Merriweather Post Pavilion is the eighth studio album by the American band Animal Collective, released on January 6, 2009 by the label Domino Records. The album is named after the Merriweather Post Pavilion amphitheater, located in Columbia, Maryland, where artists such as Pink Floyd, Jimi Hendrix, Janis Joplin and Led Zeppelin have performed. The band worked with producer Ben H. Allen, attracted by their "low-end specialization" and their eclectic musical tastes. Animal Collective used samplers as their main instruments, writing songs without guitar after Deakin (Josh Dibb, guitarist ) will temporarily leave the group. Merriweather Post Pavilion is considered by many as the band's most accessible album, as well as its magnum opus. It combines experimental tendencies with pop music conventions and moves away from the freak folk that characterized the group's earlier works. Rolling Stone described the album's sound as a "[combination of] melodies that are carried away with second-hand samples, Beach Boys melodies tossed in layers and crispy sound."
Considered the most critically acclaimed album in 2009 by the Metacritic site, Merriweather Post Pavilion has been received with universal acclaim and went on to sell around 200,000 copies according to Nielsen SoundScan. Songs list
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