Collected Animals

I'm sure this topic has been made on every CA now but it'd be cool to see how everyone here got into them and at what point. Also would be cool to explain what artists paved the way to liking AC and what point you were in your trajectory of getting into the music you're into now.

I got into them in 2011 (when i was 15) through a music forum, i think some guy was listing his favourite albums of the 2000's and AC was right at the top and i'd heard of them before so i thought i'd give them a go, also got into Battles from that list on the same day as well.

That was when i really started actively searching for music on the internet and i think the stuff i listened to as a little kid (Ween, Mr. Bungle, Talking Heads, XTC etc) helped me understand their music and get into them.

I got into them right around when Fall Be Kind came out, I was 16 I believe. I had heard of them before but never listened to them because of preconceived notions that I had about their music (stupid, I know).
Eventually I decided to give them a shot though, my first song was Grass. I wouldn't say that I liked it at first, but I was intrigued enough to check out their albums. I got Feels and Strawberry Jam, listened through Feels and wasn't too into it at first, then I checked out Strawberry Jam. The download I got was shitty and somehow mixed up the tracklisting to where For Reverend Green was the last song, and everything that came after was before Peacebone (so I thought Fireworks was the first song on the album)...pretty funny.
Anyways I was only mildly into it until For Reverend Green, once I heard that song something just clicked with me (I also realized the mistake in the tracklisting due to the segue at the end...hahaha). I just thought it was the most badass song ever at the time, and eventually I went back and relistened to the albums. Everything was vibing with me all the sudden, I loved it all! So yeah, it pretty much snowballed from there

MPP was typically the big exposure, I was 16 when it came out (wow woah where did the time go). I was more of a casual listener, only knew of Sung Tongs - MPP and Panda's stuff then. I really listened to Panda a lot, but the moment I really got sucked into the AnCo world was about 4 months ago, played Song for Ariel to put me to sleep and it was the sweetest, most magical thing hearing it play in the dark. I instantly fell in love. Ever since then I've been hooked. Now I can say I'm a big fan, but there are definitely a lot of live unreleased stuff that is yet to be found.

I swear I could remember seeing Who Could Win a Rabbit music video on TV whenever that was ever allowed to play on air. I was probably traumatized as a 12 year old. I just remember it being really weird and creepy.

And I believe those two special videos of them playing Winters Love went somewhat viral at one point, or at least sent to me somehow because I honestly don't know how I could've searched for them, unless I'm way more tired than I thought and I'm in some weird false nostalgia. But I fell in love with them then too.

Right out of high school in late 2009 I think or maybe 2010 started smoking a lot more weed and doing some other things as well. Met this girl who was crazy into this band Animal Collective. What? Sounds cool what's it all about? She plays chores for me and I did not like it. Sounded like a jumbled mess. Few days later I'm hanging out with a friend of mine and mention the band so we search them on youtube and the video for My Girls comes up. Still my favorite music video.

Became aware of the "indie scene" and Pitchfork bands and all that in 2007.

Missed Strawberry Jam by *this* much, but by the time My Girls came around, I was ready.

I was the 'fifth Animal', cast aside just before they released HCTI. I used to play vibes but my role was ultimately that of enforcer; my threats of physical violence really kept the boys focused in them days. I'd like to say this ever present sword of Damocles (sometimes literally) is what gave them the drive to work so prolifically up to 2007 and so I will just say that. After Strawberry Jam and Person Pitch, I thought they were ready to go it alone. How wrong I was. Their natural laziness and tourist opportunism (Deaks Lol!) has ruined the band as far as I'm concerned. The only reason Ben Allen produced CHz as well is because he was still on speed dial.

I still keep an eye on the boys but it's harder to keep them all in check now that they live all over the place. I try to catch them when they tour the UK and administer beatings of yore but my heart is no longer in it, really. I just miss my four umbrellas.

Which they borrowed in 2003.

2007. High School teacher gave me Hollinndagain.

lol Stan

My oldest brother was (and still is) a big influence on my music taste, and he told me about AC after he went to their show just out of interest when they came to Auckland for the first time in 2006. Before that, my favourite band was Green Day. His friend got Feels for Christmas that year and we listened and danced to it at my house.

I listened to the Tavastia, Helsinki 2006 bootleg a lot so I was pretty familiar with most of the Strawberry Jam songs by the time it came out. And by that time I'd already bought Here Comes the Indian, Sung Tongs, Feels, People, and the Grass and Peacebone singles, and AC had become my favourite band ever.

2004. Friend brought Sung Tongs on our camping trip. It was the perfect introduction.

My first exposure to AC was the video of Brother Sport from the Midi Festival. Lion showed me the video the very first day we started dating in 2008 and it completely took off from there. I was so hooked on Bearhug and all of the 2007/2008 boots, particularly Hove. That got me into Strawberry Jam and everything else.

Once upon a time, in a small town in Maryland, a boy was bored sitting on a couch on his laptop around noon on July 5, 2011. He decided to google "indie bands worth listening to.

So he saw the MPP cover and was like "wtf" and he promptly listened to My Girls which sounded pretty interesting so he opened iTunes, figuring he should purchase some of the band's output. He purchased Strawberry Jam and Water Curses and was hooked. Seriously.

/3rdperson

Yeah, so a few weeks later I had pretty much listened to all the main AC stuff except Hollinndagain and Campfire Songs, so I showed a not-so-close friend of mine Here Comes The Indian when we were discussing music. He was hooked too and we sort of became really good friends through AC. I lurked CA for about a month, joined on Christmas Eve 2011.

well the first time I heard was back in 2009 when Merriweather came out. My dad bought it after hearing alll the good reviews about it and played it a few times on long car rides.
I didn't like it (:(), I guess my brain wasn't ready yet

fastforward to late summer 2011, (you bet me by a couple of weeks clams) I was randomly searching bands on youtube when I stumbled across a video of them playing Wide Eyed at Mateel Community Center. I was like "hey this band sounds cool, they seem familiar"
that was when I remembered Merriweather. I found the CD in my Dad's collection and it was the beginning of a beautiful friendship

it was probably around 2005 and i was 14 maybe 15 and i heard grass and at that point the pixies were probably my favorite band and i was like "whoa this is screaming in a song that i like! like black francis!". i dont remember exactly how i heard this song, i think it was on an internet playlist somewhere. then i listened to animal collective almost exclusively for years after, checking out every single thing they had, and chatting on this site and all.

I was a big Radiohead fan back in 2008. While lurking the music section at Atease, I noticed how everyone was hyping AnCo and (yet to be released) MPP. So I downloaded Strawberry Jam and showed it to all my friends (hey, look how weird this is! ha!). Eventually I fell in love and couldn't stop watching the Brother Sport-video from Midi-festival.

Eventually I fell in love and couldn't stop watching the Brother Sport-video from Midi-festival.

yellow shirt bro hooked all of us!

i owe my obsessive love for ac to this guy who was dating my sister at the time (summer 2009). (i was going into seventh grade and my sister was going to be a senior in high school, so of course i adored everything she did)

so this guy gave my sister mpp and a few other tracks which she listened to sometimes. i needed filler songs for this mix cd* i made (mmm good times in middle school... ) and i picked lion in a coma as one of those songs and started listening to it soooo much.

after that, they were definitely my favorite band but looking back i really only listened to mpp and eventually sj and feels. i don't remember when i started going deeper into their discography but it's been four years (holy shit) and here i am deeply in love with their everything



*other tracks just for my own kicks:
-the rake's song - decemberists
-dance anthem of the 80's - regina spektor
-non dairy creamer - third eye blind
-paper planes - mia
-kick drum heart - avett brothers

these were the days!

edit: i just went to go find all my old mixes and now i'm sad cos they're all lost/not working ):

lesotho wrote:

Eventually I fell in love and couldn't stop watching the Brother Sport-video from Midi-festival.

yellow shirt bro hooked all of us!

Lion showed me the video the very first day we started dating in 2008 and it completely took off from there.

omg

-the rake's song - decemberists

this is the only song i know by them and it's good

Also, I sort of skimmed through AC's discography right after I found them, the only album I listened to regularly in the fall leading up to me joining CA was the bootleg from Pitchfork 2011, which I listened on the bus/car ride to and from 10th grade. I couldn't get enough of it, I guess I've sort of associated centipede hz with memories from 10th grade and that's why it's probably my second favorite AC album.

Mid-2008. I downloaded some mixtape from some blogspot which had the most amazing NSFW name ever:
It was a bunch of forgettable rock, pop, electronic, and experimental music of the independent persuasion but I was hooked on 'Loch Raven'.

Then MPP freebirds and it's like FUUUUUU-

Downloaded Leaf House from iTunes in 2005, back when I paid attention to what iTunes recommended for me (they were right about that one, though, I just didn't know it yet). Thought it was good, but a little too weird for me. Slept on them for five more years. After MPP topped every list in '09, gave it a try in early '10 after a short stay in a psychiatric facility. It was like the rebirth of my brain and soul happening in real time. Picked up FBK, then went backwards from there. Backwards is probably the best way with AC. Feels like you should only go backwards, for that matter.

Not too chuffed about them now, I think my AC phase is mostly over, but it was a good three years and there's no way I would be open to so many different kinds of music if they didn't change my perception of how music could sound if you were ballsy enough to try it.

-the rake's song - decemberists
-dance anthem of the 80's - regina spektor

Hell to the yes to the both of these. I don't know why you mentioned them but they're awesome.

A bro and I used to make mixes and pass them back and forth. He asked me if I had ever heard Animal Collective. I responded, "I don't really like modern British dance rock." I have NO idea why I connected them with that scene. Anyway, he put "Leaf House" and "WCWAR" on a mix and I thought they were ridiculous. But I couldn't get them out of my head. So I downloaded Sung Tongs from emusic and began my one-sided love affair.

strawberrymeat wrote:

-the rake's song - decemberists
-dance anthem of the 80's - regina spektor

Hell to the yes to the both of these. I don't know why you mentioned them but they're awesome.

lolz sorry i meant those were both from the mix cd where i first listened to ac cos i was trying to somewhat relate to this:

Also would be cool to explain what artists paved the way to liking AC and what point you were in your trajectory of getting into the music you're into now.

Prepare yourself for the lamest story ever told. Two years ago I was skimming Pitchfork's end of the year lists and MPP was #1 for 2009 so I tweeted it impulsively.

Nice !

Wow. Have ever thought about handing that story into a few publishers?!

to be honest I don't really think the world is ready for it

It should be a graphic novel. Because of the graphics. And how novel it is.

Also would be cool to explain what artists paved the way to liking AC and what point you were in your trajectory of getting into the music you're into now.

Oh lol, I missed this.

Like I said, Green Day was my favourite band, from about 2001 to 2006 when I discovered AC. Franz Ferdinand were my second favourite band at the time. I guess the one thing those bands had in common with Feels and Strawberry Jam had in common was 'rock music'? Haha. Maybe if I'd only heard Merriweather or Sung Tongs they wouldn't have clicked for me like they did.

AC were more of a gateway band for me, they got me more interested in music than I'd ever been.

So naturally I find it a bit weird sometimes when people act like you can't be ready for AC until you've heard indie/experimental bands x, y and z.

my brother showed me brother sport and grass in 2009/2010... absolutely loved both songs on first listen and was obsessed with them for a long time but still didnt think to check out their other stuff. i remember sampling feels on itunes and being so mad there wasnt any more screamy stuff like grass. fast forward to january of 2012, one day i say fck it, buy Feels, like most of it and absolutely hate daffy duck. so i decide to buy every album besides danse, get into each album steadily and then have every one of their albums hit me all within like on week. that was incredibly intense and life-changing so i decide to get danse and that eventually grows on me too. have been listening every day since then

Two years ago I was skimming Pitchfork's end of the year lists and MPP was #1 for 2009 so I tweeted it impulsively.

me2

AC were more of a gateway band for me, they got me more interested in music than I'd ever been.

me2

but yeah, i cant really pin down a certain moment when all their stuff clicked for me. initially i kind of hated everything that wasnt mpp/fbk but i stuck with it and now they're one of my favorite bands!

My freshman and sophomore years of high school I started becoming really into indie music--the likes of Beach House, Neon Indian, Deerhunter, Washed Out, Tame Impala, Ariel Pink, you get my drift. Pandora was always my go-to source for finding new bands and every single station I would go on would give me this confusing and weird as fuck all band called Animal Collective--I would read about them and how legendary and innovative and great they were, and listen to a few seconds of the songs on my Pandora stations and think (with the exception of My Girls, which I liked) "What is this crap?" Try as I might, I couldn't like them at all, even though they were quite literally everywhere. Liking the music I did, I simply could not escape them.

So towards the end of tenth grade (around a year and a half ago) I downloaded Merriweather and quite literally forced myself to like it. I listened to it over and over and after a week or two it finally clicked. I later went on to Strawberry Jam, Centipede, etc. and now AC is my favorite band. I got into AC in probably the worst way and with the worst mindset possible, but the end result was beautiful, so it doesn't matter...right...?

Nope!

Maybe 3 years back, my friend sent me "My Girls"... It was the only song of AnCo's he had, and I fell in love with it. Bought the album and quickly bought a few other more accessible ones. Since then I've opened up to more AnCo, recently finally being able to vibe with HCTI. Still can't tolerate Spirit They've Gone/Danse Manatee. But yeah, AnCo opened me up to a world of music I'd never known before, and they've gotten me more involved in finding and listening to music than any other band.

UGH.

Post-2007 era AC fans are the worst.

I'm sorry that I haven't lived as long as you.

in 2003 my go to review site was themilkfactory.co.uk, and they were all like "omg dude here comes the indian, animal collection bro" and I was like "ok milkman but whatever I'm rly lazy" and so nothing happened but they were bubbling in the back of my head and then in early 2004 everyone was all like "who could win a rabbit?" and my roommate was like "hey roommate who could win a rabbit?" and this was like 2004, america was just beginning to catch lost fever and it was actually illegal to resist a mystery so I was like "fuck fine I'll listen" but I still don't know who could've won a rabbit. but I did get sung tongs and then here comes the indian pretty much immediately after.

In 2009 I read the Pitchfork review of MPP and listened to My Girls on MySpace and liked it and bought the CD and loved it. Then I downloaded every Animal Collective album and EP by googling "the name of the album in quotes" and "mediafire." (later on I bought all their albums legitimately.)

^