Feels Like a Hit

Much has been written about how excellent and accessible Animal Collective's newest record, "Merriweather Post Pavilion," is. Embarrassingly enough, I've only heard a little of it, and very much liked it. However, I always thought their 2005 record, "Feels," was the approachable breakthrough. The opener, "Did You See the Words?", has these wonderful surges of vocals; the next song, "Grass," jumps up, down and all around; and "The Purple Bottle" is what I imagine a 29th-century saloon would sound like.

Maybe it took four more years than it should've, but good for those guys for breaking through. It's actually remarkable how high they've reached, in terms of size of the venues, number of records sold, etc. A friend who saw their show in town recently -- very loud bass, intense visuals, good music, he reported -- marveled at how popular they've become. He's right. As alluring as Animal Collective's music can be, there's something inherently disruptive about it -- the unsettling possibility, or threat, of something unknown lurking around the corner is a defining characteristic, like their sound is a good horror movie. (Not that I like horror movies.)

Despite the whooping carnival antics in their sound, they've reached crowds and a status that blow far past the Pitchfork-driven blog hype that lasts six months before the band becomes irrelevant, sometimes deservedly. (Wavves and Passion Pit, for example, are now experiencing this.) Even when they're on "Letterman," a great feat itself, they have to do something subversive. This time it was having four people in full body suits dance as if they were trying to exit a human-sized egg. (See video above. After the performance, Letterman asked Paul Schaffer if he had candy for the trick-or-treaters.)

To quote my friend, "There's an element of the Pitchfork mob mentality that contributes to their popularity, but there's also definitely something more to the music than that." He's right again. What is that "something more"? I think it's the general yearning we have to want something challenging and unsettling from our arts. We can take the easy road, but in the end, I think we enjoy the provocative road more.