this album is one to boogie to of course. sportcha brother has filled more venues with weird white person dancing than a radiohead and edm concert combined. how? i have no fucking clue. the animal collective as many publications would call them were already becomign indie darlings but this album just fucking ultra propulsed themselves into the main picture, where the experimental electronic plunderphonics jam multi-member collective became a psychedelic art pop three piece ensemble aka brooklyn beach boys. animal collective's music is not outwardly accessible. this does not have a good or bad connotation. it is just fact that they play and record their music in a way which encourages and required more than one listen, their music grows as you listen to it to see exactly wtf is happening. they decide on an idea and flesh out an idea with their core musical stylings of being jamming on a song and giving a song a full intro, middle, and ending which can bring their songs to 10 to 15 minutes sometimes. this time, they did a pop record after the dark psych rock styling of the jam. when my girls and summertime clothes become widely played music in shitty coffee shops around the world and people looked up animal collective its a bless they had did u see the words and fireworks to mask their abrasive stuffs which is like every album. this lead to the narrative on animal collective to them being a super psychod out beach boys when in reality sun city girls was more of an influence to their style and playing of music. to have a band like animal collec in the limelight like that is just nutty to me! looking with all this context, it makes sense that centipede hz was as divisively received by new fans and the media when the narrative had already been written.
but whatevs it blew up which makes sense because this is fucking amazing music and it introduced so many people to the art. this album turned 10 and it still holds up. its influence is seen everywhere, even subconsciously written into beyonce songs. their music has helped me out and i am eternally grateful, and its just sick being grateful! ^_^
5. ur dum lol :3
