Last Night Is Animal Collective Good Music?
posted by on September 15 at 11:31 AM
I’ve seen Animal Collective before. I listen to their albums, sporadically. There are a good number of people I like and respect who are very into their music. After last night’s show, I’m less convinced than I was before that what Animal Collective is doing can be considered “good music,” let alone great music as Pitchfork would argue.
Obviously, they are a band who embrace imperfection. There is something fundamentally real about Animal Collective that is intriguing and exciting, but that doesn’t carry them far enough as a band. They aren’t particularly great musicians, the singer can’t hit notes for the majority of their set, and as soon as something exciting happens, it keeps happening the same way for about six minutes before the band settles back into another long, reverb-ed out psychedelic jam. What their fan base seems to thrive on is the visceral rawness of the band; the fact that it doesn’t matter if Animal Collective is playing what is unilaterally construed as “a song.” Their sound is a highly refined version of therapeutic yelling - a natural release of the noises that seem to be brewing inside of them. For this I commend the band. I will not argue with the validity or the necessity of artists who choose this path to express their art.
However, these are rarely the traits I find appealing in my musical selections. When Animal Collective does it right, it’s brilliant: “Leaf House,” the opener off Sung Tongs, and even “Fireworks,” off their most recent release Strawberry Jam, frame the band in a context that makes sense to me. In these particular songs the band takes their guttural wailings, tribal tom drums, and effected, warping instrumentation and mold it into a structural, cohesive listening unit. The majority of their material though - specifically how they perform it live - is a sprawling, emotional free-for-all that can only truly relate to it’s audience on a primal, emotional level. The audience energy builds concurrent with the band - when the musicians decide to break out of their droning, hypnotic swells into their “poppier” tunes everyone’s head raises and the floor begins to bob with bodies. But these moments come few and far between in the set, especially last night’s set, which had even less dancing than their previous visit to Neumos.
The selling point for this band is their effectiveness in ensnaring the audience in a trance. For some people, Animal Collective’s music speaks on a fundamentally basic level, mimicking the undigested gibberish and pulsating beats that drive their basic motor functions, perhaps even their subconscious. The audience member is ready and willing to let the band guide them through some sort of aural spirit journey; whether or not actual drugs are involved in the process… well, they probably are. Animal Collective’s music (particularly their vocalizing) is rudimentary and emotive, and it was easy to see scanning the audience which people really understood it on a foundational level. These people danced and shook when everyone else stood transfixed, experiencing but not fully embracing. Though for every one person truly feeling the music I’m sure there were several posers who danced and shook because they thought they were supposed to, or felt obligated. I mean, you’re at an Animal Collective show, man, you gotta freak out! Right?
Maybe no one “really” gets Animal Collective at all, everyone’s just playing along because they think it’s cool to be really into a band that defies conventional “quality.” I think of this in the same vein as how I can only vouch for my own personal consciousness - I can’t guarantee anyone else in the world has the same capacity for free thought as I do. But for some reason I do believe all humans have free thought, and some people really, really like Animal Collective. I just have to take their word on it.
I don‘t “get“ Animal Collective most of the time, and I’m not sure what it is I should be getting. I will watch contently, intrigued by their musical decisions but never engrossed to the point of physical response through dance. On a fundamental level, I can’t really jive with what Animal Collective is spewing. I don’t forgive - let alone embrace - many of the misgivings that seem to fuel other listeners’ love for the band. In a way, the music is almost too real, but it’s not the kind of real I find myself drawn to. I have a hard time embracing a singer who can’t hit notes. I get bored when a band does the same thing over and over to the point of exhaustion. Seeing Animal Collective last night was like having a long, passionate one-sided conversation with someone I realized I had almost nothing in common with.
There is a thin line between “real” and just plain “bad.” Animal Collective are a good band because the “reality” their music portrays, regardless of it not being my reality, has been embraced wholeheartedly by such a large audience. Of course, this argument could also be made for someone who really “gets” what Nickleback has to say, but it’s completely different in this scenario. Animal Collective is not pushing anything that has been specifically designed to penetrate a target market. They are (or would appear to be) making bizarre sounds that emanate from their persons naturally, and as it happens those sounds have reached a large, sympathetic audience. Much in the way I would never dare to refute whether or not the session you had with your psychiatrist was a “good conversation,” I would never want to deny someone the emotions they experienced at an Animal Collective show. But the show for me was just that - listening in on someone else’s psychiatry, never being able to personalize it to a point of relevance, let alone actual enjoyment. Animal Collective are a pair of prescription glasses: pass them around in a large enough room and through them some people will see clearly. I think I can make the image out - but it’s way too blurry for me to keep staring at it.
I am in between cameras, and thus could not take any pictures last night. If you took some good ones post a link or an email and I will give you name credit.
Good piece. I have only seen Animal Collective live once - several years ago opening for Mum - and it was perhaps the worst live show I've ever experienced: Two guys with acoustic guitars, microphones and delay pedals spouting pure self-indulgent masturbatory gibberish for way too long.
That said, I like a lot of their recorded output, and would maybe think about going to see them live if I could be sure of what I was getting. Of course, part of their artistic adventurousness or whatever is that you probably never know what you're getting with one of their shows, so I guess I'll stick to the records and leave the shows for the uncritical weirdos who really "get it."
haha, "listening unit." their sound is substantially emptier with three people than as a quartet. the first half of the set was uninspired sleepwalking. the second half picked up.
remember the new song that came after fireworks (i think)? a bunch of repeated note sequences that sounded, in cohesion, like a choir? both the singers last night can hit notes, and they've always been able to. i think you raise a good point when you say they attempt to create a sonic landscape of the often very inchoate noises that rumble around inside our selves.
yeah, one of their guitarists is taking a break due to the death of his father, which their sound suffers from. i wasn't at the show last night, but the show at neumos last year was incredible.
But "more" importantly, what did you think of opener Eric Copeland's muffled drone Porpoise mindgasms?
trivia: very cool connection to Tullycraft Eric is. keep logging in over there to piece together the story.
I was a huge fan until last night's show. I didn't pay $27 to see three guys twiddling knobs. I'm forced to conclude that, like most of today's indie rock darlings, they're best left in the studio. I love their records, but will never pay a dime to see them live again. Felt the same way about Modest Mouse when I first saw them. And Radiohead back in 1997. Sort of the inverse of all those jam bands whose albums suck but sometimes are worth seeing live anyway.
Plus, it was too goddamn loud.
MattyDread, take a tip from Josh, slog's post(faux)mod revivalist,
In The City- The Jam
"all those golden faces are under 25...the kids know where it's at"
and the kids you want to be knowin are over at tullycraftnation, and at last night's show - it was kid-riffic!
i thought eric copeland was excruciatingly bad. i had to plug my ears at times to stop them from bleeding. unfortunately, i didn't particularly enjoy wizard prison either. regardless of the opening acts, perseverance paid off because ac was amazing.
maybe their tracks didn't have the same quality as studio recordings, but it was still quite the experience. it was just one of those shows where you have to let go of preconceptions and give in to the music. maybe it was the pot, maybe it was my love for fireworks, but i haven't felt that alive at a show in a long time.
Animal Collective is garbage.
Yes, if it's too loud, you're too old. I was definitely in the oldest 10% of the crowd.
And yes, it did sound better after I smoked some really strong weed halfway through.
But still. Samples bore me live. They were great samples, don't get me wrong, really crafty and well-done, but if you're gonna do that at least show some cool video or something.
In all, I wish I'd gone to Medeski Scofield Martin and Wood instead. Might have been boring funk jams, but at least they'd have been playing real instruments.
I caught them last year in march when I was just starting to get into the band. It was enjoyable but very confusing. I had no idea what to expect, and I was self-consciously caught up in my date for the night, who I was crazy about and desperate to not lose either that night or in a month or ever.
Another friend of mine hid a field mic in a dr suess hat and recorded the whole thing. I just started naming the songs for the first time today. Suddenly I know nearly all of them, and I can tell what's coming next by the tiniest sample in a wash of noise.
Friday my ears hurt during the first half and I was a little frustrated with my position and lack of understanding. I shifted to the center and then to the front of the stage, I started recognizing songs, I found a friend and danced endlessly with him. I was all three of the people described here:experiencing but not embracing, 'freaking out' because that's what one "should" do, and truly merging with the moment and having a transcendent experience. Thankfully it was in that order, and thankfully each phase wasn't so rigid.
I think their live shows are like their albums. You've got to give it some time (unfortunately hard when it's a one-time live deal), and you have to make some compromises with your own arm-crossed, Stranger-writing pretensions before things fall together and you get swept up.
I recommend it.
i like animal collectives records.
but i can just feel down in the bottom of my soul, that they are not going to be remotely as good live.
they just seem a little too amateurish. the recorded stuff is "best takes", the live stuff will suffer from non-editing.
but i genuinely do like the band.
i like a lot of your descriptions. they have always toured with mostly new, unrecorded material, which encourages the listeners to experience the music immediately and viscerally--it doesn't fit into any pre-formed expectations.
i am one who is sucked into trances by the drone, shaken into nervousness by noisy interludes, constantly bobbing, and jumping and screaming along during the pop explosions. their music is like a drug. i'm sure some people do it because it's cool, others because it just feels right. i can understand why not everyone would get into it.
@9
Hmm?
You should smoke a fat bowl and listen to track 1, Did You See The Words, off their album Feels. Then come back and say that they're 'garbage', you unenlightened moron.
people who constantly worry about "getting" art and are sad. it's not about getting it. you like it or you don't but if you spend your life worrying about understading it you are either a) very self conscious about your intelligence or b) very self conscious about their social position (i.e., you feel you have to understand what everyone else understands). i think once people are educated enough about the entire scope of music they stop worrying about "getting it". that apprehension is a product of youth. i stopped feeling like i didn't get art when i was 20. animal collective is extremely unique. they don't sound like other music. they don't use all the traditional reference points of music, yet they are still basically just pop music. listen to webern (music made almost 100 years ago) and you'll get that even less, probably, but it's not about getting it. it's about enjoying it. animal collective is just another band you don't like. not a big deal. but don't perpetuate the concept that music has to be "got." i hope i never get it. that sounds horrible.
I would hardly say I'm worrying about not getting it, more pontificating as to why. Asking questions about the nature of musical enjoyment is hardly a fruitless effort, and does not fit someone into either of your classifications. In the case of Animal Collective, I do enjoy a section of their work but am puzzled by other aspects that others grasp onto firmly, and am curious of why and when I turn away. Understanding is often part of enjoying.
i'm with dna. i am mesmerized and drawn by their music as well- and yeah maybe from a primal place- i definitely do more feeling than thinking when i am in it. i don't use drugs and was also in the older 10% of the crowd- jumping around with the somewhat smelly kids down in the front. i don't feel the need to "get" music if i don't but this i get- and i can't stop listening. i do wish the sound quality was better at neumos that night- i feel it is a hit or miss in general there- and that they actually came out for that encore.
I think this is a good review. I'm glad to see that there is someone else wondering why they don't like a band that seemingly every other major media outlet embraces with widely opened arms.
To add my own perspective, I don't "get" them. Period. I have never thought that anything that they've done has been any good, and I've listened to them more times than I'd like to count. All of their music is shapeless to me, connecting with some primal feeling within that means absolutely nothing to me as a listener. It doesn't relate to my experience nor any interior buried feelings that I have for wanting to run through the woods or reconnecting with nature. I like concrete and orange night-lighting.
Even when I was toking a lot, this isn't what I listened to or wanted to listen to. Just because this isn't what I want to listen to doesn't mean that I'm unenlightened. I'd think those awards I got in college or a discussion with me about music would help to cancel out such an argument. It's just a difference of taste. I think they are trash. Other people people would say the same thing about my preference towards shoegaze and drum n bass. But, as I always say, to each their own.
hahaha...the awards you got in college
in no way do i judge your level of enlightenment (got no basis to)
but
the awards you got in college?
AWARDS?
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