I Recommend...

Magic Eye

As music become seemingly more plentiful and actually more available, more and more people are asking themselves where to start. It's easy enough to download every single Neil Young album, but you have to play the right one first or the context of the rest could be forever skewed. So the question remains, what Neil Young album should you play first? (Answer: After the Gold Rush if you want to hear him explore the full emotional range of his nasal twang)

Q: What Radiohead album most expertly blends their experimentalism and songcraft?
A: In Rainbows which somehow has supplanted OK Computer & The Bends as both the best introduction to Jonny Greenwood & Co. and the best of their output.

Q: What Stones album captures their jaunty sexuality before it dissolved into caricature?
A: Probably Beggars Banquet, but nods to Aftermath for coming close.

Q: What Jay-Z album comes closest to supporting everything that he would say about his own greatness?
A: Resoundingly, The Blueprint - although the dirty little secret is that The Blueprint sounds much more ordinary now that everyone else sullied its, ahem, blueprint.

Like scientific hypotheses, these are simple questions with complex answers. And there should be some guidelines for recommending albums. Here goes:

1. Start at beginning and work forward.
It takes a musician her whole life to write her first album and sometimes 6 months to create the next one. So it makes sense that there's a humanist honesty in the gore of It's Dark and Hell is Hot that no other DMX album even approaches. Familiarity has not yet bred contempt, so you can belt "Yellow" out along with the jukebox without wondering what the hell Chris Martin is ever talking about. As the musician's introduction to the world, the songs on the first album will forever (and paradoxically) be fresher.

2. Don't get too slick or overthink it.
I have a friend that used to work at a record store. One day, an old white guy (his age and skin color matter here) approached him and asked my friend to recommend an album as his introduction to rap. You see, the old white guy decided - in 2006 - that it was time to see what this whole rap business was all about. One can only assume that this was on his list right behind "Stop by witch trials" and just before "Go to doctor for weekly bloodletting." Anyway, my friend led him over to the Dead Prez section and sent him home with Let's Get Free totally unprepared for the shock that awaited him. The next day, someone called the store to say that the old man had died of a heart attack in the middle of "Assassination."
OK, the last sentence was a lie. But, if that guy had asked me to recommend one rap album as an introduction to the genre, I would probably hand over Ready to Die or Illmatic or Black on Both Sides or Aquemini or something else unassailable and representative and hope that some of it stuck.

3. Choose the most "pop-y" album that still fits in the artists' overall body of work.
The idea that pop music or a pop sensibility is a guilty pleasure or a changeword for sellout confounds me. I don't think any artist sets out to create something that won't be appreciated by the masses - that's like aiming the starter's pistol at your foot. In fact, most of the backlash against popularity seems to come from the listeners, niche audiences and fringe elements that don't feel so interesting now that their favorite band is on iTunes' most downloaded list.


Even following these 3 general guidelines, I've strained to pick an introductory album for Animal Collective. Usually I rely on their breakout (as far as avant-garde noise pop bands "break out") album Feels to answer the question, but that always felt like a canned answer. While its definitely overflowing with striking moments, the dewy-eyed elation of much of Feels does not convey all that AC can be. The problem is that I don't believe that their work pre-Feels holds up from start to finish and Strawberry Jam is also too inconsistent, so Feels used to win by default. Luckily, Merriweather Post Pavilion now exists. From now on, my suggested listen for Animal Collective will be Merriweather Post Pavilion. I don't want to write about how it's the same Animal Collective, but more danceable or talk about what's so good about it.

I'm just recommending it as a starting point if you ain't up on things.


Here's some songs from Merriweather that I also recommend:
Animal Collective - Brother Sport
Animal Collective - My Girls