Animal Collective: Merriweather Post Pavilion

Merriweather Post Pavilion is the ninth studio album from an indescribable band named Animal Collective and it follows the trajectory of the albums that came before it, as Merriweather is Animal Collective's most accessible album.  That distinction includes the bands 2012 release, Centipede Hz, which goes in a completely different direction than Merriweather.  Similarly, Merriweather sounds nothing like the music that preceded it.  This album is full of luscious landscapes, twinkling synths and dazzling, sometimes epic songs.  "My Girls" is a standout and arguably one of the best songs to be released in 2009, combining a thumping beat with a catchy chorus.  "Summertime Clothes" may be the band's most radio friendly track, while the gorgeous "Bluish" should be enjoyed burning away a late night into the early morning.  "Brothersport" infectiously closes the album and will leave the listener with no choice other to sing along and join in the jubilance.

The icing on the cake is the ridiculously cool album art, which somehow dances off the edges of your minds eye.

"The whoops and hollers that previously held together the sublime, chaotic urgency of their earlier work now signal the calm sense of euphoria and wonder that ripples through this wide eyed record." - Amazon.com

What this site is about

I am creating this blog in order to highlight noteworthy vinyl releases.  With the advent of mp3's, the various cloud players across the web, and the vastly increasing storage capacity of digital music devices, physical media is becoming a thing of the past.  It is ironic, then, that the oldest form of physical media, vinyl recordings, have resurfaced with revitalized enthusiasm from music lovers.  There is a somewhat unexplainable pleasure derived from pealing the plastic wrap off of a 12" vinyl (as opposed to fighting with the hard plastic and sticky security measures found on compact discs).  When one purchases a vinyl album not only is the buyer receiving the best sounding version of that particular audio, he or she is also engaging in the elegance of placing the vinyl onto a record player in the same fashion as our grandparents and great grandparents once did.  In an age where physical has been replaced by digital in so many different ways, holding onto an album and playing songs in the succession they were meant to be heard can be an unimaginably rewarding experience.

The final key to this experience is the artwork accompanied by the album purchase.  In some cases it may just be the added detail one can enjoy by seeing an album cover on a much larger scale.  While in other cases the album cover may be a gorgeous piece of artwork that one can put on display and enjoy on an everyday basis.  The artist may also chose to include posters inside the album to be put on display.  This added artwork gives listeners further insight into the artist's mind, showing the listener what may have influenced the music, or possibly what the music represents to the artist in a different form of media.

Making an album is an artform in more ways that one.  In our digital world, mp3's are picked from an album, shuffled and mixed amongst other mp3's that have been similarly plucked from their intended place on an album's track list.  When playing a vinyl record, the listener is hearing the music the way the artist intended it to be heard.  On this blog I would like to highlight some of the most artful albums, in terms of both physical beauty and musical pleasure.