Collected Animals

after having only listened to feels (and only liking the faster songs ) i stumbled upon this video in 2007:



i thought material things was the most beautiful thing in this world.

I had Sung Tongs and enjoyed it, but was not crazy about AC. Then one evening I had heard that Feels had freebirded so I got stoned in my bedroom and by the time Grass came on, I thought that it was the best music i had ever heard. Drove around to that album all autumn, and everytime I was chillin with friends I would put it on. Quickly solidified AC as one of my favorite bands and everything after has only strengthened that argument.

when i was like 15 (21 now) my online pal showed me danse manatee and i fell in luv immediately. essplode blew my fucking mind

yea essplode. it sounded like someone shat static all over a little dude singing a song.

I first listened to Strawberry Jam then Spirit then MPP then Feels then Sung Tongs... I really liked Grass and it quickly became one of my top played songs, though I don't think I realized "Holy shit, I love this band" until the Danse-Hollin-Indian combo clicked on me. Songs like Essplode and Runnin/Throwin the Round Ball, I See You Pan, Pride and Fight, Lablakely Dress (Hollin ver.), Native Belle, Hey Light, Infant Dressing Table. I think I listened to all 3 on a single afternoon.
Immediately after, all their other albums clicked too even more, as if the color saturation had been increased on the sounds.
That was also the moment I realized, "Holy shit, I love music" and after reading all about them, how their early albums were all DIY "Holy shit, I could write my own music!" (even though I was already writing music, but I feel as if I was just messing around aimlessly until that moment)

avey melodies on grass hit me instantly. it was also the first time i heard anco. in a friends car. shes gay though.

when i fell in love was probably like the 4th time i listened to safer. i had been an avid AC fan at that point, but that shit did it for me. i never understood that song, like the part after the breakdown with the sample that avey sings over. i could never grasp my head around the melody of that part. but one night i was highly high and it finally made sense and i was like holy shit, i can finally bob my head to this. aveys screaming transition always makes me cum.

The first time I saw brothersport's music video, I had only listened to my girls, they were this band I didn't know but heard of. I watched the video probably 10 times, I felt like I had to listen to their discography, no matter how long that would take me, I needed to. (I had been lazy about listening to them because in early 2010 they already had a HUGE discography). So, I started from MPP, went backwards, feel in love, deeply with Strawberry Jam. Late 2010 I went to college for the first time listened to AC all day long, everywhere, only in the end of 2011 I felt like I knew them enough to call them my favorite band, more like one of my favorite things in the universe.
I choose early 2010 and early 2011 as my biggest moments of "holy shit".
Last Summer was my first experience waiting for a studio album, it was intense, I will always remember that.
Love.

i think i heard sung tongs when it first came out and did not really get in to it.
feel like I remember thinking it was some kind of weird "jungle music"
then I heard campfire songs a few months later, probably after tripping some night and it 'clicked'
enjoyed their whole catalog after that

HAHA that's funny. One of the first songs I showed my friend was a live version of Turn Into Something, stoned of course, and we got towards the ending where it's ambient and mellow, and that's exactly how he described it - "jungle music". Ever since, that's what he calls it, the jungle song.

And Merriweather came out, I would go over my friends house during the summer every morning like 9 o'clock, get some donuts from the near by, order some weed and have it delivered (oh the good ol' days) and roll up a fatty blunt, and smoke to the album. We cherised every song and he had some banging ass speakers at the time too, while playing Fallout 3. OH MY GOD I loved those days, being a kid stoner and not having to worry about anything and Animal Collective every day.

That sounds splendid, Pumpkin!

I would listen to all the AC albums I'd never heard in my freshmen orientation class.
We weren't supposed to use music streaming sites, but I stilled listened to AC all the time.
And I would look at all the cool AC records on Discogs.
That class was the time when I became very familiar with AC's discography.

my worst decision ever was listening to Panic with apple earbuds during a math test. i look up and the whole class is like wtf, i didnt even realize panic was a song with a high pitch

Once I accidentally played The Seer by Swans at full volume on my iPod
...and my headphones weren't plugged in yet
...in the middle of a test.

my worst decision ever was listening to Panic with apple earbuds during a math test. i look up and the whole class is like wtf, i didnt even realize panic was a song with a high pitch

haha yolo brotha !

Once I accidentally played The Seer by Swans at full volume on my iPod
...and my headphones weren't plugged in yet
...in the middle of a test.

Well that must've been embarassing.

This actually happened to the kid next to me in my exam today, well it wasn't Swans, seemed like a really lame song. Everyone laughed and his face went all red, that would suck.

how are kids allowed to listen to music during exams nowadays. fuck?

^ Yeah, I guess it's common now?? What the shit.

But I'm genuinely curious how it works... do teachers actually check to make sure students aren't actually playing an mp3 of the answers on the test, or do they just not give a shit? Seems like it would be so easy to take advantage of this.

What I did during tests and such was to use in-ear earphones, and put one earbud up through one of my sleeves, so then it'd come out on my hand. Then I'd rest my head on my hand and put the earphone in.

Sort of like this, but more subtle.

Haha, the picture is so appropriate for me because my dad told me he used to do exactly that with a small AM radio in the 60s so he could listen to baseball games.

i just remembered that the first time i listened to graze, when the pan flute kicks in was my real moment

I was in history class for that moment.

I was in history class for that moment.

You should have been paying attention

My "holy shit" moment happened when I was on vacation at a lake house. I was outside listening through Strawberry Jam for the first time and For Reverend Green just took me away.

You should have been paying attention

Hey I was done with my work!

I always listened to AC im my world history class too. Easy A. Fuckin 91% on the exam though. ( thats a B at my school)

That's an A+ over here

Fuckin 91% on the exam though. ( thats a B at my school)

Jesus, that's a pretty harsh system. B is like 70-84% with A's being 84% and upwards over in Australia. You have to actually get less than half correct to get less than a C and fail the exam here.

yeah my B is 85% - 92.5%. so A is obvi 92.6% and up. pretty wack

whoa. i had no idea grading scales vary... for me it's just 90%+ = A, 80%+ = B, etc

sorry getting super off topic

I remember my friend Garth showed me them first. I think he showed me a few songs one day over at his house, and I must have told him I liked it, cause he burnt me a few CDs. This was probably like five or six years ago, in the summer, I believe. I was still living with my rents at the time, and I was getting more into psychedelia. So anyway, I took the CDs home and one day I just put them in my xbox 360, made the visualizer go full screen, and literally just non-stop listened to like four albums alone in my room all fucking day. After that, i was hooked. AC has taught me so much, I love them still, probably more than any band, centipede was not my fave unfortunately. I remember that summer was one of the best times of my life, and all their albums were always playing in my mind and out of any system I could get my hands on.

When I realized the music was actually performed by human beings.

I started with MPP and i thought Daily Routine, No More Runnin, and Brother Sport were really good, but it wasn't until For Reverend Green that I realized how much I loved their music. On my second or third full listen to Feels when it clicked is when they became my favorite artist, and Sung Tongs has reaffirmed it still. I feel like the deeper I go into their music the more I enjoy things I didn't enjoy or even notice before, like #1 on SJ for example. The chant and entire image of that song is so incredibly hypnotizing and beautiful to me, and reminds me of a snowstorm colored in all sorts of effects. It might sound like I'm looking too much into it but really that's just what shoots into my mind when it comes on.

I think one of the greatest things is that you've still got a whole other side of them to explore and when that clicks too, it'll put their more recent somewhat accessible stuff in a different context. It's also amazing to discover that the noisier stuff is actually similar in some respects, just presented differently. I think that's how they manage to reintroduce older stuff with the sounds of different eras. That said, I think that Spirit is particularly special and is probably the most idiosyncratic release; I can't really see them playing any of those songs with a different setup. Caveat: They did redo Chocolate Girl!

in 2004 i started taping music off the college radio station in houston

Ha, that's awesome! I'm assuming you're talking about KTRU. I did then, and still do DJ the 60s show there. I remember first hearing rumblings at the station about sung tongs, but had them mixed up in my mind with super furry animals, and didn't pay any attention. For whatever reason, when feels came out, I gave that a listen and was instantly and forever transfixed. When I told my buddy and DJ partner about it he sat me down and finally made me listen to sung tongs. I was like, "ahhhhhh" then disappointed that I'd missed riding the AC train for nearly two years out of laziness!

for me i was kinda checkin out SJ and thinking it seemed cool, but then I remembder seeing the malta video of Cuckoo and that made it clear that they were my New Favorite Band forever

I was like, "ahhhhhh" then disappointed that I'd missed riding the AC train for nearly two years out of laziness!

This is exactly how I felt when I got into AC, except way worse, cause I only got into AC about a year ago! One of my friends in high school who showed me a bunch of other bands like Vampire Weekend and Fleet Foxes tried to get me into AC around mid-2009. I think he played me My Girls and BroSport, but for some reason I just couldn't get into them. Fast forward to late 2013, I decide to give the band a second chance. Listened to all of Merriweather for the first time and I realized, "Whoa, every song on this album is really good." Better late than never, I guess.

I think my true "holy shit" moment came a bit later though. It's hard to pinpoint but I'm pretty sure it was "Do the elderlyyyyy, couples, stii-iiill..."

yeah my B is 85% - 92.5%. so A is obvi 92.6% and up. pretty wack

weird. this is what i had in school as well. never met someone from another district/state/whatever who had the same scale. i always thought it was such a bullshit scale. although it was very nice going to college and having 90-100 = A, 80-90 = B and so forth.

for me... i actually heard grass form feels when it came out (must have been my freshman or sophomore year in high school) and didn't really get into it. i remember thinking it was 'some weird tribal artsy stuff'. i didn't really dislike it, but i knew i didn't 'get it'. fast forward to mpp hype and i fell in love with what i heard. i also just started smoking the ganj at this time, so it was PERFECT. it was exactly everything i was looking to hear in music. guys eyes and daily routine were actually the first songs i would play over and over and over. then i got into SJ through another friend who listened to them and for some reason (i don't know why i didn't investigate more) i thought SJ was their debut and MPP was their sophomore album for like 6 months haha. finally i discovered the rest of their discog and had a 'holy shit thats the same band' when i listened to feels and recognized grass from a few years back but fell in love this time. I'm not sure how i remembered hearing it, it must have been because i thought it was so out there when i first heard it. the next year consisted of listening to anything AC related for like 90% of the time i listened to music. good times.

I used to fucking hate animal collective without ever listening to them because I was a piece of shit. Janr of 2013 I was downloading albums for new pc and for some reason I downloaded CHz. I got around to listening to it like, August of that year, and from the "NEW CENTIPEDE FM 98765432 1 1 1" I was hooked

I watched the my girls video in 2009. Loved them ever since.

I'm not sure when I decided I loved the band but the only reason I got into it was Random Access Memories. That album mostly fell flat for me but I was very curious about anco after seeing panda bear's video. MPP and CHZ were what I tried first and then feels I think then sung tongs then slowly the rest.
Listening to anco has totally changed my perspective on music and what it's about and how music is an experience and all that fun stuff.