Matt's Monthly Music Musings: March 2014: Revisiting Animal Collective's Merriweather Post Pavilion

I'm going to start this one by flashing back a bit. Back in June of 2013, I wrote up an overview on my thoughts on all things Animal Collective, putting together brief review blurbs for every album and EP from the band (check it out here if you haven't read it). In said article, I commented on how I didn't really like the group's landmark album, Merriweather Post Pavilion, as much as the rest of the music community did. In fact, I put the somewhat maligned follow-up Centipede Hz above it in my rankings of favorite albums. The reason for this was that, while I liked a great deal of songs from MPP, I didn't feel it was as strong and cohesive of an album as the best work from Animal Collective.

Well, consider this me backpedaling on that remark. At the time, part of my affinity for certain albums and approaches from the group made an album like this frustrating for me. I entered the album, unlike I had done with previous entries, with a strong inclination towards MPP's singles, and felt like the rest of the tracks were lackluster by comparison. Additionally, I ignored the way the album flowed beyond the first three songs (though I still feel like the last three songs are somewhat incongruously arranged). These thoughts were all after my first listen, whereupon I liked the album, but not to the extent of everyone else.

Five listens later, and this album is finally starting to click for me. While songs like "Brother Sport," "Summertime Clothes," "Bluish," and "My Girls" really drew me in initially, upon revisiting the album, "In the Flowers" and "Lion in a Coma" began to draw my attention. The next time, it was "Daily Routine." The time after that, it was "Also Frightened" and "No More Runnin." Then, deciding to take the plunge on more time, still not really feeling more about the album than mild interest, I found myself loving it all the way through. The last piece of the puzzle to fall into place was "Taste," which turned me off the first four times, but, for whatever reason, wormed its way into my head on the fifth listen. (I wrote about why I felt that it wasn't my cup of tea at first and why I changed my mind about it in this little write-up here.)

So, let's go over the points that made me realize why I really like the album at this point.

1.) The Flow

I mentioned that the flow (or initial noticing of a lack thereof) irked me the first time through. I feel like growing to like each individual song definitely helped with this, as I grew to expect when the next song would come and see how each connected and linked to the one that followed it. To me, this is most prominent in the transition from "In the Flowers" to "My Girls," or the integral lead-in to "Bluish" that begins with the ending to "Daily Routine."

Like any favorite album, what keeps you hanging on and listening is the anticipation for what will come next. Simply put, your favorite albums shouldn't be ones you want to turn off midway because you just finished your favorite song. (Although, MPP doesn't have that problem for me because it ends on its strongest note… but you shouldn't ignore what I said just for that reason.) On that same note, you shouldn't want to skip around willy-nilly just because there's a bunch of filler between the good stuff. Personally speaking, as of right now, MPP has nothing but good stuff.

2.) The Songs

This one seems kinda obvious, but it's still worth mentioning. Every song (as is expected from Animal Collective) has its own unique nuances and quirks, and each is able to stand on its own. As much as I've come to enjoy listening to this album as a whole when I want to gain a new level of appreciation of it, I've gone back to each song individually, separated from its context on the album, at least once. "Summertime Clothes" has been too catchy to ignore, "Brother Sport" is one of my go-to "get pumped" songs, "Daily Routine" reveals new layers with every listen, and "Taste" is a fantastic amalgamation of every phase of AnCo's career.

This is another element of a great album: you should want to revisit pieces from it even when you may not want to listen to the entirety of the album again. This doesn't mean you should disregard the album altogether; it simply means that you should be able to appreciate the album as a whole as well as the entities that comprise it as their own pieces.

3.) Its Place in Music Culture

There's no way of sugarcoating it: Merriweather Post Pavilion is the album that brought Animal Collective into the mainstream. Everyone and their mother was praising this album with an avalanche of laurels back in 2009 and, really, compared to every other album in AnCo's discography, it's easy to see why. The pop elements of the band are at the forefront and, unlike some of their more impenetrable efforts (*cough cough* Danse Manatee *cough cough*), the hooks, catchy as all hell, are laid bare for all the memorability they can muster.

Yet, I'd argue it's a very important album. It's one of the landmark instances of the indie crossing over into the mainstream. By popular standards, this album is quite unusual (even if it is one of the most "normal" AnCo albums). The synths can be somewhat grating, the time signatures are bizarre, and there's a song with a freaking didgeridoo, for God's sake. Yet, the pop elements win out and this album was warmly embraced by the public almost immediately (although maybe it's just due to the fact that "My Girls" is on this thing).

4.) Its Place in AnCo's Career

This is ultimately why I decided I really like this album. Merriweather Post Pavilion does a lot of things right, but it's an important benchmark between two phases of Animal Collective. The pop elements and use of synths first became prominent in the previous album, Strawberry Jam. The smooth transitions between songs and the integration of Animal Collective's live format in studio albums would improved to perfection in their next album, Centipede Hz.

But (similarly to how I feel that if AnCo didn't put out Sung Tongs immediately after Here Comes the Indian, they might not have integrated their more folk-esque elements as regularly), Merriweather Post Pavilion is an album that I feel was crucial for Animal Collective to release when they did as a building block for their future efforts. As the write-up on "Taste" that I linked to above states, by incorporating pretty much everything they had previously done, Animal Collective managed to make a palatable and precise distillation of everything that sonically makes who they are and, perhaps more importantly, figure out what parts of that identity are significant to keep carrying forward.

Matt's Monthly Music Musings: February 2014: Album Roundup

And 2014 is now in full swing musically. After being somewhat bored last month, with nothing really interesting me other than Against Me!'s Transgender Dysphoria Blues, four (let me repeat that: FOUR) albums from February have not only come onto my radar, but been interesting enough for me to find something to talk about in all of them. Some were anticipated, some were unexpected, but all of them are worth checking out for very different reasons. So, let's get started.

St. Vincent - St. Vincent

Prior to late 2013, I had heard absolutely nothing about or by St. Vincent. "Birth In Reverse" instantly made me want to check out her work. Strange Mercy proved to be a compelling and moving album. Then "Digital Witness" and "Prince Johnny" further amped my hype for her upcoming album. And, lo and behold, the album is actually quite good overall. In fact, it's probably my current favorite album of the year. (We'll see if that remains unchanged when Chad VanGaalen has his chance to blow me away in April.) Starting with a frantic panic in "Rattlesnake," the album goes through various movements topically, including narratives about personal crises and epiphanies, meditations on modern technological trends, and drug addiction.

Yet, it never feels incongruous or jarring. The album is structured wonderfully and every song has something to love about it (still trying to gather my thoughts on "I Prefer Your Love," but aside from that, everything's golden). From the jittery brass of "Digital Witness" to the luscious narrative in "Prince Johnny" to the restrained teeth of "Huey Newton" to the unhinged murderous streak in "Bring Me Your Loves," every track brings something cool to the table. It doesn't hurt that Annie Clark's voice has a certain bravado this time around that shows real growth and her guitar chops are consistently engaging and solid throughout. Like the actions described in "Birth In Reverse," this could very easily turn into a typical part of my listening habits.

brentalfloss - Flossophy

YouTube musical prodigy brentalfloss has been a personal favorite of mine since I started watching his videos about three years ago. Since then, he's had this ambitious streak about him that has resulted in a surprising upswing in his music's quality, a bold feat in that I was already a big fan of what he was doing back then. 2012's Bits of Me showed the wide variety Brent is capable of and displayed great promise in what was to come, a musician able to create pieces both incredibly humorous and unexpectedly poignant (drawing from video game characters with minimal explicit background, no less). I haven't had as much time with this album as the others in this post, but the tracks on this one continually won me over one after the other, all 20 in all, over the album's 50+ minute runtime (brentalfloss's longest album yet).

And, not to speak too rashly, but this might be my favorite of his albums yet. The comedy is the funniest of Brent's career (particularly the spot-on criticism of the minutiae in "3DS Streetpass with Lyrics," the hard-rocking douchiness of "Ken's Theme with Lyrics," and the outright dickish portrayal of Link in "Zelda: A Link to the Past with Lyrics") and the resonance is the most powerful it's ever been (I know it's been released in a video of its own, but the Ben Folds-esque "Zidane to Vivi" might be the best thing brentalfloss has ever written). Even previously released songs have been aurally tweaked and spruced up, some with brand-spanking-new intros with fresh jokes, like the retooling of the setup to "Super Mario Land with Lyrics." It even starts wonderfully, with "Earthbound with Lyrics" (after a brief intro) serving as a perfect musical companion to "Zelda II with Lyrics" from Bits of Me in its evolving structure. If you haven't heard any of brentalfloss's stuff, you owe it to yourself to check it out, and this may be the greatest starting point.

[Random thought: Would this album's track listing flow better if the "Introspective Bounty Hunter in Space" piano instrumental came right before "Metroid: Fight for Love"? Or if the album was bookmarked with ukeleles by switching "The Bioshock Song" with "Ballad of the Mages"?]

Beck - Morning Phase

And here we have the first of two major folk rock albums of the month. I know I'm not the only one, but I like weird, zany Beck better than I like folk Beck. Don't get me wrong: Beck is a fine songwriter and makes what could be dull, monotonous folk music breathe with life and sincerity, but I just find the off-the-wall section of his career far more interesting.

Thankfully, Morning Phase is interesting enough for me to give it a recommendation. Like I said before, my favorites from this album are ones where it feels like Beck is infusing a livelihood into the folk music that just doesn't work as successfully elsewhere, such as in "Blue Moon," "Heart Is A Drum," and "Say Goodbye." Alternatively, even some of the rich musical landscapes he creates when he's not in this mode are compelling, like the climactic closer "Waking Light." Really, the only songs on here that I can find legitimate complaints with are the two brief instrumental interludes, both similar in sound and meaning, with no particular reason for two of them to exist on the same album that only has nine other songs. Meh. It's a minor gripe in a light album worth listening to at least once.

Sun Kil Moon - Benji

And, last but not least, we have THE album of the month. Not mine (St. Vincent takes that for me, easily), but the one that's been buzzing around in that there music blogosphere for the past month. I can see why this album's been attracting a ton of attention in music journalism, as its soul-baring bluntness is something really unique, one of the rare instances of "narrative music" if I had to invent a genre to describe it.

Although, it's not usually a "narrative" necessarily, but more of a stream-of-consciousness look into Mark Kozelek's mind as he reminisces on moments of life and death (but mostly death) in his lifetime. "Carissa" simultaneously starts the album and summarizes it. It's a melancholic, heartbreaking song about Mark's cousin dying in a freak accident at 35 that really aches and is teeming with emotional heft.

Other songs chronicling death are strewn throughout, but the ones that draw my attention are the ones that break from this thread. "Jim Wise" both musically and lyrically captures a vivid, bittersweet portrait of a the titular man's tragic life. "Richard Ramirez Died Today of Natural Causes" has an immediacy not seen in anything else on the album with its vocal intensity (eventually joined by an equally sharp percussion section) and rapid-fire listing of events. Coming in after a slew of downbeat songs, album closer "Ben's My Friend" is like an unexpected left hook with its sunny ukelele, central drum beat, and booming brass. But my favorite song from the album (and possibly my favorite of the year at this point) by far is "Dogs," an incredibly open and detailed account of every romantic and sexual experience in Mark's life. The specificity and calculated structure of the lyrics alone impress me, but the way the song continually builds on itself, whether its the percussion that enters midway through or the subtle guitar flourishes towards the end, makes it one of the most captivating on the album.

The reason why I love "Dogs" so much is also the reason why a lot of the album is lacking to me. I kinda feel like a jerk for saying this, but not much of the album hits me hard. "Carissa" is heart-wrenching, but there's not much musically that evokes for me. This may be an entirely subjective thing, but, while the lack of evolution and variation in most songs leaves the lyrics at the forefront, there are only a few isolated incidences where I felt something emotionally. Some songs merely stick with the same melody throughout which makes sense in context, but it makes quite a few of the tracks feel rigid and stationary. Maybe if the rest of the songs on the album were as dynamic as "Dogs," I would be fawning over this album as much as pretty much every other critic.