Not for the first time, I really, really wish we had Mike Powell writing for us…

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[4.94]

Anthony Easton: I do not know how to read Animal Collective.
[5]

Alfred Soto: Spanning electro, scenes of kids playing with sparklers and boogers, and a Beach Boy or two, this puts their golly-gee sense of wonder in a place just out of reach of rot, which is its fate on a parent album that can stand some adult supervision.
[7]

Rodney J. Greene: “I don’t mean to seem like I care about material things/ Like a social status.” First of all, social status isn’t a material thing, like a house. There’s nothing wrong with having aspirations, but to come from a position of privilege and be all “Social status? Who? Moi?” even as you go to good colleges, make good money doing cultural work, and buy property in the suburbs pisses me off. There’s probably no good reason why I find your privilege-in-denial so angering while Vampire Weekend’s privilege-on-sleeve amuses, but, you know, a sense of humor about such things and not sounding like utter fucking garbage can get you a long way. I find your lack of self-awareness even more nauseating than your physically discomfitting mass of treble.
[0]

Jonathan Bradley: Forget socialism in the White House: The real place that scourge has infected is the lyrics of hyped-up indie rock bands — sorry, “collectives.” Someone inform a tea partier! There’s no real way to defend lyrics as awful as “I don’t mean to seem like I care about material things, like a social status,” even if you do agree with the sentiment. The real utopianism here is in the starry-eyed synthesizer supernova; a sparkling array of blips that cohere into a lush, dreamy whole. Add to that rattling subterranean bass thumps, the kind more appropriate for a club than an adobe village, and all the hippie bullshit in the world can’t prevent this from being a joyous and celebratory party-starter. Now, can someone call T-Pain to do the remix?
[10]

Michaelangelo Matos: The thing that always turned me off about these guys is how insular they came across, and that’s true as well of their pop move (you know, their real one, not the Ween-sounding shit their claque swore up and down was “pop” around 2004). Only here the insularity is social rather than musical. When they swear to disavow material things, it induces class-based irritation of a very special kind; hearing them aurally high-five one another as they set off the next round of loops does not help matters.
[4]

Martin Kavka: One of the (few) things that Animal Collective do well is tap into a feeling of detached bliss by affecting a variety of different moods. This is perhaps their most perfect song, but their ethos of willed detachment (“experimental”!!) strikes me as music for people who are afraid of others and therefore want to create their own private gated universe. You know, like hipsters. Or right-wing Republicans.
[5]

Kat Stevens: Even a right old bloody mess like this can be saved by one strong melody repeated over and over again.
[7]

Ian Mathers: Hey look! Indie stars can prove that a fantastic chorus makes up for incredibly dumb lyrics just as easily as pop stars do! The twinkling abeyance of the first, oh, ninety seconds winds up being kind of worth it once the refrain and subsequent chorus (and, crucially, the fucking beat) finally kick in. But for god’s sake, the chorus proper doesn’t even show up until three minutes in, and the song doesn’t achieve full power until there’s only a minute left.
[6]

Chuck Eddy: Well, it has a pulse, and I suppose I mean that in both the literal and figurative senses. Though I’m not really sure if the singers have one. Basically, I find this rather likeable — in a relaxing minimalist repetition sense, I guess — whenever they shut up. And whenever they start back to burbling, my blood starts back to boiling.
[2]

Iain Mew: This song mostly makes me think of my girlfriend’s two-month old niece who started crying as soon as it came on the radio. That and Ian’s excellent point about its lyrics last time we did it. Oooh, and I just noticed — the synths are near enough the same as “Break Your Heart”, aren’t they? All of which is to say that while I can admire the skill behind the dense collage of sounds here, it leaves me far too cold to take more than a theoretical interest.
[5]

Alex Macpherson: I’ve been irked by a fair few artists this year, but usually the reason is an obnoxious persona working in tandem with bad music. With Animal Collective, it’s just the sonics. Like most of what I’ve heard by them, “My Girls” is a seasickness-inducing mess. Flattened-out production which makes the song sound like it’s trying to breathe through clingfilm; the rudimentary electronic bibble which refuses to go anywhere or develop into anything and just keeps hanging there, like a broken car alarm whose owners have gone on holiday; the one-note synthpad passing, badly, for a bassline, which sounds like a baby is crawling over a keyboard. These elements appear to have been laid over each other entirely at random, and as “My Girls” fumbles ineptly along, even more clutter is added, but EVEN THAT is not the worst thing about the song because the worst thing is Noah Lennox’s fucking abomination of a voice. It makes me livid that anyone has the temerity to inflict that pitchless, lifeless, smug blare on to the world, let alone under the guise of art, let alone exacerbate its horror by oscillating back and forth over and over and fucking over again, never once even nearing the concept of singing in key. Luckily for this intolerable band, their actual words are buried somewhat, but looking them up, they appear to be infantile hippie bullshit. This is literally the worst thing I have ever heard, it makes me want to commit acts of violence on those responsible and as far as I’m concerned anyone encouraging them or expressing positive sentiments towards them rescinds their right to be taken seriously on the subject of music ever again.
[0]

Tal Rosenberg: If you take the mushy lyrics about domesticity and family out of the picture, and just keep the melody and the music intact, this is a damn good song. The handclaps that enter halfway; the swooning chant (WHOO!) just after the first refrain, before the handclaps come in again, louder and more dramatically; the little twinkling synth that hovers over a cloud of fog. Combine all these elements together and you have a band taking their avant-pop and giving it a plethora of vision and scope, something avant-pop rarely does, preferring to reside in small spaces. That’s all these guys want. But the image is so much more.
[9]

Anthony Miccio: Post-rave Beach Boys psychedelia, with its modest novelty bolstered by a gen-yoo-wine hook. Whoop-de-freakin-doo, but since I rarely find the aforementioned predecessors transcendent in this mode (not to mention timeline sharers ELO or Olivia Tremor Control), I’m not surprised this gets them in the collegiate listening pantheon.
[6]

Matt Cibula: I guess I see why so many people do backflips over these guys — they do a great job of updating the Eno/Byrne/Reich circular float. But I haven’t heard anything else they have ever done — we travel in different circles — so if this is their big pop move then color me pessimistic.
[5]

Chris Boeckmann: It’s like they wrote a great pop song and then (successfully) tried to figure out the most insufferable way of presenting it. I’m not opposed to experimenting with texture, but these synths sound gross and the vocals are incredibly obnoxious.
[6]

Edward Okulicz: Almost gets into a pleasing groove two minutes in, you know. Actually, better than “almost”, the second half of this song is pleasingly thuddy. Sadly the entirety is besmirched by a hideous tuneless mess masquerading as a melody for the most parts. Builds up to a pretty decent climax, but you can get your thrills elsewhere without this song’s attendant torture, so why bother?
[2]