Though it wasn’t initially a hit, “My Girls” is Animal Collective‘s most iconic song. It was proclaimed the song of 2009 by both Pitchfork and Slant and finished in the Top 5 or Top 10 on other lists that year. It’s also far and away their most streamed song, with over three times as many streams as their next most streamed song. But it is, of course, uniquely Animal Collective which makes it hard to cover. That’s true of most of their music, of course – for all the media hype at the time, Animal Collective’s songs aren’t covered very often. It can be a bit of a challenge for bands with conventional instruments to replicate their sound.
The emo band Say Anything reunited a few years ago after a four-year hiatus. They released a new album last year and the fans aren’t happy about it. Things are different now for musicians, and everybody, than they were in the past. Many musicians are now very, very aware of what their fans and critics say about them, much more than they used to be. It’s in this context that it seems like the new Say Anything covers EP might be trolling the fans who didn’t like the last album. Maybe.
The new EP contains only three songs, a Strokes cover, a Yeah Yeah Yeahs cover, and this cover of “My Girls.” The reason some feel like this EP is a practical joke is probably the Strokes cover, a ploddingly slow, badly mixed cover of “Under Control” from 2003’s Room on Fire. It’s bad! So, um, don’t listen to that one, I guess.
But the cover of “My Girls” is really something. It’s aggressively difficult and I can’t help but wonder how many people who think it’s a troll didn’t make it through the first minute, which definitely sounds like it could be a joke. It begins with a loop and Say Anything singer and leader Max Bemis screaming the lyrics over the loop. It’s off-putting and I’m sure it’s designed to be that way.
But, 40 seconds in, the famous polyphonic vocal begins, giving some connection to the original song. (It comes in and out during the cover but is not a major feature.) Just after a minute in, some percussion hints at a little more form. And then, about 1:13 into the song, it really kicks into gear. The rest of the cover is as advertised: an aggressive screamo cover of perhaps the biggest experimental pop song of the aughts, featuring screaming and idiosyncratic singing, classic screamo breaks and plenty of kick drum.
Wait for it:
