The new video for Animal Collective’s “My Girls,” which recalls all those repurposed-from-European-TV clips of classic rock bands that used to fill countless hours of VH1 and all those dripping-paint videos that were so hot in 2008—not to mention maybe, just maybe, Bunnicula—is located after the jump. Quick, can you come up with the most hyperbolic bit of hyperbole to describe it? Maybe I will give a prize to the person who can out-freak-out the rest of you! Why not, it’s almost the end of the day, right?
Animal Collective - My Girls [HT: Every blog ever]
[Also, HT to Matthew Perpetua for the headline, which was inspired by his assertion that Merriweather Post Pavilion is way more inspired by Underworld than people have wanted to admit yet]
iPod commercial x Heaven’s Gate
way more inspired by Underworld than people have wanted to admit yet
If only.
They are neither invisible nor an eraser of love.
blue mouth group?
as an avid video game dork, let me also point out that it reminds me of some of the shadows from the Persona games.
[kotaku.com]
Al Jolson’s Jazz Singer Black Face + The Fillmore West light show circa 1967?
It sure seems to me that anything psychedelic at this point is nostalgic. I suspect the kids today drop acid to try and recapture their parent’s (grandparents?) state of mind in the 70s.
As for Underworld, they had their heyday when splitting the difference between rawk and club techno seemed like a good idea, and their stuff is much more heavy and in the pocket than Animal Collective ever will be.
And if you think of it, being hair farmers with synths is itself is looking backwards to the 70s bands like Can and Amon Duul. Animal Collective is just selling it to a new generation.
all i’m gonna say is, that social status lyric is at least as tin-eared and corny as the incessantly mocked ne-yo lyric about calamari.
i was gonna come in an say “yay” for the headline
Animal Collective’s lyrics are always tin-eared and corny. you just couldn’t ever make them out before.
tin-eared as it is, a song about needing a house for your family is pretty 2009.
VMA for video of the year (2009 and 2010).
@westartedthis: a salient point. what’s up housing bubble!
The video’s no longer up. Shame.
MGMT lite
If Urban Outfitters clothes fit you, this is your new favorite band.
@sXenester: Aren’t MGMT somebody else lite? Flaming Lips? Delgados? Home? Anybody else Dave Fridmann’s produced, really?
@DJorn: definitely Flaming Lips lite.
@owenmeany: They do fit me, but no thanks, really.
What is the deal with this group? They are even all up in my NPR today. Sheesh.
@Lucas Jensen: Don’t apologize to these swine!
@Ben!: Oh, come off it! Prince, at his Purple Rain through Sign of the Times GOATness, created quality music that straddled multiple genres, that made it possible to speak to a truly wide audience not only made up of liberal arts students. He did this on multiple instruments, where his strength on just, say, the guitar could have cemented a reputation as an outstanding musician.
Even then, not everyone in the entire world in the 80s liked him, so quit the bellyaching that there are people who disagree with you about AnCo. There’s an album you enjoy? Great, enjoy it.
@janine: I’m not so shocked about the prospect of somebody disliking an Animal Collective album — believe me, I’ve been in that camp more often than not. It’s just the idea that probably about 90% of commenters to this blog tend to dislike this particular album, which is markedly different than their previous work, and would theoretically be the sort of music that most here fawn over. This song, in particular, is an example of great pop music, but we’re going to pretend to find the lyrics terrible when we know that Animal Collective isn’t exactly known for its amazing lyricism (even among hardcore fans) and when we’ve given plenty of other artists a pass on corny lyrics (or even mentioned the lyrics as a positive, as in Lily Allen’s “The Fear” (which I loved, by the way)).
don’t great pop songs have hooks?
this is not a great pop song by any stretch of the imagination, for the reason janine mentioned above. it’s way long and meandering and, ugh, it has that sound. that sound that is like sharp rocks at the bottom of a lake, only instead of your feet, the rocks are scraping your eardrums.
(also, question: are there any women out there who are super adamant animal collective defenders? i haven’t seen one yet.)
@Maura Johnston: I know one, but she doesn’t hang out here.
@Maura Johnston: I know one but she doesn’t hang out here.
@Maura Johnston: It’s important to note that I’m not an adamant fan or defender of Animal Collective. I was in the same boat as most of you when it came to their previous albums: I enjoyed songs like “Grass,” but thought most of the songs were boring and never-ending. I just take issue with people who act as if nothing has changed on this album, when I don’t see it that way at all.
I warm to this song when I imagine it backing a long program ice skating performance, but only in that context. The vocals make me want to listen to Halber Mensch instead.
Yeah, let’s keep pretending that this isn’t a great song.
Sure, it’ll match your pretending it is. :-D
Eh. I like this song. Sorry.
@Maura Johnston: That is a great point, Maura. Bands with 99% female fans get roundly mocked…I think it’s high time someone give the same treatment to a band 99% loved by boys. Righteous,M aura.