[Collected Animals]

People who have never loved Animal Collective DO NOT GET A VOTE

[Fovrodi]

Hate is a strong word, Sung Tongs was the latest release when I first heard of them, but warmed up not long after Feels came out

[Hellomark]

Heard Peacebone first, I was kind of facsinated by it but not quite head over heels yet. About a month later I heard Fireworks and yeah I pretty much immediately knew then that this was my new favorite band. Brain shattering experience hearing that for the first time, along with the rest of SJ.

[coral lord]

Voted hated first, but really I just hated anything I heard that wasn't MPP. Took me a lot of listens to understand the rest.

[wilandhugs]

I heard them when I was 13 around when CHz came out cuz of Panda's feat on Doin it Right. I remember not enjoying Today's Supernatural but it wasn't too visceral, more confused, because most of the stuff I listened to was like Gorillaz, Daft Punk, Strokes, Radiohead all the alt bands like that, which I all still do enjoy to this day.
Then a couple years later I was turning 15 and got around to getting into more "indie" stuff like Wilco and the Lips and I saw MPP and was like, "Huh that art looks mentally arousing and I had a confused response to CHz", so I checked it out while playing Civ V. I didn't have too much of a response at first, it kind of just fell to the background, but I knew that something about it was alluring, so I threw it on again the next time I played
I remember I was Byzantium on like, difficulty 3, so I should've one pretty easily. But I was so utterly floored by what I was now hearing that it was hard to play successfully, and I lost in like the industrial era by the time Bro Sport ended. It didn't even matter. It basically changed the way I looked at things, slowly removing the walls of judgement I'd learnt and replacing them with a mindful and flexible perspective. All thanks to one little Civilization session.
It's been 7 years since then and I can definitely say that was the moment where a lot of those things came into clarity, and maybe it was because I felt like I had actually found a way to enjoy something that I was challenged by. It was a strange sensation, and one I still find myself often happily stumped by. So, kudos to them. Also I can say that with all of the other artists I was able to become turned into from then, now that I finally started to actually record and produce my own stuff, and it doesn't sound exactly like theirs, but I'd be damned to say if I wouldn't have discovered such a passion for a hobby if not for all that. So once again, very important civilization game!
The rest of the discog challenged me for a while, especially Sung Tongs (which took probably 6 or 7 listens to enjoy), but I was able to enjoy Feels, Jam, and Spirit pretty quickly. I spent a lot of the time getting into a lot of different indie music at that time though, most of it not resonating anywhere near as much as AC

[yoko bono]

The first thing I listened to was HCTI when I had a migraine. The piercing feedback was killing me. Didn't go back to it. Then a few months later I heard Bat You'll Fly and enjoyed it. Then I got Sung Tongs and was blown away.

[hypo's]

@ 1st sight homie

[dansemanatee]

pretty sure man of oil was the first song i heard by them. definitely floored me. a friend of mine showed me winters love and learning how to dive and i thought they were cool. a few months later i got really high and listened to mpp for the first time and i think that’s when it fully clicked with me.

[scrambledgreggs]

Immediately gushed over Strawberry Jam as soon as I heard it, which was my first listen to AC. I recognized the Feels album art from being recommended it on Amazon based on my purchase history but never listened until SJ

However there are a few albums (especially Danse) that I hated on first listen and took many listens over many years to fully appreciate

[onebraineno]

Saw the video for Peacebone on an MTV video show called Subterranean. Was turned off of it by the video itself because it was so grotesque and I was a dumb teenager. Someone put Unsolved Mysteries on a CD for me a few months later and I thought the singer was a little too out there for me. Then at a record store I frequented someone put on Person Pitch from the beginning and the rest is history. Once it clicked it clicked harder than anything.

[popparen]

Yes

[nothingmaster]

It's You was instant love. The stretched out acoustic stuff really got me. Campfire Songs and Always You. Got into Sung Tongs and Feels some time after. Didn't get into SJ and MPP until much later

[dio]

I was grossed out by the intro of Strawberry Jam/Peacebone AND the cover art. But I guess intrigued. I think I honestly liked their name/collective vibe, like I remember just looking at their Wiki page trying to get a handle on them and finding this forum soon after.

It sucks but I imagine I probably was lead to them via P4k? I guess? Or else fugging Hipster Runoff. I had decided I wanted to find NEW music I loved after my first foray into being a discerning listener at age 15ish lead me to Beatles/Dylan/ VU. I was like yeah that's all good but what's NEW. And what's HAPPY, cuz Radiohead was cool to me but so fucking sad most of the time.

So an out-there pop band with happier moods was super appealing.

And I heard SJ/PP around same time MPP was dropping. The opening arpeggios of My Girls fr hurt my ears. That's how like, much of a baby I was lol.

Anyway. There was some disgust at first, before I found the emotion that resonated more than like any music had up to that point and I knew they were fr my Favorite Band 4evr (fireworks, #1, cuckoo, water curses, bees, loch raven, etc.)

[onn]

I first heard of AC during the MPP hype. I tried listening to it but I was not too musically open minded back then as an early teen and I couldn't conceive of listening to music that wasn't based on electric guitar. I hated it for being too dance-y.

Gave it a random try a few years later and the drop on In The Flowers grabbed me. One of the only times I really felt a "click" that people talk about, with regards to any music/art.

[speen]

i heard mpp shortly after it came out when i was in middle school and found it weird, cool, and confusing. then in high school i heard feels and it blew my mind. I think i was just too young to get what was going on at first

[TetsuoUnderFire]

First song I heard was Chores. I liked it until the IF I (X36) part. Found My Girls about a week later and fell deeply in love with them. The first band I dedicated a lot of time to, spending multiple hours a day hunting down anything they had released.

[rohcti]

I met my half brother for the first time in high school, he was biologically related to me through my dad who wasn't there growing up. When we met in person, we got along well but our relationship eventually devolved into only talking through Facebook. He liked AC and I noticed we also shared a love for other bands. So one day I decided to give MPP a try. I listened to Summertime Clothes first because the title sounded interesting. I was amazed by what I heard, it sounded so unique, so I checked out the rest of the album. I knew after also hearing In The Flowers that MPP was something special. I listened to the album constantly while on painkillers for a sports injury (which uh... added to the effect of the music ngl). Exploring their back catalogue that winter was a treat. I remember specifically Water Curses and the music video splitting my mind open. My half bro isn't a part of my life anymore but I still have the odd memory of him indirectly introducing me to my favorite band.

I will say though, it took me a while to like their live stuff. I remember telling a friend years after I had gotten into AC that their live shows suck

[Jam]

Remember my older sister had most of their Discog on her laptop, and I sampled some stuff from Sung Tongs and MPP and it just didn’t click with me. Maybe 2 years later I started to get into them just before or around the time I really fell in love with the PBVSGR stuff. I think the first album I listened to and loved was Sung Tongs (though I pretty much only liked half the songs on it) and Chores/Fireworks being my entry into the rest of the catalog slowly. Feel like I really leapfrogged back and forth as I came to terms with their music, songs from albums and certain albums generally slowly clicking with me. By PW tour I was a big fan but it wasn’t until college that I dove into all of their stuff. I actively disliked MPP until maybe 3-4 years ago. Feel like my profession went ST -> SJ -> Feels -> STGSTV -> PW -> Real-Fan-Gimme-It-All. Got into Greaper and Person Pitch from the jump of my fandom and loved Sleep Cycle and Little Fang as soon as they released but never got into Avey’s solo stuff until quite recently.

[KidEatsKeyboard]

I was vaguely aware of AC for a long time because my mom had MPP on CD. I remember being intimidated by it but really loving Summertime Clothes. Eventually I got recommended FloriDada on Spotify and I got obsessed with that song. I was intrigued.. I remember skimming through their discography and getting a strange, but good, feeling from it. I think soon after that I gave MPP a real chance and was hooked. I got into the rest of the discography quite quickly, since marathon-ing discographies has always been one of my favorite things to do

[Fovrodi]

Sonic Boom has been curiously absent from this thread

[Maury]

I first stumbled upon them while I was working at BN, just browsing the listening stations, I think I was under "similar to Devendra Banhart" and I came across Sung Tongs, put on the sample of Leaf House and was like I've never heard anything like this. Went home and downloaded it. Feels freebirded the next day. Instant obsession.

[dansemanatee]

heard man of oil on my spotify radio and it floored me. someone recommended some songs, I remember learning how to drive, winters love, and golden chords and maybe some others I forgot. really dug them but I didn't get into them until later that year when I got stupid high and listened to mpp for the first time and I was obsessed. taste and bluish and summertime clothes were the ones that resonated with me the most at first, still some of my all time favorites by them

[captainlunatic]

Yeah man, as soon as I heard Sung Tongs I knew they were gonna be a band I loved

[walkedlikeadog2]

back in 2004 my friend Jose burnt me a cd with who could win a rabbit on it. i wouldn't say i loved it right away but i was definitely intrigued so i found the sung tongs cd and listened to it. i hadn't really explored music much at that point, my relationship with music was pretty incidental. i listened to the world music cafe a lot, whatever my friends burnt me on cd, and had some connection to specific songs and mainstream music, but didn't have a lot of context for what AC was doing. when i first listened through sung tongs, i remember i thought some moments sounded a bit like putamayo cd from some indeterminate country lol. it somehow became a ritual for me to listen to it with the lights off in my room before bed. at first i don't know if i liked it so much as i was just really confused by it, and wanted to understand. but as i listened to it more and more in my dark room, it really blossomed for me into a lifelong love, not just of AC but of music in general. that cd taught me how to listen.

[roopn]

walkedlikeadog2 wrote:

it somehow became a ritual for me to listen to it with the lights off in my room before bed. at first i don't know if i liked it so much as i was just really confused by it, and wanted to understand. but as i listened to it more and more in my dark room, it really blossomed for me into a lifelong love, not just of AC but of music in general. that cd taught me how to listen.

really sweet post. I think AC taught me how to listen too.

[Stan]

One of the downsides of listening to AC and learning to listen beyond the broad strokes of the mix is that when I listen to a lot of other music, it seems very sparse and WYSIWYG. There are so many secrets to uncover with their many overdubs and assorted subtleties that have kept me coming back to find new things years later. I do get that with other music, of course, but I've not found much comparable to them in that respect.