Animal Collective

Surell · 07-20-2013, 12:10 PM

I personally found Strawberry Jam to be a more grand album and more engaging on the whole, mainly because of the production and because it felt like there were no wasted moments - every song on the album is at least very good, where MPP has lesser songs like "Bluish" and moments that don't hit as hard (I know you'll hate this but i really hate that part near the end of "Also Frightened"). But the main reason I also like MPP slightly less besides lessened experimentation (which SJ reigned in just enough) is that it didn't mark very much progression as their albums usually do. Every album up to that point could not be mistaken for any other album, and MPP seemed to recycle former musical ideas, which sounds pretty harsh but is how i feel. It does have a very smooth flow and bright atmosphere that makes it, like, the quintessential summery album, but that could also go for Beach House's Bloom which is not a great album but has good evocation of blissful feelings (and occasionally existential dread maybe).

DriveYourCarDownToTheSea · 07-20-2013, 07:43 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Surell

I personally found Strawberry Jam to be a more grand album and more engaging on the whole, mainly because of the production and because it felt like there were no wasted moments - every song on the album is at least very good, where MPP has lesser songs like "Bluish" and moments that don't hit as hard (I know you'll hate this but i really hate that part near the end of "Also Frightened"). But the main reason I also like MPP slightly less besides lessened experimentation (which SJ reigned in just enough) is that it didn't mark very much progression as their albums usually do. Every album up to that point could not be mistaken for any other album, and MPP seemed to recycle former musical ideas, which sounds pretty harsh but is how i feel. It does have a very smooth flow and bright atmosphere that makes it, like, the quintessential summery album, but that could also go for Beach House's Bloom which is not a great album but has good evocation of blissful feelings (and occasionally existential dread maybe).

I suppose we can chalk this up to the usual differences in taste, but to me there aren't any songs on SJ that really stand out. I don't find any bad songs, but no great or even really good songs, either. On a scale of 1 to 10, every song is about a 4 to 6.

I like Centipede much better, it seems like a more disciplined, refined and melodic or mature version of SJ.

As for the lack of progression on MPP, maybe they were running out of ideas? Seems almost like they took some of their exiting ideas and put them into a more disciplined format than their other albums.