Collected Animals

Y'all know this is super important and also interesting. It is important we know how many LPs to count so we can refer to next year's lp consistently AND accurately . Choose wisely, the results will be canon

I'll just go ahead and say now the wrongest answer is crack box due to its anthology-style nature. Maybe there are die-hard TTG fans and at 26 approx. min, it certainly qualifies for a short LP But this is much more of an EP to me, it's literally a bit shorter than FBk. Best considered as a ep companion to chz, an ambient alternative to an otherwise EP-companion-less LP. Maybe a friend to the Keep cassette even.

Choose wisely

can't think of a reason not to count tangerine reef. oddsac is too good to exclude. not counting hollindagain would be like not counting live/dead as a dead album.

crack box doesn't count cuz I didn't buy it when it came out and I can't afford it now, so I don't want to feel like I'm missing out. TTG is too short.

Wastered. It's not an album but dammit it's good.


Wastered is my answer to every Animal Collective thread.

there's no none of the above option so I didn't vote, but I love the discourse this thread is encouraging. This is quintessential topic matter only discussed by fans who feel compelled to join a fan forum

Ooooooh Fuk. I added 'none of the above' and it reset votes sorry. I think hollinndagain was winning
Plz revote

I always assumed Hollindagain, ODDSAC, and Tangerine Reef were albums. I don't know why they wouldn't be.

lol thanks dio!

I always assumed Hollindagain, ODDSAC, and Tangerine Reef were albums. I don't know why they wouldn't be.

yeah it's a head scratcher. like I said in the other thread, on their own I'd call them albums but in the context of the main LPs they're more like...album-adjacent

If I have to be technical about it, ie how I sort their releases on my computer, oddsac and tangerine reef are classed as visual albums/"soundtracks", and hollindagain gets thrown in with their other live releases

ODDSAC in a lot of ways seems like the follow-up to mpp. But the fact it was released on DVD and screened and there were all those quotes of the band talking about how the term "visual album" was important to them because the music was "inseparable" to the visuals makes it a lil complicated.

I mean they so easily could have released/sold mp3s of the split tracks, but the splitting was something we did ourselves when we ripped the audio to mp3, tho the titled scenes obviously lend themselves to doing that and makes it super clear what the "songs" are. But yknow it's not on their new Bandcamp or Spotify for what that's worth.


I respect that, cuz if they treated it more like a normalish studio album I think it woulda been reviewed supppper well, for whatever the fuck that's worth. Still their best blend of songwriting and catchier noise-"pop" side and their strait up noise/drone/collage side, so it's like 2 extremes of their 2 sides married perfectly.

Tangerine was treated a lil more like a strait forward album.. and panda isn't like required for a ac release. Plus the visuals are more backgroundy than oddsac. Improvisation shouldn't really disqualify it either but it does affect the way I think if it, along with being live.

When I first got into them, hollinndagain definitely seemed like it was considered as lp3, but I feel like that faded a bit over time. Lablakely dress showing up on it weirdly makes me think of it as an extension of Danse even tho that's the only overlap. Idk it Prbly is LP3 (as opposed to like LP2.5)

Tang and Hollin. Hollin is live but they're mostly new songs. Oddsac is one of the best things they've done but it's adjacent to the main canon of albums. Tangerine qualifies because they've performed those songs live and you can straight up stream them.

They've had 12 albums

Ok ya TR does kinda retroactively re-validate hollinn. as being a full main album by like re-insisting that sometimes their main albums just happen to be live recordings of new/mostly new and/or improvisational songs/jams

But so like not oddsac tho. Cuz that's a strait up movie...(in a way TR isnt [?] ) Even tho oddsac is arguably their best collection of music last decade hm.. 12 or 13. Or 10?

This is also making me realize how they have more EPs than I realized. MotW, TTG, Keep cassette are all EPs without album buddies, like the core EPs that everyone thinks of first (MotW is like weirdly connected to Eucalyptus via Selection oaP). And uh... I guess Monkey Goes to Burn Town is too lol. So that means like have a whopping 26 EPs damn

fbk is more lp worthy than some of their actual lps.

Ok ya TR does kinda retroactively re-validate hollinn. as being a full main album by like re-insisting that sometimes their main albums just happen to be live recordings of new/mostly new and/or improvisational songs/jams

But so like not oddsac tho. Cuz that's a strait up movie...(in a way TR isnt [?] ) Even tho oddsac is arguably their best collection of music last decade hm.. 12 or 13. Or 10?

Yeah. Like if you didn't count Hollinndagain, should you also disregard Campfire Song?

TR feels far more like a collaboration whereby the music and visuals compliment one another. It even had a lead single.

fbk is more lp worthy than some of their actual lps.

Fbk is basically Down There length and feels especially album-y not just cuz of great sequencing, but the 5-track quanitity pushes it pretty close to a baby LP. It might be their most LP-ish EP for sure, yeah

For that matter, Bridge to Quiet is 35 minutes long. I have plenty of albums that length. I consider it an EP since the band does.

Regarding ODDSAC, the operative word in "visual album" is album.

only hollindagain imo, the rest are a pretty specific type of experience (whether being mixed media or compilation) and hollindagain songs were adjacent to danse songs at the time and just never got recorded, and hollindagain can have more audio clarity then danse sometimes (less dog whistles more synthetic cicada noises)

kinda interested with the few people like roopn who voted none. I started this thread half not-serious, and also thinking none of these were part of the main LPs, mostly cuz I want the next one to be LPX, but now that I've forced myself to think about it, I don't actually know but am currently voting Hollinn., ODD and Tangerine. I mean those 3 are probably the safest bet. maybe.

I do think Hollin is a live anthology that allllmost resembles Crackbox since it's from more than 1 show/radio set. I mean Campfire and Tangerine really were one strait take right? hmmmm not sure if that matters.

I bet at least.... 2 of these are full, main LPs... maybe 3...maybe 1. but that leaves next LP being anything from LPXI to LPXIV smdh

I voted tangerine reef because it was recorded in a studio and was released on vinyl separately from the visuals and all that. I feel like a lot of people dismissed it as unofficial just because it didn’t have Panda Bear

Hollinndagain would also count but it’s culled from multiple live performances so it’s kind of like crack box in that regard. But it’s also mostly new songs that aren’t on any other album except for Lablakely and flows really well despite being from different shows so it’s a tough call

pissed that I can't vote for all 5 as well as "none of the above"

will have to leave one out of my vote then, sorry Crack Box

the truly definitive AC listening experience is from start to finish, every available recording of them playing music, in chronological order (songs may be made up of separately recorded tracks so ideally stems should be separated if possible. samples do not count as AC music, they should be consumed with the rest of the catalogue of the musicians they were sampled from)

hollinn is mostly new material and not a retrospective like crack box, so it counts imo. ODDSAC songs are never supposed to be parted from the visuals which makes it a movie. TR songs can be separated from their visuals which makes it an album

How the hell is Painting With a "core" album and Tangerine Reef isn't?

Hollindagain and Tangerine Reef.

Hollin is technically culled from two live performances, but it's (mostly) new material that was written with the intent of bringing it into the studio. That didn't pan out for some reason, and the Hollin that we have today was meant to document the songs. Since the band clearly intended it to be their next album (at one point), and clearly liked the material enough to salvage it after those plans fell through, I think it deserves to be in "the canon".

Tangerine Dream has its visual component, but you can still (officially) experience it as just a music album: it is available for purchase and on streaming services. That's the key distinction between it and ODDSAC, which the band has always been adamant should be taken with the film, and where the music has never had an official release separate of it.

visual ALBUM
If the band themselves called it a movie or a music video that would be different, but they call it a visual ALBUM. It's a unique experience, quite different than taking it in simply auditorily, but it's still an album.

I will not budge on this.

ya I think Hollinn., ODD, and Tangerine all qualify based on y'alls voting and reasoning.

ODDSAC is the only one that has that visual album component, but yeah that doesn't necessarily disqualify it as an "main" album.

so next one is is LP13 then. so be it.

all 3 are albums but they're tangential from the "core" sequence of albums

but like the fact there is no technical, real term for what we're describing as the "main" or "core" LP releases Is the first red-flag that there also aren't strict parameters.

if there are what are they? any we try to apply may allow one of these 3 contested-but-probably-main LPs to count while other ones would then be discounted.

if we say Hollin. doesn't count cuz it's live OR if cuz it has a single older track on it, that neeeearly also disqualifies Campfire as well (tho Campfire is technically by a whole other band called Campfire band or something right?).

if we say ODDSAC doesn't count cuz it's a visual album, that um... really only messes with TR I guess.

but only thing about TR that isn't totally real is that it had a lower-key rollout (tho still was def a rollout, haircutter was like a single sorta) OR that it lacks panda. but Meeting of the Waters is a Real EP that lacks panda.

So the presence of key members isn't part of it...

some of these just have a less-than-main-album vibe but like that's definitely not real.

I say....... we count Hollin. and TR as real main-LPs and say that ODDSAC isn't based solely off of what's available as mp3 on their band camp.

that way ODDSAC will be a sacrifice to the idea of the non-main LP. it will stand in for the handful of releases that almost dont seem like main LPs while definitely basically being a main one.

plus, its kinda cool that some of their very best music oat is technically only on a DVD of an artfilm. im cool with that.

ok LP'21 is LP12. that's also amazingly palindromic. /numerology

but like the fact there is no technical, real term for what we're describing as the "main" or "core" LP releases Is the first red-flag that there also aren't strict parameters.

that is completely true
I also agree I have the least argument for tangerine reef, in that I don't have any real argument. It just vibes side project for me.

In fact I agree with your whole post, well said and well reasoned. I'm still cataloguing hollin as a live release but I think you've basically solved it

Anything that doesn't involve them simply going to record music they've written is a side project. Hollind - album, just a different way of recording, like Campfire. Oddsac and Tangerine - side projects because they involve more than simply recording songs they've written.

If MOTW had been the soundtrack to the Earthworks film, side project. As it is, it was a recording like Hollinn and Campfire, so it's an EP.

That's the fuckin rule.

^another defense of hollin at the expense of oddsac and TR.

The tr did kinda hinge a good bit in them collabing with coral morphological. It's like if they ever release a music box recording, that one is kiiiinda a collab with the venue via the like 5+ times a member walked off the stage to play with a tree-telephone during a jam/transition

Hollin. has been confirmed and wins for sure. I think the idea it wasn't core came about post chz, maybe in the run up to name chz LP10-12. It was def very securely LP3 in "the old days".

Let's count oddsac and TR as 1

I don't even know what "core" album is supposed to mean

Two of their albums are visual albums.

Other albums of theirs were intended purely as a listening experience (there are associated music videos but there's no expectation that you will put the music video on when you get to that song on the album)

The Transverse Temporal Gyrus music was made to be part of an art installation, so the EP from it feels more like a soundtrack, or a souvenir or memento from that installation.

Also something like Hollinndagain documents only part of a listener experience - there are people who were at the shows where they made those recordings. So Hollinndagain is also a bit like a souvenir from those shows. That's what differentiates it from Campfire Songs - there was never a way for anyone else to hear that particular performance of Campfire Songs.

That doesn't mean anything is more or less of a "core" album.

I guess my distinction of "main-ness" would be more like the difference between a self-contained project, and something compiled from something else they did

People, Water Curses, Crack Box, Hollinndagain, Fall Be Kind, Transverse Temporal Gyrus EP, Painters EP, and Bridge to Quiet all seem like they were pieced together, however artfully, from stuff that was left from something else (live shows, an art piece, or sessions for a studio album)

So obviously that's different from how Stanshant sees it. Fight me

^well then the most controversial thing yr saying is that MotW is an LP... which like I guess technically it is... but all the EPs are technically LP via being 12''. And I appreciate yr point about things being compilations but idk, Prospect, Water Curse and FBK esp almost seem to transcend being just a batch of loosies.

the world may never kno

I would accept Hollinndagain being dropped from my rule because I bent it due to liking it a lot, but that's all I'll sacrifice.

There's no chance Oddsac is an LP. It's not even available on vinyl. MotW is no chance an LP.

The Glasslands boot is probably more of an LP. (I don't believe this, just flipping the tables a bit)

Tier 1: STGSTV, Danse Manatee, Campfire Songs, Ark, Sung Tongs, Feels, SJ, MPP, CHz, Painting With
Tier 2: Hollindagain, ODDSAC, Tangerine Reef
Tier 3: All else

And I appreciate yr point about things being compilations but idk, Prospect, Water Curse and FBK esp almost seem to transcend being just a batch of loosies.

Yeah I think so too! Because it's AC and they always need to make every release into something special in itself. They were even a bit embarrassed about People because of how little time they spent on it.

Fovrodi's multiple tiers makes more sense than just one or the other. ODDSAC seems like something special but also feels weird to put it alongside Ark or whatever, for the reasons Stan gave.

I would say People is on a tier in between the other EPs and their singles like Grass and Peacebone.

It's almost more like a continuum than discrete categories. Because we know something like Spirit is a weirder thing than Sung Tongs, for example. In terms of its original intent.

My question is which album is the most canonical AC album? I might say Ark. All four members, no other guest musicians, first to be credited as Animal Collective, no extra visual component or even an EP alongside it, more than 5 tracks on it so less chance of being mixed up with their EPs.

I feel like it depends on how the band released it. I count T Reef as core but none of the other albums listed here. Idk it’s all pretty silly and semantic anyways

updated thoughts:

when I try to remember what the last animal collective album was, I still think of painting with, and not tangerine reef. so maybe that's a knock against t.reef.

hollindagain was before my time. I never understood it to be anything other than a "core" album... it feels sorta grandfathered in, but maybe that's just me. was its reputation always "live album"?

ttg is an ep.

crack box doesn't count until I buy it on discogs.

there was something like sliiiightly muted about TR's release. like from the way it was released and the "press" around it, it felt clear that it wasn't like the full on follow-up to PW. but I mean there also wasn't anything in the release that made it clear it wasn't like a full on LP. they just haven't released an official live recording of NEW material since... Hollin?

they need to put out a freakin Glasslands single and that gatdam Music Box LP/DVD boxset we all would pay $700 for already