Banshee Beat: The Ten Best Songs by Animal Collective

In 2000, a curious little album picked up modest acclaim: a psychedelic oddity with faded storybook album art and an aura of childhood innocence, eerily distorted. It was called Spirit They’re Gone, Spirit They’ve Vanished, and it was released by two stoners from Maryland named Dave Portner and Noah Lennox, also known as Avey Tare and Panda Bear. These two were apparently part of something called the “Animal Collective,” but there were no other members on that first album: it was just Avey, Panda, and their imagination. Pitchfork gave it a glowing review, back when they reviewed obscurities, but it was otherwise ignored.

Less than ten years later, Animal Collective were an indie rock institution. A legendary four-album run began in 2004 with Sung Tongs, refining the wild sound of their debut into bizarre-yet-catchy psych-folk; it culminated with Merriweather Post Pavilion in 2009, a sparkling synthpop odyssey that lived up to its feverish hype. It was declared among the best albums of the decade just a month after its release, and soon enough this four-man collective of lysergic weirdos were playing arenas and late night talk shows. (Some time later, their biggest hit was interpolated into a Beyoncé song, perhaps an even higher honor.) It was Peak Indie, and Animal Collective helped make it so.

If Animal Collective didn’t match their 00s output in the following decade, they didn’t really need to. They had reached the level of influence, like Pixies or Arcade Fire, where they simply became a part of the indie ecosystem. Their wild-child sound and acid-soaked Beach Boys harmonies were sneakily influential in the 00s, and the success of Merriweather arguably cleared the way for the synth-dominant indie rock that’s popular today. Their latest album, Time Skiffs, is being hailed as their best since Merriweather, but even if they had coasted into middle age their legacy would be secure.

With a band like Animal Collective, even a 25-song list would require some painful cuts. So here are some honorable mentions before the list proper: “April and the Phantom,” “Leaf House,” “Winter’s Love,” “Did You See The Words,” “Bluish,” “Prester John.”

10. “Spirit They’ve Vanished” (from Spirit They’re Gone, Spirit They’ve Vanished)

“Shhh,” a child’s voice says, in a conspiratorial whisper. “Do you wanna hear a secret? I know one…” Thus begins the first album from the nascent Animal Collective, whose auspicious debut very much felt like a secret. Spirit They’re Gone, Spirit They’ve Vanished has the air of a mysterious picture book, filled with wonders and terrors for some unsuspecting child to discover. “Spirit They’ve Vanished” is the perfect introduction: a cracked-mirror lullaby, its ethereal synth pads and creaky vocals strain to be heard over a lacerating, high-frequency whir. It’s sweet and wistful, but there’s more than a hint of menace. When Avey sighs that “it’s hard to just kiss our child games goodbye,” it’s unclear whether the world of the child or the adult holds more danger.

9. “In the Flowers” (from Merriweather Post Pavilion)

Another perfect album opener, “In the Flowers” was the bearer of good news, telling legions of giddy indieheads that all the hype and excitement for Merriweather Post Pavilion was worth it. It starts on an ominous note, with alien synths and uneasy chord sequences shifting the ground beneath our feet. At first, the lyrics seem at odds with the music, singing about falling in love with a dancer and the healing power of flowers; the listener might wonder what Animal Collective is getting at. But then, Avey expresses his desire to “just leave his body for a night,” and the song explodes into one of the most swooningly romantic moments of the band’s discography. Drums thump, vocals harmonize, and synths light up the night sky with the desire to “hold you in time.” It doesn’t last very long, but much like a flower, its ephemeral nature is part of its beauty.

8. “Royal and Desire” (from Time Skiffs)

Josh Dibb, also known as Deakin, hasn’t attracted as much attention as Avey Tare or Panda Bear. The nature of the band means that members don’t have to be a part of every album, but it was a bit of bad luck on Deakin’s part that he sat out the blockbuster Merriweather. But Deakin is no mere tag-along: 2016’s Sleep Cycle is among the best solo albums of any AnCo member, and on the recent Time Skiffs he gets a chance to shine on the album’s closer. “Royal and Desire” is a rich, elegant ballad, the exotica touches on the rest of Time Skiffs melting into saturated sunset hues. Guitars sway, marimbas meld with lonely piano figures, and Dibb sings a song of devotion: “you taught me to stand/and that splinters will rise/and we’ll always come ‘round, ‘round, ‘round, ‘round.”

7. “Who Could Win a Rabbit” (from Sung Tongs)

When Sung Tongs was released in 2004, it was regarded as Animal Collective’s most polished, mature effort yet. It might seem like odd praise for an album whose first song ends with a chorus of meows, but there was no denying that Avey and Panda’s songwriting took a huge leap forward. Before “Who Could Win a Rabbit,” their melodies were often obscured by layers of texture and noise; here, they’re right in the open, a giddy clockwork contraption of bright guitars and sing-along harmonies. The lyrics, too, are stronger than before, an oblique yet affecting look at the rat race. “Where’s your relaxation?” Avey and Panda ask, before admitting how hard it is to maintain good habits in the song’s best hook. Eventually, it ends with grotesque gurgling noises: it’s still Animal Collective, after all.

6. “The Purple Bottle” (from Feels)

The sound of Sung Tongs was refined even further on Feels: the hooks were even more immediate, and the production was richer and more expansive. The result is a humid, lovestruck masterpiece, an album that sprints joyfully and fearlessly into the wilderness of adulthood. “The Purple Bottle,” the album’s centerpiece, gallops like a horse in the Preakness (which AnCo namedrops, Marylanders that they are), spurred forward by booming tribal drums and propulsive piano chords. Beneath the antic tone, however, lies one of the band’s best love songs. Avey’s voice is full of boyish exuberance, but he gushes about how he’s been having “good days” since he met someone, and how his friends are tired of him talking about her so much. “Can I tell you that you are the purple in me?” he asks, in a moment of naked vulnerability: even in adulthood, this woman makes him feel unfettered joy.

5. “Kids on Holiday” (from Sung Tongs)

What makes Sung Tongs such a great album isn’t that it made the band more “polished”; it’s arguable whether it even did that in the first place. What it did was streamline Animal Collective, making them more accessible but no less weird. Case in point: “Kids on Holiday,” a sprawling, enigmatic travel song inspired by tour life. It’s one of the most evocative-sounding songs in their whole discography, with the patient strum of an acoustic guitar clouded by burbling guitar noise and a static-cloaked beat. It sounds like a slow drive down a desert highway, hallucinations swirling and dancing in the distance. But despite the occasional grotesque laugh (and the unfortunate use of a certain outdated word), this isn’t a bad trip at all: it’s a warm, welcoming song, detailing the surreal experiences and minor miracles of travel. “Here we come, Mister Airplane,” indeed.

4. “Summertime Clothes” (from Merriweather Post Pavilion)

Overshadowed by a certain song you’ll find at #2 on this list, “Summertime Clothes” finds Animal Collective operating at the peak of their melodic and lyrical powers. The song details a hot, sticky summer night that turns into a delirious escapade with a woman the narrator loves. The lyrics are brilliant here, evoking miserable heat (“my bed is a pool and my walls are on fire”), the need for release (“my bones have to move and my skin’s gotta breathe”), and the way even the smell of trash can make you feel alive. The song is outstanding musically, too, a propulsive synth pulse racing Avey through the verses before a sunshine-bright chorus bursts through the clouds. Best of all is when the song slows down after the bridge to foreground this perfect piece of intimacy: “Don’t cool off, I like your warmth.”

3. “Fireworks” (from Strawberry Jam)

Strawberry Jam is the bridge between early and later Animal Collective, more synth-heavy than its predecessors but no less unruly. It’s a bright, noisy, occasionally grating album, and while it’s an important part of Animal Collective’s discography I wouldn’t rank it among their best; except, of course, for “Fireworks.” Strawberry Jam’s centerpiece is a bittersweet marvel, a song that grapples with something greater than love or drugs. It’s a song about the ephemeral nature of life (“it passes right by me, it’s behind me, now it’s gone”), the exhausting effort required just to exist (“I can’t lift you up ‘cause my mind is tired”), the impossibility of escaping from yourself (“I’m only all I see sometimes”). But in the warm twilight, illuminated by fireworks, isn’t it worth it, just for a while? The plaintive, uplifting vocal hook, wordless but evocative, suggests that there’s happiness even after the sun sets.

2. “My Girls” (from Merriweather Post Pavilion)

For a certain kind of music listener, 2009 sounded like “My Girls.” A new decade was approaching, a new president ushered in a period of national optimism, and a generation of young adults were about to step tentatively into adulthood. There are few songs that make adulthood sound as comforting–as beautiful, even–as “My Girls,” Animal Collective’s best-known song. (This is the one Beyoncé borrowed from, by the way.) Over spacious, fluttering synth arpeggios, Panda Bear sings about how he doesn’t care about material things, and somehow manages to sound genuinely humble instead of patting himself on the back. All he wants, he says, is “a proper house”: four walls and adobe slabs for his wife and daughter. Even now that buying a house, proper or otherwise, is out of reach for so many people, there’s something touching about this song’s earnest simplicity. And besides that, it’s just plain fun: the “wooooo!” in the chorus is among the top five “woos” of the whole decade.

1. “Grass” (from Feels)

Behold: Animal Collective in a song. Birds chirp, and guitars ring like morning bells before dashing off in an ecstatic sprint. Avey Tare sings some of the best melodies he’s ever written, melodies that Brian Wilson could have written if he lived in the forest rather than the beach. He sounds expressive, urgent, happy. You can’t quite make out all the lyrics, but you can make out enough: “Dancing on the plains/and I shake your shoulder.” “I don’t make particular plans ‘cuz they don’t matter.” You think you know where the chorus is going; whatever you’re thinking, you’re wrong. With each smash of Panda Bear’s drums, Avey shrieks: “POW! POW! NOW! NOW! POW! POW! NOW! NOW!” The other band members harmonize beneath him, as though he’s doing something remotely normal. It could have been obnoxious; instead, it’s a moment of pure, boundless joy. Eventually, the song ends, but it still feels like springtime.