New Animal Collective Album Leaks; Buzz Just Won’t Quit
December 29th, 2008 by Leilani Polk in Arts, Music, NewsAfter several false starts, virus-laden downloads and out-of-control fan anticipation taken to an email hoax level, the real Merriweather Post Pavilion has finally surfaced on the file-sharing blogs. The much-anticipated eighth studio album of wildly avant-garde rock ensemble Animal Collective leaked this past 
weekend, and fans that were foaming at the mouth to listen are now foaming at the mouth while listening, soaking it up like a bunch of hipster sponges, IMing their friends about its greatness, about how “catchy” it is compared to their previous efforts and how it’s already the greatest album of ‘09, and has anyone ever thought of using an optical illusion as the cover of their album? How groundbreaking! (”Holy shit, it moves!“)
The buzz surrounding this album has been as big as I’ve seen buzz get, most likely because it took so long to leak in advance of its January 20 release date on Domino.
As a fan of Animal Collective, a music writer who tries to keep track of what’s going on in the music world and the wife of a man who happens to be an inexhaustive explorer of file-sharing music blogs, I snagged a copy and listened to it last night. There was no doubt about who created the album; it was pure Animal Collective, surreal meets out-there. I’m not sure whether or not it’s really catchy, although it is probably more accessible than other stuff I’ve heard by them (less melodic yells and screeches, more straighforward singing). Once I’ve recieved a concrete copy of the album, I’ll report back here with my review. Stay tuned.
December 29th, 2008 at 6:13 pm
Haha, that’s exactly what I thought.
I can no longer tell how accessible their music is, in grade nine, when I first got Feels, and had never heard Animal Collective, it took me a while to get broken in to their sound, and the only song I could bare to listen to way Grass, it took about a week, but I began to the love all the songs on Feels, and now I find Grass to be a medicore song from them.
Anyways, I wonder just how easy this album is to hear if you’ve never heard their musical style before, I already burned ten copies and handed them out on saturday, so if I hear back from people (some of them have never heard AC before) I will know just what to think.
December 29th, 2008 at 11:10 pm
Same here, you need a week or so before you can judge their albums. It took me months to get into Strawberry Jam, and I love it now.
The first song is amazing though.
December 30th, 2008 at 9:27 am
I haven’t heard the new one, so I can’t venture an opinion on it, but I remain skeptical of Animal Collective in general. Can someone explain why the group is good? I love difficult music (Sonic Youth is a fav), but I just find most AC-affiliated releases to be precious, and not really challenging at all. I listened to Strawberry Jam pretty consistently and felt like I was totally missing whatever was supposed to be quality about it.
December 30th, 2008 at 9:27 am
I also gave Grizzly Bear and Panda Bear spins as well, and came up wondering what the big deal was.
December 30th, 2008 at 1:50 pm
It’s hard to articulate what is special about them. They’re just…good. They have a unique way of using vocals, and they make some amazing sounds. But more than anything, I just find them to be amazing song-writers.
I couldn’t get into them at first. My friends were listening to Sung Tongs and Joanna Newsom’s Milk-Eyed Mender all the time. Both albums sounded kinda silly to me, the way they used their voices seemed so insincere. I think it was after the novelty of the sound wore off that I was able to appreciate them.
December 30th, 2008 at 3:38 pm
I guess it matters when and how you listen to music, I’m pretty sure everyone hear has at least heard Wolf Parade, anyways, the point I’m making is I recommended Apologies to her and it must have been a couple months before it just clicked, and she got into it.
Sometimes I can’t get into Animal Collective, though this doesn’t happen very often, and hasn’t happened in a while. If you can’t seem to find what’s special about ac I’d recommend either finding just one of their songs you like and putting it on repeat till you want something new (from Animal Collective of course) or just listening to them once and a while to get used to them.
I’m actually only mildly fond of Radiohead, I like them, but they’ve never really made me think they’re especially talented, they’re one of those bands that everyone loves but I don’t ‘get’.
December 30th, 2008 at 4:23 pm
Yeah, sometimes there are just groups that should be right up your alley but just don’t knock you out for one reason or another. I’ve never dug Bruce Springsteen, for example, even though, on paper, he should be a perfect fit for me.
I think I don’t really dig on AC because, like I wrote, they sound very whimsical, and I can only take very small doses of whimsy in my art. It seems like there’s this new trend of childlike pixie fantasy music taking over indie rock, and I don’t really like the development. I like my music a bit angry, I guess.