Animal Collective's MPP: Praising with Faint Criticism

I feel a bit lonely. Which is convenient, of course. By and large I can't stand the people who DISlike Merriweather Post Pavilion...or their reasons. The most (only?) intelligent take I've seen is Chris Ott's, but I'm still miles away from him on this record.

But I also don't like Merriweather. Why? I've spent well over a month now trying to figure that out, time I could have spent on music I actually give a shit about.

Ok, so why spend that time? Easier question to answer. First, because Merriweather Post Pavilion is an Important Record. Being an Important Record isn't a knock on the record, or on the band, for that matter. Animal Collective (as even Ott would admit unless I'm way off) didn't confer that status themselves, they just made a record. We The Internet Commentariat and Serious Music Listeners made that decision and bestowed that status upon them, rightly or wrongly. I generally try to keep up with Important Records, because -all appearances aside- I'm not really much of a contrarian, and I like all kinds of popular and/or well-regarded records (certainly not always the same thing). Many of my favorite records are or have been Important Records. Not only do I not immediately disregard well-received albums, I usually go out of my way to listen to them.

So when the praise came rolling in, I felt both obligated AND interested in investigating. I've never cared for Animal Collective, but friends who felt the same way were into this release (my second major motivation). Steely-eyed critics -and favorites of mine- were enthusiastic (number three). Hell, I wanted something new to listen to in early 2009.

I got the record. I listened. I kept listening. A few listens in, I didn't get it. I don't always have a sense of my ultimate take on an album through one listen, but by two or three, I usually know whether it falls into the like, dislike, or ignore categories. Sorting out love from like takes a much longer time, but it's very very rare for an album to pull a 180. Back in my days of writing reviews for (ultralow circulation) print, I felt an obligation to listen at least four or five times to any record I was reviewing. Now an album that doesn't grab me in a couple of listens tends to get lost in the 200gb maze of my iTunes. I (and you) could say a lot about that admission right there, but let's leave it at this: I've given Merriweather much more of a chance than I give most records.

On to the disliking and why:

Maybe I don't get this album. That's the way I phrased it above, and I'm sure that's how some people would put it. Leaving aside most of the tricky questions that phrasing and the idea behind it raise, there may well be some musical configuration at work here that I can't grasp. I have a hard time accepting that there's genius that eludes me on Merriweather, but there may be subtleties I'm somehow missing. Maybe there's an error in my pathway configuration that prevents me from appreciating what so many others do. I really fucking doubt it.

More likely (and more intelligibly), I or you or we could say that it's "not my thing." That's a common explanation in this kind of case. I don't buy this explanation either. Part of my skepticism re: both explanations comes from my fondness for Person Pitch, most recent solo album by, yes, Animal Collective member Panda Bear.

Are Person Pitch and Merriweather Post Pavilion the same album? Absolutely not, and therein lies MY explanation. Or at least part of it. The songwriting of Noah Lennox (Panda Bear) is closely related on his most recent solo and Animal Collective records, but the arrangements are radically different. The aesthetic of Merriweather is much more cluttered, driven by melodic instruments used frequently as noisemaking devices. The tempos are accelerated. Jarring effects are applied with little apparent consideration for their contribution to the whole, and the contrast does not appear to be particularly illuminating. The fast off-tempo phaser in "Bluing" might be the most egregious example. Person Pitch, on the other hand, was characterized by restraint, by (apparently) careful consideration of every element in the largely-sample driven arrangements. Do I have a problem with busy, complicated arrangements? Absolutely not. But I do think that some songs are better suited to that style than others, and the songs on Merriweather are drowning in poor choices.

In other words, I consider Merriweather a failure of execution (arrangements) rather than concept (songwriting) - although I should also say that I think the songwriting here falls a bit short. It is "my thing," and I think I have some reasonable (if vague) idea of what the artists are attempting. I don't have any grandiose conspiracy theory about artist-press collaboration to sell us a bad product. I don't think critics saw dollar signs when they heard Merriweather. I just don't buy that the artists have succeeded.