The Smiley Smile Message Board

Am I the only one who thinks Merriweather Post Pavilion could someday be regarded as the Sgt Pepper or Pet Sounds of the early 21st Century?

Isn't it already?

There is no Sgt Pepper of our generation - we don't even have a Beatles, and I reckon we'll never have a 'Beatles' esque phenomena again. I don't think there's been that sort of cross-generational, 9 to 99, walk up to an Amazonian tribe and say 'Elvis' and they'll go 'thanguverrmuch', trillion selling pop culture icon (Elvis/ Beatles, struggling to think who else is that HUGE) since Michael Jackson. And it'd been about 20 years since he was relevant artistically, and well, now he's dead.

Besides the point, MPP is crap  ;D I prefer Strawberry Jam if I HAD to listen to AC, but the entire aesthetic is too noisy in a digital, compressed, shiny fashion. And their voices. I hate them.

I'm struggling to think of any record that defines, well, the last ten years or the 00's, for instance. The consumption of music is so fragmented and transitory now, I don't think you could have the 'everyone on planet earth owns a copy of Thriller' moment now.

I sort-of agree with you on this, but that's why I added the qualifier "of the 21st Century." As you noted, given how fragmented the music biz has become this century, it would probably be hard for even a super-duper fantastic album to ever do as well as a Beatles album did these days. Or a Thriller. So ... I meant relative to the times.

I don't like SJ nearly as much. I even like Centipede Hz better.

I don't mind their voices. Plus, they're so covered up with electronics you can't tell what they really sound like anyway. ;)

I think MPP is a very good album, but I don't think it's necessarily on the same level as those records you mentioned.

On a related note, I think Panda Bear is probably the only person who's talented in that band. Maybe it's because of how much he takes (or tries to) from Brian Wilson and his song aesthetics. A lot of MPP is pretty reminiscent of The Beach Boys.

MPP is good. But I prefer Sung Tongs so much more.

MPP is the best AC album as far as song consistency goes. Every song on that record is a pop classic. All the AC albums before that  contained one or two experimental drone songs that comprised their momentum. Even slow songs like "No More Runnin" have vocal melodies that would make most composers jealous.

I honestly think AC is pretty much done as a creative force, collectively (pardon the pun). The chief songwriters, Avey Tare and Panda Bear,  have been putting much more energy into their side projects and solo careers in recent years than in AC and the release rate of new AC material has slowed to a trickle. Up to Merriweather, they usually put out an album every year and a half or so. In contrast, they haven't even debuted new songs live since Centipede Hz, something they generally do around the release of a new album.

Right now, we have a new Panda Bear and Avey Tare records on the horizon. The latter is reportedly working on both a solo album and an album with his new band Slasher Flicks. Panda has been playing sets of all new material, something he always does at the beginning of an album release cycle.

I expect the Avey stuff to be released first. Panda usually performs and releases singles of his new material long before it materializes into an album. He was playing songs from Person Pitch (2007) as early as 2004, for example. We'll probably get at least one single this year, though.

I personally never heard what people were talking about when they said AC reminded them of the beach boys until I listened to Time To Get Alone recently.
It made me like the song a lot more.

Really? Avey Tare writes almost all the band's material.

The Beatles' spirit of joy and enthusiasm and adventure is alive in AC.

I love AC, Sung Tongs is my favourite, with MPP a close second, but everything they've put out is worth my time, and there are gems scattered on it all, from something like the People EP to the sounds of Transverse Temporal Gyrus. An incredible band.

As for solo stuff, i haven't heard it all. Panda Bear's Person Pitch bested Avey Tare's Pullhair Rubeye, but in round two (if you will), Avey's Down There is better than Tomboy.

I've heard online snippets of some of Panda Bear's new stuff and it sounds incredible, elements of Beach Boys and Daft Punk, hip hop beats. Can't wait.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Iw2ssNnA_Es

'Floridada' - new AC!  Pure Beach Boys to these ears.  And thatr's a good thing.

Given the success of the Taylor Swift's and Adele's these days, I suppose I should retract that 2-year-old statement ... somewhat. Not sure if those two particular artists have made anything I would regard as a "super-duper fantastic album," but obviously there's gonna be a lot of people who disagree with me on that!

I dig the new song.

The new song is too good, most exciting thing they've put out since Water Curses to my ears. Bridge section in particular is straight Beach Boys

New record Painting With spinning now.. So far so good. Seems they're back on track. I used to be such an AC fanatic, but it's only been Panda Bear solo for me in the past few years. Merriweather Past Pavilion, Sung Tongs, Strawberry Jam - as well as Danse Manatee & Here Comes the Indian - remain classics.

Meh, I thought the new album was a big disappointment.

Care to elaborate? :-\ I thought it was fun. Joyous. Maybe not as 'deep' as some stuff 10 years ago, but still..