Animal Collective - Merriweather Post Pavilion

"Somebody once told me the world is gonna roll me/ I ain't the sharpest tool in the shed."

-

Just some Smash Mouth lyrics that are forever etched into my brain. I didn't even have to google "smash mouth all star lyrics" to ensure the lyrics were right. I knew they were. I haven't heard that song in probably four years, yet I could have perfectly typed every single lyric to that song if I wanted. I can sing the melody note-for-note. I'm not bragging. It's just the way it is. You probably can too.

(Rather Be Pogging Fun Fact #2: it is rumored that all the money Smash Mouth made off the song "All Star" was spent on cocaine and prostitutes)

Though I didn't really understand what music was back in the 4th grade, I knew I liked the song "All Star" by Smash Mouth. Back then, I considered it "The Best Song Ever," and I was certain it would never grow old (and I was right). Listening to it was like doing some sort of awesome, addictive drug (a drug that appeared on Shrek's soundtrack) that every 4th grader in the United States also enjoyed doing (my drug dealer: Best Buy). Like most drugs, this one required a process - singing along with the song and knowing every lyric - in order to experience the high - feeling cool.

(other things that made me feel cool in 4th grade: chain necklace, chain wallet, Old Navy tech-vest, a fresh bowl-cut from the barber, a shirt with dragons on it, having a crush on a girl, writing a note during class that said "do you like me? circle yes or no," passing that note to a girl I had a crush on, her circling yes, being the starting running back on my recess football team, telling my crush to watch me play football at recess)

(things that made me feel uncool in 7th grade: chain necklaces, wallets, tech-vests, dragon shirts and bowlcuts all going out of style, my crush hitting puberty and no longer being worth crushing on, being too fragile to play for my middle school's football team)

When people consider a song or an album "poppy," I always think back to "All Star" by Smash Mouth - a song so lovable that most of us are not even capable of forgetting the melody and lyrics. I think that's what makes good "pop" music good. Hooks that you can't get out of your head. Refrains that you wake up singing. Even your farts start sounding like the end of the second verse. And the only way to stop from going crazy is to go listen to the song again, and again, and again.

Recently, I've been listening to the new album Animal Collective (not Smash Mouth) has just released. Merriweather Post Pavilion. An album that people are calling "Animal Collective's pop album." Immediately, I'm looking for comparisons to "All Star," and, though there's probably never been two works of "pop" farther apart, I do see some underlying similarities: 1) I enjoy both "All Star" and Merriweather Post Pavilion 2) both provoke(d) some feeling deep within 3) both are things people listen to 4) both are what my dad calls "crunchy-ass tunes brother man."

(dissimilarities: thirteen-year-olds won't ever grind to "My Girls" at their middle school's Valentine's dance)

Alas, Merriweather Post Pavilion is a difficult album to listen to by most people's standards. The "pop" Animal Collective creates is a much less-listenable "pop" than the kind Smash Mouth creates. Either you'll greatly enjoy Merriweather Post Pavilion or you'll be greatly confused why I ever called it "pop" (for the record, I will continue to put the word "pop" in quotation marks). Smash Mouth and Animal Collective have different artistic values and musical abilities (and haircuts and weight issues) and that's reason enough that their music is nothing alike. But whether or not you like what Animal Collective has done in the past, I recommend checking out Merriweather Post Pavilion and see if you can't fall in love with a new definition of "pop."

"Sick and tired of hearing all the people talk about what's the deal with this pop life and when's it gonna fade out. The thing you got to realize is what we doing is not a trend. We got the gift of melody, we gonna bring it til the end."

- Justin Timberlake (21st century philosopher)

*I used some form of the word "pop" in this post 10 times. Thus, my rating of this album is a 10 out of 10.