Animal Collective is still making music and somebody needs to do something about it

I hate to do this but it needs to be done.

Scratch that.  I'm going to savor every minute of this.  But it still needs to be done. 

Animal Collective is a shitty, bleeding asshole of a band and they always have been.  They do not make good music now.  They did not make good music in the past.  They have never been a good band.

If you like Animal Collective, if you love Animal Collective, it is not your fault.  You are wrong, but it is not your fault.  The success of Animal Collective is a disturbing example of how mainstream music criticism influences our tastes a lot more than we may realize.  I once thought I liked Animal Collective.  We will get to that.  So try not to take what is written below personally.  I hate when people shit on music I like.  I know it doesn't feel good.  But reading this isn't supposed to feel good.  It is supposed to be a metaphorical back-hand bitch slap to the face, because sometimes when you're being a numbskull you need one of those.  Because goddamnit Animal Collective is really really bad guys. Please stop listening to them.  Please.

This is an album review, also, not just a scathing indictment of the band as a whole.  They came out with an album recently, the first one in four years.  It is called Painting With.   Which isn't their worst album title by a decent margin.  But the music is really bad. 

Track 1: Floridada

Even before you listen to this album, it's obvious Animal Collective has fucked up.  Just say that word "Floridada" out loud.  Now would you rather:

           

            A) say the world "Floridada" out loud ever again

or

            B) put your face on a running belt sander

I heard "Floridada" in the background at a party and thought it seemed catchy.  Then I listened to it through headphones.  It's the best song on the album, but that's more of a passive aggressive insult than anything else.  It's the best song on this album in the way that Steve Buscemi was the funniest character in Grown Ups 2.  The song itself is a good example of how Animal Collective continues to ruin their own music.  There's a good melody in there somewhere.  But then they insist on cramming five more instruments/sound effects into the track then necessary, and then they throw their overly fast, chanty vocals on the top of that, and suddenly the whole thing is so fucking busy whatever tune they thought up is crushed under the weight of all the racket.

A word that gets thrown around a lot with Animal Collective is "complexity".  And that's where a huge part of the problem lies.  Because, sure, Animal Collective make complex music.  But that complexity does nothing.  Animal Collective's music is complex is the stupidest, most pedantic, annoying way possible.  In "Floridada", they pull out all the typical stuff, a multiple vocalists chanting in weird rhythms, an off kilter synth riff to add to the edginess.  Stupid sound effects popping in and out for no fucking reason, topped off with lyrics that you can't understand but are shit-sniffingly stupid when you look them up online.

" If you could rest
A minute to tell
Get me some grass
Iridescent shells
I know there's a nest
Fit with a hatch
Sunset a glowin'
Makes us all sweaty" - Floridada

This superficial veil of complexity is what Animal Collective seems to be able to hide behind.  But that's all there is. 

When I first listened to Animal Collective, I really dove in.  I got all the acclaimed albums.  I listened to "Sung Tongs", "Strawberry Jam", "Feels" and "Merriweather Post Pavilion".  And I specifically remember having almost no reaction to any of them.  Referencing the multitude of acclaim for each and every one, I was sure that these albums were growers.  That's fine.  A lot of good music takes time to wrap your head around and understand.  But that's what so insidious about this band.  They make music that sounds inaccessible and complicated, something that will pay off after multiple listens.  But there's just nothing there.  I find Yosemite Sam's attempt to charge through this dark tunnel to be analogous to the experience I am describing.

 

Many people, I feel, sense this in Animal Collective's music, but their opinion is overwhelmed by the enormous amount of critical acclaim for this band.  They move on, and intend to revisit these albums, maintaining the assumption that they are good.  And it's hard to break out of this mindset, because everywhere you fucking look, some member of the music press is holding this band's dick.  To this day, publications can't give it up and acknowledge that they've been hyping up a whole lot of shitty music for years. Pitchfork has given four of their albums 9+ ratings. The reviews for this album are not as good as that, but are still generally positive. Allmusic says Painting With is, "Undeniably great sounding," and, "the record puts Animal Collective's brightest colors forward."  Rolling Stone calls it, "weirdly addictive and enjoyably absurd."  The 405 says it's, "closest thing this generation will have to getting a new Pet Sounds." 

Hold your horses there.

It makes some sense that critics would continue to love a band like Animal Collective.  Because they are complex, and they do have a unique sound and approach to music that can be placed under the hallowed label of "experimental".  But just because something is complex doesn't mean it's good.  Just because something is experimental doesn't mean it's influential.

It's just too bad.  Music reviews are just a service, after all, but reading any of these reviews isn't going to help any one any.  I go back to the beginning when I said I don't blame anybody for listening to a lot of Animal Collective.  When you go into an album with "the new Pet Sounds" rattling around in your head, it's hard to separate yourself from that and acknowledge that the music is mediocre and that you're really not enjoying yourself very much.

But that's why I'm here.  And I'm telling you to go back and listen to this band's discography not with the presumption of genius, but with skepticism.  I did so recently, and, lemme tell ya, it's really baffling how medicore every single one of their widely-acclaimed albums are.  I was surprised especially at how much I hated Merriweather Post Pavilion.  I remember listening to this album as recently as last year on campus, and not having a very adverse reaction.  But I also remember gravitating towards one song, "Bluish", as I let the rest of the album un-memorably blow by.  And I stand by "Bluish" as a good song.  But that song sounds nothing like the rest of the album.  The rest of the album makes me feel physically nauseous.  Stare at the cover art of MPP for 45 minutes, and that's pretty much what the music inside makes me feel like.  It's the audio equivalent of motion sickness. 

Track 2: Hocus Pocus

"Well if you're out and about

on the freeway this morning

noooooooooooo

dinosaurs to worry about."

- Hocus Pocus opening sample

           

Are these guys for fucking real?  What?  Are they trying to be funny?  Are they trying to be quirky?  My guess, which is as good as anyone's, is yes.  Look at this picture. 

Look these fucks in the eyes.  Look deep.  They think they're funny, don't they?  Oh god, they think they're quirky!  WATCH OUT FOR THE FUCKING DINOSAOURS ON THE HIGHWAY OMFGLOOOOLZOOEYDESCHANELLMFAOOOOO.

Animal Collective think they're funny and quirky like lolsorandom teenage girls think they're funny and quirky.  But they are not teenage girls rotfling and nerd-glassing their way through middle school.  They are men in their mid-thirties wearing tight shirts with stupid names like Panda Bear and Geologist.  They are men that were somehow ok with the technicolor nightmare of a music video for "Floridada" that features multicolored undulating Floridas/penises. They are professional musicians, and people buy their albums and pay money to go to their shows.  Well, some people still do, I think.  After these last two albums they certainly aren't doing as well as they used to.

And that's the most incredible thing about Animal Collective.  They manage to make music that their own fans hate.  Centipede HZ was really bad for them.  Released after their enormously successful Merriweather Post Pavilion, Centipede HZ was so bad that it alienated a lot of their fan base.  Painting With doesn't seem to be doing much better.  Both have sub-3 rating on rateyourmusic.com, which is very bad for such a popular band with so many ratings.  This band was one of the most famous on the indie scene five years ago.  The last two albums have completely killed that momentum, which makes the press's insistence on saying this is good music even more inexplicable.

Track 6: Natural Selection

"Decide to be AIDS, AIDS, AIDS, AIDS" --

what it sounded like they were saying in the

chorus of this song.  Maybe my subconscious

is telling me something.

"Strings tied to the hands, hands, hands, hands, hands." --

What they are apparently saying

Track 10: Summing the Wretch

I remember going to watch a basketball game in second grade for class. Colin Masnica was sitting behind me and he kept pinching my neck on the pressure point, and I kept telling him to stop but he wouldn't and I was too wimpy to do anything about it, so he just kept doing it and I had to submit to his will.  I relate strongly to this memory when I listen to a song like "Summing the Wretch".  Animal Collective is going to make painfully annoying noises for 3+ minutes, and then on the next track they're gonna do it again, and there's nothing I can do about it except wait for the whole thing to mercifully come to an end.  It gives me anxiety, it really does.

Please stop assuming Animal Collective is good.  If you are a fan of this band, take a moment to ask reflect on your past choices, identify the ones that lead you to liking this band, and feel ashamed for making them.  I just finished listening to this album for the fourth time.  It is a chaotic, hellish mess of annoying vocals, terrible songwriting, and stupid synths that sound like they're being played by untrained 8 year olds who're off their ADHD medication. After listening to this I feel physically drained, tired, and angry.  This music is not just shitty and dismissible.  It is aggressively bad.  It enters through your ears and eats away at your sanity like a parasite.  

I remember a night when me, Sad Moth Manny, Patrick and others decided to play a video game known as Sonic '06.  We knew it was a renowned horrible game.  What we did not anticipate was how nauseating, disorienting, and aggravating the game would be to simply play.  Some art is bad, and we know it's bad and we leave it alone and that's the end of it.  But some art is bad, and as you turn to walk away it tackles you from behind and starts punching you repeatedly in the testicles.  This album is like that.

Fuck Steve Harvey.

1.5/10