Artist: Animal Collective
Album: Merriweather Post Pavilion (2009)
Track: “Summertime Clothes” (Dam-Funk Remix)

I was tempted to not include this Merriweather Post Pavilion on my Best of 2009 due to it’s ubiquity on other year end lists - seriously, it’s on every. single. one. - but I would be flat-out lying if I left it off. According to the official Impala Chart (that is, the amount of times I’ve played an album in my Chevy), Animal Collective may have scored the top album of the year. OK, part of that might be that was released in the first week of January. But in all seriousness, this is a seriously fantastic album that deserves all the end of year accolades that have been showered upon it.

My favorite track has to be “My Girls,” with “Summertime Clothes” as a runner-up. “My Girls” just has too many cool things going for it: the slow, programmed start, a sudden tempo change (maybe my favorite moment of the album), cymbal splashes, and a myriad of other effects and sounds that end up in sync by the very end. It’s enthralling. The best way to sum it up: the utterly human “Owwww!” before “I don’t mean to seem like I care about material things/Like a social status.”

(As a bonus, the audio provided is Dam-Funk’s remix to “Summertime Clothes,” tied with Waajeed’s remix of Mayer Hawthorne’s “Green Eyed Love” as remix of the year.)

(I just said remix three times in one sentence. Yikes.)

Tracklist:

01. In the Flowers
02. My Girls
03. Also Frightened
04. Summertime Clothes
05. Daily Routine
06. Bluish
07. Guys Eyes
08. Taste
09. Lion in a Coma
10. No More Runnin’
11. Brothersport