Animal Collective - Merriweather Post Pavilion

I can’t believe it’s happening already. Despite the calendar date, people are calling Animal Collective’s new album, Merriweather Post Pavilion, the best record of 2009. And by “people” I mean “the Internet.” Oh, bloggers. Must you become a cliché so early in the year?

When you hit “play” on the first track, “In the Flowers,” you may wonder what it is that supposedly makes this latest effort such a cut above Animal Collective’s previous output (which, in my opinion, is spotty). The song sounds like typical, droney, abstruse Animal Collective. That is, until about the two-and-a-half minute mark, when the drums kick in, the blanket of synth changes and the vocals become a head-turning melody: “Then we could be dancing, and you’d smile and say, ‘I like this song.’” That line pretty much sums up this album. It’s Animal Collective--Avey Tare, Panda Bear and Geologist (Deakin is absent)--at its most danceable, and it’s Animal Collective in its most universally appealing and accessible form yet.

Now, “accessible” in Animal Collective terms doesn’t mean the band is about to jump on tour with Hoobastank. It just means that if you’re riding in the car with your parents, and you blast this album immediately after the band’s last one, Strawberry Jam, your parents might not hate you quite as much. It appears Animal Collective will always be psychedelic and experimental--and therefore always rankling to some ears--so listening to the band still takes some patience. But the payoff from time spent with Merriweather Post Pavilion is more rewarding than any previous AC album. And it’s really the thick, gurgly, electro-soundscapes these guys create that maintain the group’s experimental feel. If you extracted just the ’60s-pop vocals, they often wouldn’t be out of place in a sunny car commercial with a sedan navigating curvy lanes.

Even Animal Collective’s lyrics, which are notoriously inscrutable, are thematically stronger on this album, if only because a theme just may exist. Several of the songs--and snippets of others--are overtly sexualized. You can’t get much more straightforward than, “I really want to do just what my body wants to/ I really want to show to my girl that I want her” (from “Guys Eyes”). Sometimes it’s not quite as sexual (“I want to walk around with you”), but you get the feeling it’s all part of the pursuit. Plus, there’s all those freak-dancey beats driving the point home.

Other songs merely ruminate about everyday happenings (“Daily Routine”). Still, few people listen to Animal Collective to parse the lyrics. The songs, and Merriweather as a whole, convey mood more than message. There’s no reason to overly analyze a simple meditation like “I don’t mean to seem like I care about material things... I just want four walls and adobe slabs for my girls.” It’s best just to accept that “My Girls” is a great song.

One blogger recently made a rambling argument that Animal Collective was made for, by and on the Internet, meaning, Animal Collective wouldn’t exist without online communities of vociferous hipsters trumpeting their urbane musical tastes as much as they trumpet Animal Collective’s genius. That may very well be true, but that can be said for countless bands today, and to jettison any artist solely because of that is equally grating.

So whether Merriweather Post Pavilion is 2009’s best album is beside the point. What’s clear to me is that this band has created its best album yet, while also (potentially) increasing its listening audience. Let’s let that be enough.

Animal Collective: Made by/for/on the Internet?

So says Hipster Runoff.

He makes some good points, I think, but I find that to be the most annoying writing style ever. Maybe I'm a curmudgeon, but I just can't stomach lazy, uber-Internet writing of that magnitude. Fr rlz.