Merriweather Post Pavillion was this site’s #1 album of 2009. It was also the least disputed #1 in the five years I’ve been writing the Top 50. It seemed to be a foregone conclusion that MPP would be at the top, with many music publications – from small-time blogs to Pitchfork – declaring it as 2009’s best. With its release, even those who never found a liking for Animal Collective’s music began to recognize their importance in ’00s music; they are one of the few groups that will be remembered years from now as an important part of the past decade’s musical legacy. Whether or not that decade even warrants a worthwhile legacy is up to subjective interpretation, but one would be hard-pressed to deny the creativity and idiosyncrasy prevalent in Animal Collective’s whirlwind of experimental pop. Even as MPP was the farthest thing from “experimental” the group has done, it seemed to find the perfect meshing point between alluring experimentation and hook-friendly accessibility.
Animal Collective’s show this upcoming Saturday is at Merriweather Post Pavillion, the venue their most popular album was named after. Even beyond the interesting name-based synchronization, it also marks what has become somewhat of a rare occasion. With many members pursuing very worthwhile solo projects (both Avey Tare and Panda Bear released good albums in the past year), the band was pushed aside for a bit. But they’re back in full swing now, prepping their new album and touring. They have mostly traversed the festival circuits as of late, but this Saturday’s show is one in a recent string of venue shows.
The band no longer plays in small venues like the past, but you can expect their recent performances to match the grandiosity of venues like Merriweather Post Pavillion.
Obscure Sound is lucky enough to offer up a pair of tickets to one lucky reader. Since this is targeted mainly to the Maryland/DC area, I suggest you enter since the pool will not be dauntingly large. You’ll have a fairly good chance of winning a ticket for you and one of your friends. The tickets are lawn seats.
The winner will be notified shortly after submissions close, on Friday at 1AM ET. Their tickets will be waiting for them at will call. So with that in mind, I need your name upon submission to be your FIRST AND LAST NAME.
Entering is easy. Just scroll down to the comments field below and type the answer to this question: “What is your favorite Animal Collective release and why?”
Remember to use your real e-mail and full name, so I can contact you and register the tickets in your name. Remember that NO ONE will ever see your e-mail apart from me, so your privacy is guaranteed.
Best of luck! It’s bound to be an amazing show.
SUBMISSIONS ARE CLOSED AND A WINNER HAS BEEN CHOSEN. THANKS FOR PARTICIPATING! LOOK FOR MORE CONTESTS SHORTLY.
Animal Collective – Brothersport
Official Site / Venue / BUY
My favorite Animal Collective release is without a doubt Merriweather Post. I still remember the first time I heard Summertime Clothes… my friends and I were rolling pretty hard down at the the National Mall, with a boombox in hand, the sun was starting to come down, and that song came on and hit us all hard. It was absolutely perfect, the timing, the location, the friends in company, everything. I hope how awesome that moment was is coming across, but if not look for the music video of Home by Edward Sharpe to get and idea of what it was like hah (just replace the desert motif with the Nat-Mall). Since then I have been a huge fan, and my roommate an even bigger fan some how.
I really enjoy summertimes clothes because the instrumentals are so in tune with the vocals. Everything is just right and the sound of the song is completely unique and for me unprecedented.
Campfire Songs is hands down my favorite, I wasn’t really in to any Animal Collective at first but then…it was up in Maine last summer on a lake. I was just sort of sitting down by the water and I decided to flick it on as this thunderstorm was rolling through. Since then I’ve just been making my way through their discography, but I always come back to CS when I’m in nature.
Fall Be Kind because it challenges the boundaries of music.
Campfire Songs for sure. I close my eyes and it guides me gently across the smooth waters of space and time;) mo rah rah rain always makes me remember when I was a kid and I’d whenever it was raining at nite I would go to sleep with my head next to the window because the patter of the rain was so soothing (needless to say I got a lot of colds back then). De soto de sun makes me feel like I’m punting through the waterways of Venice sipping on Tuscan wine. But ya Campfire songs cause it’s so liminal.
If I only lived there I would be trying to win these tickets! (or more likely, buying my own). 😉 I’m not trying to enter this contest, just being wishful!
My favorite release of theirs is Feels. I can easily associate listening to the album to particular times, places, and spaces of the past years, specifically in the summertime. Also, if I ever am having trouble sleeping, Feels acts as a non-chemical substance that can replace Melatonin or Unisom. It’s great.
Strawberry Jam is my favorite release. Fireworks was the first song that I had ever heard from Animal Collective, minus a thirty second snippet from My Girls. Fireworks was the perfect start; to me it feels like the blend between their “pop” (I hate that term) sound and their old experimental “let’s use whatever it takes to make music” sound. I went out and bought Strawberry Jam and sat in my bed and listened to it on my Walkman, at the loudest volume. Needless to say, Peacebone startled me at first (as did it’s video later :P)! However, the album progressed into the anthemic For Reverend Green and I was blown away. Fireworks played as the only song I knew, and for the first time I truly experienced the song. I feel like a sap for this but I was almost in tears. By the time #1 played I had forgotten the world around me and I felt as if this was a prediction for something horrible to come; but then Winter Wonder Land came and cleared my conscience. Cuckoo Cuckoo just became that glorious song that brought me back to reality, and Derek reminded me how great it was to be in reality.
I must have listen to that entire album front to back during my English class last semester every single day; for six months.
Not to say that their other albums don’t have their shining moments (MPP with In the Flowers, Bluish, and Brothersport, Sung Tongs with We Tigers and Leaf House, Feels with Grass and Banshee Beat), but Strawberry Jam is definitely in the list of my top three albums of all time. That may not sound like much coming from a teenage kid, but I mean it in as honestly as possible.
I live in Arizona, and have traveled half-way across the country and am living in Washington D.C. for only a few weeks more. Arizona will never experience the magic that is Merriweather Post Pavilion; there won’t be as historic a show for a band in Arizona as there is for Animal Collective and Merriweather Post Pavilion.
My brother and father were planning on making a drive up to Maryland at some point in the next few days, and I’ve been convincing them both to come along with me to the show. It’s quite a drive, but it’d be worth it. I hate to beg and say stupid stuff like this, but 2/3 free tickets would probably help with convincing them to go!!!
Merriweather Post Pavillion. This is the album that changed my direction and taste of music. Ive always been the kind of person that was open to hearing any type of music. Im not picky and don’t label myself to any genre as long as its good to me. But one day I was surfing the internet and came across the “my girls” video. I thought it was so bizarre and different, but i loved everything about it. I kept watching it and was hooked. I was then introduced to the Merriweather Post Pavillion album. Every song I heard was just amazing and so unique. I feel like their music holds smart and hidden meaning. Avey says things that may not make sense, but that’s what makes you think. You try to decipher what hes trying to say and that lets you discover a new meaning to the song every time you listen. Not only are the lyrics clever, but so are the sounds. There are layer upon layers of the most distinct samples. You can find different sounds hidden deep in the song every time you listen. Thats why it all stays fresh to me. I also loved the amazing feelings I got from the music, to me It was music that made me think and feel the emotions of the music. It brought me into another world. Hearing Also Frightened made me think of this bizarre creepy place that was scary yet peaceful at the same time. Summertime Clothes was just an amazing song perfectly representing summer and the wonderful times experienced. It sounds kind of weird but all these songs off the album opened a whole new world of music and feeling that I can love and cherish
Sung tongs, it redefined folk/ freak folk music for me, after that i was hooked, so much so i’m going in for my second AC tat next week. You guys really are the psychedelic gods of my generation. Keep Being.
so, the first song I ever heard of animal collective’s was “my girls” (i know, i started listening to them pretty late into their career compared to others…regrets). i was in a car with the windows down driving across the seven-mile bridge in the florida keys at sunset when a friend blasted it through the speakers. the music fit the moment perfectly. i have honestly been fascinated by them from then on. upon further investigation, i was delighted to find that not only is their music amazing, creative, and something completely new, their lyrics are so down-to-earth and real that it completely grounds the apparent chaos of the music in something relatable.
this juxtaposition is what is so refreshing about animal collective. “brother sport” has definitely jumped near the top of my list of favorite songs — once again i was initially hooked by the upbeat repetition in the music, but went on to discover that the lyrics are actually one brother’s plea to another to open up and let go of the hard times he has faced in life. it is this amalgamation of frenzied, chaotic music with simplistic, emotional lyrics that have turned animal collective into one of my all-time favorite bands.
I’m a plumber so I’m going to describe in that perspective.. but I love AC and Merriweather Post Pavilion is clearly what I can only describe (oddly in plumbing terms) when you take all these pieces, grease them, fit them and apply intense heat,, you wait until things reach a certain temperature.. and sometimes the solder doesn’t take. But when they it does, and everything just fits perfectly.. to me that’s kind of how I feel about the boys and the magic they achieved with Merriweather Post Pavilion. That’s when it all connected. I loved all the experimental stuff prior as it was fun. Second, Fall Be Kind. Stuck in Christmas traffic and a Philly independent station played What Would I Want? Sky. Amazing follow-up EP. Downloaded it immediately with iPhone and christmas traffic just seemed to vanish.
Strawberry Jam is something different. I have to assume that the guys of Animal Collective were even blown away by what they created. Melodically, the album triggers this primitive, childlike part of me. The vocals are brilliantly immature yet passionate and the music is fearlessly upbeat and at times, and minimal at others. “For Reverend Green” gives me chills down the spine every time I hear its deliriously happy yet sad vocal melodies over haunting synth tones and that heart-beat like pulse from the kick. They managed to put beauty and poetic quality to the phrase, “He’ll only be a friend if he touches your breast.” Lyrically, that’s what the album was: an embrace of words and phrases typically considered more mundane and “non-artistic” by the establishment of respected lyricism. I hate speaking for other people, but I feel like they guys of Animal Collective aren’t afraid to be moved (and move other people) by using phrases like “The other side of takeout is mildew on rice (Fireworks)” .” I would have hated to hear, instead, “This sustenance delivered is growth on grain.”
Oh shit that said 1AM. Fuck.
yo my computer spazzed – i don’t see my comment!! argh, that’s what i get for being drunk last night while tryna enter a contest. let me win, anyway! it’s pre-1am somewhere, yeah? and besides, merriweather post pavilion on blast in my headphones while i’m biking through philly makes me throw my arms up and scream along and everyone in their cars are like “fuck my life is lame, i will never be as blissed out as this chick” IT RULESSSS SO HARDDD