Animal Collective at PMA | Pretty Much Amazing

Posts Tagged: Animal Collective

Podcasts — 14 Comments
11
Jan 10

pmaCAST #25

pmaCAST #25 podcasts Painting by Allison Schulnik

Here is the first non-list related pmaCAST of the 2010! I hope the new year has been treating you well and I hope you’re ready for more succinct and regular episodes of the pmaCAST. We hit another milestone of the pmaCAST with this 25th episode: it’s the podcast’s one year anniversary (approximately)! To celebrate, I rounded up one of my favorite songs of the moment, and gave the blog a nice ~~redesign~~ realign. For the most part, it’s familiar territory, with a few enhancements. The important thing is that it’s slick, and that’s how I like to keep it.

But enough about our facelift, go on and download Episode 25 already:

MP3: pmaCAST #25: Play Now Play in Popup
1842 playsDownload

M4A: pmaCAST #25 (w/ Chapters):
166 playsDownload

Tracklist: Continue reading →

Music Videos — 7 Comments
8
Jan 10

Animal Collective “Brother Sport” (Music Video)

I don’t even know what to say.

Bonus points if you download this interesting Mex-tinged remix of “Brother(does a space go here or not?)sport”

Animal Collective "Brothersport" (Los Amparito "Hermano Sport" Remix): Play Now Play in Popup
2953 playsDownload

Best Songs of the Decade (2000-2009)

Best Songs of the Decade (2000 2009) feature Artwork by Adam Sarpalius

Here are Pretty Much Amazing’s Top 75 Songs of the Decade. Below you will find the entire list with three accompanying podcasts. For our reviews of the Top 25 songs, please follow this link.

Continue reading →

Gigs / Giveaways — 73 Comments
4
Jan 10

GIVEAWAY: Animal Collective (DJ Set) in NYC 1/08

GIVEAWAY: Animal Collective (DJ Set) in NYC 1/08 gigs

FADER and The Natural History Museum of NYC are bringing to you the most epic party of 2010. Animal Collective and “Special Guest” will hold down the wheels of steel, while partygoers dance like its 2010. I have a pair of tickets to give away, if you’re interested.

You know the drill, leave a comment with your name and email in the appropriate fields. Make sure you have a buddy to go with you. ~~Entries will be accepted until January 7th at 6PM EST. GO!~~ The contest is now closed.

PS: This is a 21 and over party.

Covers / Favorite Songs / MP3 — 5 Comments
28
Dec 09

Sondre Lerche “Bluish” (Animal Collective Cover)

Sondre Lerche Bluish (Animal Collective Cover) covers

I wouldn’t blame you if you feel like you’ve had it up to here with Animal Collective (okay, maybe I will blame you a little bit). Now the boys of Animal Collective are back in the spotlight of your feed readers, even though the rush of year-end Merriweather Post Pavilion ranting and raving has come and gone.

Animal Collective ended 2008 with an earth-shattering leak, and they are now ending 2009 as champs and with Sondre Lerche’s cover of the beautiful and somewhat underrated Merriweather Post Pavilion track ”Bluish”.

Acoustic renditions of Animal Collective tracks are always a blessing in my eyes. With the absence of Animal Collective’s signature blips and loops and layers of sound, we get the rare opportunity to appreciate Animal Collective’s simple and pretty melodies and songwriting without (euphoric) distractions.

Listen to Sondre Lerche’s acoustic cover of Animal Collective’s “Bluish” (which happens to be his favorite song of 2009) below: Continue reading →

Feature / Music — 5 Comments
23
Dec 09

05. Animal Collective – My Girls

05. Animal Collective My Girls feature Artwork by Adam Sarpalius

As 2009, and the decade come to a close, PMA will be looking back at our favorite songs of the last ten years. We will update a list with 75 empty slots until we reach that song that changed everything. You can keep track of this list by keeping an eye on this page. We make these lists in hopes that you guys will chime in the comments and share your favorite musical moments of the noughties.

05. Animal Collective My Girls feature For the majority of this decade, Animal Collective have been breaking down barriers and reinventing their musical identity, inspiring and cultivating a legion of fans. These nearly-obsessive fans broke out in hysteria when word that Merriweather Post Pavilion finally leaked. “My Girls” was my first taste of Merriweather Post Pavilion, and what a taste it was. It had the usual bleeps and blips, but also melodies to sing along with, beats to bop your head to, simple lyrics with deeper meaning. The message is transcendent and timeless, the music is entirely modern and original.

Pitchfork, in its recent essay on the “Decade In Indie,” comments on indie music’s occasional lack of danceablility, the constant criticism at the beginning of the decade that hipster rock cannot be danced to. That mindset has certainly gone away in recent years, and with many MPP songs but most importantly “My Girls,” Animal Collective created a track that could be played to dance-happy teens as easily as it could be played to awkwardly standing-still 40-somethings. A song that could be blasted from car speakers on a hot summer day or listened to softly on headphones on a rainy one. A song that could be felt, shared, experienced. “My Girls” is a musical masterpiece, an underwater voyage (true to the album’s concept and the music video) : it’s the perfect gateway into Animal Collective’s expansive musical collection.

Continue reading →

Feature / MP3 / Music / Reviews — 698 Comments
21
Dec 09

The Absolute Best Songs of 2009

The Absolute Best Songs of 2009 feature Artwork by the talented and generous Adam Sarpalius.

The final list is here. We have been working on this Absolute (sarcasm) Best Songs of 2009 list all year, updating it at the end of every quarter. I was only going to have PMA’s Top 50 of the year listen, but I couldn’t narrow it down beyond the top 75. This list will represent and acknowledge some of the artists I felt had to be left out of our Best Albums of 2009 list.

As always, I upheld only one rule while making this list: a song cannot be on this list, unless it was released as a single. As a reminder, here is my definition of the word “single” — 1) A song that has been given away for free to promote an upcoming album (known as a promotional single). 2) A song that has been played on TV or the radio (two of the largest mediums of discovering new music). 3) A song with its own music video and/or EP. 4) Loophole: an album-track that has attracted enormous amounts of attention that it’s become that artist’s “calling card” of sorts.

I want to thank everyone who takes the time to leave a comment, even if its obvious that you came here through Google (PMA pops up when you google “Best Songs of 2009″). As always, don’t be shy to share your personal favorites of the year. Trust me when I tell you I didn’t go out of my way to list all of your favorite songs of the year, so if you want those songs represented, list them yourselves in the comments. I also want to thank the wonderful contributors this site has for helping me with this list. And finally, Adam Sarpalius, whose work as graced this list since July.

Now, onto the Top 75: Continue reading →

Feature / Giveaways / Music — 207 Comments
11
Dec 09

Pretty Much Amazing’s Best Albums of 2009

Artwork by Brian Kuperman

2009 was an exceptional last year in an exceptional decade for music. In 2009 we were bombarded with solid release after great release after epic release throughout the entire year (upfront: I didn’t listen to every album released in 2009), so narrowing my picks for the best albums of the year was not easy. Nonetheless, I have here Pretty Much Amazing’s 25 best albums of the 2009.

At the end of this list, you will have the chance to enter the last PMA contest of 2009. I will be giving away — courtesy of my wallet, unless someone wants to sponsor — a copy of every album on this list on vinyl (or CD, at winner’s request) in a Vinyl is Forever Tote Bag, along with a poster featuring one of the listed artists of their choice, and a custom one year subscription to Paste Magazine. More details on that at the end of the list. Continue reading →

Feature / Music — 47 Comments
1
Dec 09

Best Album of 2009 POLL

We are finally here. The decade’s closing year. Over these 11 months we’ve heard some groundbreaking music from old and new favorites. As always, the shortlist for 2009 won’t please all of you, but we are trying our best to capture the zeitgeist in music in 2009. Please vote for your favorite of the bunch:

A. The Antlers – Hospice
B. Animal Collective – Merriweather Post Pavilion
C. The Dirty Projectors – Bitte Orca
D. Grizzly Bear – Veckatimest
E. Phoenix – Wolfgang Amadeus Phoenix
F. The xx – xx
G. Neko Case – Middle Cyclone
H. Japandroids – Post-Nothing
I. Manic Street Preachers – Journal For Plague Lovers
J. Passion Pit – Manners

A quick note on my apparent memory loss: a top ten list is just that — ten albums. For this specific one, like the other polls, I turned to prominent music critics to select albums that really captured music fans in 2009. But in a year where dozens of great albums were released, a majority of them are bound to get snubbed.

Favorite Songs / Listen / Music — 3 Comments
27
Nov 09

Animal Collective – What Would I Want? Sky

Animal Collective What Would I Want? Sky favorite songs
The Grateful Dead sample in this Animal Collective song, the only authorized sample of its kind, is off a track on their new Fall Be Kind EP. It consists of the lyric, “Willow sky/ Whoa, I walk and wonder why.” But in the song, Animal Collective. samples the line so it begins in the middle and ends with the beginning – basically, you mishear it as the track’s title: “What Would I Want? Sky.” Dude, trippy.

The song begins with a three minute instrumental, a psychedelic Willy Wonkian boat trip set to a sharp-sounding drum loop in an intriguingly elusive time signature. Animal Collective’s characteristically indiscernible flurry of sampled hypnotic blips makes for a partly fluid, partly static texture that begs for headphones. And just when you think the instrumental is dragging on a bit too long (by three minutes, it gets kind of abrasive), the track cross-fades into the significantly cleaner second part.

Now, Avey Tare sings a reverby lead while Jerry Garcia does backup on that wonderful Dead sample mentioned above. This, combined with a “My Girls”-type big kick beat, makes for Animal Collective at its faux-poppy best. Tare’s surreal hummed verses are as enigmatic as their samples, and I love him for it.

“Old glasses clinking and a new board is blinking/ and I – /I should be floating but I’m weighted by thinking” – beautiful stuff. Call it an extension of their Meriwether Post Pavilion sound, yet different and intriguing enough to show that Animal Collective is still pushing in new directions, maturing their blend of avant-garde and pop aesthetic, showing when it comes to making good music the sky’s the only limit. Continue reading →