This is the first thing I’ve ever read by Hipster Runoff, and I’m impressed. If he wasn’t so verbose, I’d probably go back and read his archives, but dude, that shit is long! His hyper-meta-meta-consciousness might not be for everybody, but he makes a lot of interesting points about what it means to be a b(r)and in the FIRST!-dominated internet world today. Animal Collective is a Band Created By/For/On the Internet:

Animal Collective is an important band because they are one of the first ‘transcendent’ independent bands to gather most of their acclaim on the internet. While they probably had a few recordings before every one turned utilized the internet to find the newsest, alt-est music, you can’t really deny that they grew at a healthy rate in internet-acclaim-perception over the past couple of years. If you grow too fast, you will be discarded as inauthentic (The Black Kids). If you grow 2 slowly, no1 ever really identifies with ur brand and think that you are just a newsbit that has been around 2 long for no good reason. The internet is a difficult environment in which to grow because virality rates are difficult to control.

Most ‘revolutionary’ bands that douchebaggy music blogs+news sources+magazines cover have a life before and after the internet. Kind of like college rock bands around the year 2000. Bands like INTERPOL that were ‘good’ but then had to find a new life in an inauthentic altradio context. Or other bands kind of shriveled up and died after the internet made bands ‘release content+memes more frequently’ and some bands were unable to respond. If you think about AnCo, much of their ‘acclaim’ has come in the post-p4k era. Probably gaining a lot of steam back when Pitchfork anointment meant a little bit more to the ‘standard pre-altbro music fan’ who still J.O.ed while reading p4k/there weren’t as many other sources that were ‘unearthing’ bands at the time.

Some might consider the “texty” spelling conventions a little too precious (or something), but it’s hard to deny the awesomeness of a sentence like this: “If u can’t tour + get a room of bros to buy t-shirts and vinyl albums for bros who don’t have record players, then u can’t ‘make it big’ in altville.”

Previously: Forkfest 2008 (photos); Strawberry Jam review; and GLONO first mentioned Animal Collective way back in 2004 in a review of Little Steven’s Underground Garage Fest (“The waitress and her girlfriend were giggly from 3pm shots, but they eagerly described plans for a night of heavy folk druidism at the bloodied hands of Brooklyn’s Animal Collective.”).