Animal Collective in 10 Songs
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The post Animal Collective in 10 Songs appeared first on Consequence.
This article was originally published in 2016 and has been updated.
Ever felt overwhelmed by an artist’s extensive back catalog? Been meaning to check out a band, but you just don’t know where to begin? In 10 Songs is here to help, offering a crash course and entry point into the daunting discographies of iconic artists of all genres. This is your first step toward fandom. Take it.
We never expected this to be easy. Animal Collective are one of those bands with cult followings, the kind that can name their top 10 versions of a single song and rattle off a list of top 10 b-sides, let alone their top 10 AnCo songs. But, then again, this isn’t our list of the best Animal Collective songs — In 10 Songs acts as our attempt to give you a portal into their mystical, mythical world.
The band’s catalog spans an insane number of influences, genre touch-points, and themes, so any attempt to narrow them down or define them will be difficult. Plus, they’ll probably just throw in a whole new set of sounds for their next album. But we’ll try to catch you up for now.
Over the course of their history, Animal Collective has meant a few different things — Avey Tare and Panda Bear; Avey, Pandy, and Geologist; and Avey, Pandy, Geologist, and Deakin. We didn’t open the discussion to each of their solo projects, but rather kept things to the heading “Animal Collective,” no matter what that heading happened to mean at the time.
There will be plenty of disagreement with this grouping. But that’s just the nature of Animal Collective; they engender fierce loyalism and intense emotional connection. Check out the list below, and scroll to the end for a playlist of all 10 tracks.
— Adam Kivel
Messy Perfection
“Alvin Row” from Spirit They’re Gone, Spirit They’ve Vanished (2000)
Released on their first album — in fact, then labeled a Panda Bear and Avey Tare record, rather than Animal Collective — the imposing “Alvin Row” laid the groundwork for so many different elements of the band’s varied future. There are bursts of electronic psychedelia, acoustic piano tinkles, jazz bass flourishes, pop hooks, and abrasive noise, all combined into an enchanting 13-minute suite.
Few bands of their era reinvent themselves record-to-record quite the way that Animal Collective do, and they set the template with “Alvin Row,” reinventing themselves minute-to-minute. But rather than paint them as pure provocateurs (though they do plenty of challenging over the track’s length), “Alvin Row” also displays a wealth of technicality, Panda’s drumming fluid and lively, Avey’s piano equal parts majestic and playful. They clearly knew the rules well enough to break them apart. — A.K.
Falling in Love in the Wild
“Winters Love” from Sung Tongs (2004)
When Sung Tongs came out, my friends and I argued endlessly about the lyrics to the deliriously lovely “Winters Love.” In fact, I found out that one friend and I had even been arguing about the song on SongMeanings.net — both under Animal Collective lyric-based user names, of course. The ambiguity to the group’s lyrics (both their actual content and their meaning) has always leant a heart-wrenching mysticism to their music.
That’s particularly true in their first few records, when compared with very naturalistic, complex, acoustic sounds. “Winters Love” may be the sweetest of these. After a skimming acoustic intro, the lyrics begin by describing a numbing winter (“In winter time I have no legs/ Two stumps of meat below me”), made better by the love tucked in close (“She’s warming in my pocket”). Probably. Or maybe those lyrics are off. Either way, it’s beautiful. — A.K.
Unusual Times
“Sweet Road” from Sung Tongs (2004)
Underneath Animal Collective’s psychedelic pop and noisy rock is a devout commitment to playing with time signatures. The obvious example is “Sweet Road,” Sung Tongs’ minute-long clip in 13/8. While they sing about ditching materialism to experience life as it unfurls itself, the song dances in meters of three and four. Of course, the absurdity doesn’t stop there. They pick up crisscrossing acoustic guitars, occasional hand claps, and jittery syncopated drumming as they chirp the simplistic lyrics.
While their contrasting harmonies and child-like lyrics poke each other like a game of tag, the song jumps and slides, running around in a delightful pattern that ends in what feels like seconds. It’s musical math geared towards toddlers. If you still want to talk about it, head to the comment section anywhere this song is posted: Your music theory pals are ready and waiting to discuss its brilliance. — Nina Corcoran
Love Drugs
“The Purple Bottle” from Feels (2005)
Love is a natural form of speed, or so the pounding drums at the start of “The Purple Bottle” would like to have you think. A story about reveling in the super-high highs of being in love, likely written about Avey Tare’s now ex-wife, uses its choruses about quiet conversations as a rare opportunity to breathe during the song’s nonstop energy. “Sometimes I’m talkative, and sometimes you’re not talkative, I know,” he sings. “Well, I’d like to spread your perfume around the old apartment/ Could we live together and agree on the same wares?”
The colorful experience of falling love is elevated by art pop structure. Animal Collective take it to the next level with detailed imagery (comically-sized trapezes, late-night phone calls, and Chinese ballet facts, anyone?) sung in the frantic talk of an elementary school kid bursting with good news. Leave it to the Feels track to be hella full of feels. — N.C.
The End of Innocence
“Banshee Beat” from Feels (2005)
Slowly to rise and early to mourn, “Banshee Beat” is perhaps the most tranquil and melancholic Animal Collective has ever been on their studio albums. There’s a remarkable sense of glassy-blue evenness that comes with the still waters between Avey and his ex-girlfriend, whose affair inspired this song. As the centerpiece to 2005’s Feels, “Banshee Beat” relishes in its own procrastination and praises its emotional realizations and subsequent new surroundings.
In a way, it’s Animal Collective’s “Nightswimming” — both so peaceful and accepting in their own respective heartbreaks. Feels was the album that turned many into lifetime Animal Collective fans, and “Banshee Beat” was the song that made me fall in love, despite its opposing and unfortunate inspirations. — Sean Barry
Dancing with Monsters
“Peacebone” from Strawberry Jam (2007)
Monsters and myths make their way into Animal Collective’s songs regularly, but nowhere as directly as “Peacebone.” While they often focus on the light side of innocence, childhood, and imagination, this Strawberry Jam cut plays just enough in the shadows. There’s a disorienting bend to the imagistic lyrics about making a maze for a monster, clouds carving mountains, screaming kids, and believing in magic.
But though the jittery pulse of ping-ponging synths, growling sound effects, and Avey Tare’s melodic screams can feel manic and dark, it’s impossible to resist the momentum, to keep yourself from running alongside the shady tropical tones. Avey knows that being young can be just as terrifying as it is wondrous and rides that line gleefully, bouncing along until you’re dancing with the scary monsters. — A.K.
Happy Family
“My Girls” from Merriweather Post Pavilion (2009)
“My Girls” may be the most blissfully sedate dance song out there. It’s not a campfire dance or a techno dance or a group dance at your friend’s house. It’s the dance you do on the last row of the bus with your headphones on, the dance you do in the back of a sold-out venue with a plastic cup of water in hand, the dance you do between a row of Christmas trees while your family looks for the perfect one to drag home.
It’s the happiest drug-like synth track to give you a peak high while being totally sober — the feeling of overwhelming contentedness while the world stays still. It’s all due to the song’s pastoral-like vocals (thanks, Panda Bear!) about the comforts of having a family to call your own. Animal Collective find happiness buried within us all. Being able to pull that from a place of past drama known as family history — a place divisive enough for all of us — is a feat in and of itself. — N.C.
Sweet, Warm Harmonies
“Prester John” from Time Skiffs (2022)
The enchanting “Prester John,” which served as the first single for Animal Collective’s eleventh studio album Time Skiffs, finds the quartet embracing an organic, harmony laden sound, miles away from the glitchy electro experiments that characterized their music for much of the 2010s. It points to the band being capable of not just stylistic evolution, but of continuing to foster an ecosystem together that they’ve championed for over 20 years.
Deakin and Panda Bear’s warm harmonies throughout feel like an elongated exhale from the bombast of their former years, and the band’s jam band ethos comes to the forefront without any aggressive urgency in favor of a naturalistic hue. Time Skiffs marked Animal Collective’s major return this year, and with “Prester John,” it’s clear that they’ve been speaking the same language since the very beginning. — Paolo Ragusa
Sampling the Dead
“What Would I Want? Sky” from Fall Be Kind EP (2009)
Animal Collective have a cult following of fans obsessed over touring, bootlegs, and trippy tunes. Sound familiar? If that’s not obvious enough, perhaps the Grateful Dead sample on “What Would I Want? Sky” will hit the nail on the head. Their music has frequently been tied to the Dead, but never was their connection more clear than on this beloved live jam recorded for the Fall Be Kind EP. The tune blisses out over a sample of “Unbroken Chain,” one of the sunniest, swirliest tracks in the band’s repertoire.
The group’s use of samples ranges from Franz Liszt on “Cuckoo Cuckoo” to The Surfaris on this year’s “FloriDada,” from a Golden Girls episode to a Pepperidge Farms commercial, expertly blending often dusty pop culture into their vibrant new music. That’s true too of their solo work — Panda Bear’s output is jammed full of samples. In this single song, they highlight both their sampling tendencies and their beautifully fulfilled debt to the Dead, the great psychedelic live band that came before them. — A.K.
Screaming Positivity
“Today’s Supernatural” from Centipede Hz (2012)
In their review of 2012’s Centipede Hz, Pitchfork famously likened Animal Collective’s ninth album to “someone throwing a burrito on your windshield.” Despite the ridiculousness of that image, it’s not far off. There’s a mental component to that splatter too — as our review put it, “the cluttered instrumentation does as much insisting as the question[s].”
Centipede Hz is sensorially overwhelming throughout, setting crescendos and secrets aside for an unabashed and full Animal Collective experience, and its first single, “Today’s Supernatural,” is a perfect example. Over psychedelic layers of cyclical organ and unpronounced rhythmic drumbeats, Avey shouts through vocal filters and delays.
So, where its description sounds pretty much par for the course to anyone vaguely familiar with the band, the song itself, as well as its ayahuasca trip of a music video, are likely way too weird for anyone not already deeply invested in the band’s work. And yet, even though it seems like the iceberg’s been completely lifted out of the water, the track (and the album itself) emanates a positive and humanist spirit that runs as a prominent thread throughout the band’s music. — S.B.
Animal Collective In 10 Songs Playlist:
Animal Collective in 10 Songs
Consequence Staff
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