Grizzly midlife reflections

In January 2009, Animal Collective released Merriweather Post Pavilion, a kaleidoscopic burst of psychedelic pop that felt like a cultural detonation.

- Sanjoy Narayan

Named after a Maryland venue steeped in hometown nostalgia for two of the band's four members, Avey Tare (given name: David Portner) and Geologist (Brian Weitz), the album crystallised years of experimentation into something transcendent.

With Panda Bear (Noah Lennox) and Tare trading vocals over Geologist's shimmering synths and samples, tracks such as My Girls married ecstatic hooks to a reverb-drenched, electronic sprawl.

Merriweather wasn't just critically acclaimed, it marked the band's commercial peak. The album hit #13 on the Billboard 200. For a group born in the DIY ethos of Baltimore's underground, this was a leap into the zeitgeist.

The eight albums that came before were either too avant-garde for their time, or pushed the boundaries of experimentation a bit too hard, and appealed only to a sharply focused cult of fanatical followers, not the mainstream.