To be fair, changing an album's name 17 years after its release is pointless

Album Rating: 4.0

not if the album was called "Here Comes the Indian"

Album Rating: 4.0

Ugh. This has been a game of title tennis for at least a year.



I changed it back to the correct name.

Album Rating: 3.5

Neo-Psych music’s loving relationship to orientalism as well as arguably not-quite-orientalist “tribal” aesthetics is interesting and not even saying I always don’t like it, but I can def see how AC wanted to even so long after the fact distance themselves from the association (with psych’s tendency towards those things, obviously not with native Americans or anything)



Like I get thinking it’s pointless (Altho as one of the site’s resident psych guys I do wonder what you make of some of the stuff I reference) but idk if you’re a grown ass man and your (very good) album of white boy woop woops is called Here Comes the Indian I get wanting to dispel that the cultural sleight of hand is “ok,” and to show you’ve grown or w/e. Mostly the former tho would be wack for that to keep being a thing tbh kinda

Album Rating: 3.5

Ark is a bad name but animal collective also have an album called Centipede Hz so and HCTI was a dumb name so w/e they just got funny decisions for seemingly monumental works/tasks

Album Rating: 4.5

Haven’t listened to this in prob like 6 yrs dang

best anco

Album Rating: 3.5

I always forget what the diff is between the closer and, like, “two sails”

Oh yeah, HCtI is an awful name, no doubt there, but changing a name so far in the future seems more like a publicity stunt than actually righting a wrong. The album's been pressed for almost 2 decades...it took them that long? And if they realized years earlier, then why'd they wait until they're doing a fancy re-release of their discography? They want people to still buy and consume Ark, that's the reason

They did donate a portion of royalties to an indigenous rights charity, which is admirable (especially since they've made money for using plenty of native music influence.) I give them that

AND HOLY SHIT while looking up info to back my opinion, I found out Animal Collective used an image of a fucking mammy on one of their EPs. This band might just be racist tbh

Album Rating: 4.0

that was People

People EP,

and they changed from a mammy babysitting two white children to two cheetahs

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/People_(Animal_Collective_EP)

Album Rating: 4.0

and yeah they've changed that too. avey also no longer uses the r-word when singing "kids on holiday", instead he opts for the totally less problematic "cripple" instead lol

Album Rating: 3.5

I dont feel super strongly in one direction for sure because now that I think of it there are a lot of instances where I feel upset about something being changed retrospectively in this manner. for some reason for animal collective changing the name of here comes the indian it kinda doesnt bother me and maybe seems like the right thing to do



it's def out of self-interest in some part so I get being annoyed by it I guess? I think

"Interesting. How do you feel about them changing the photo? “Pointless,” or?"

tbh just discontinue the release. It's obscure, contains 4 songs (18 mins) that could easily be thrown on a rarities comp. But I guess if they're gonna alter a racist album title, might as well alter racist EP art. I guess that's cuz they can squeeze more money out of it if they keep the release around

I just don't see how altering their titles and art does anything to actually benefit the people they were being racist toward, like you brought up tearing down confederate statues, but that CLEARLY has direct benefits (most of them were put up in the 1940s-60s to intimidate civil rights activists (look it up, the majority are less than 100 years old) and by taking them down it's sending a message to the oppressors that their intimidation didn't work and that they overcame. I don't even think even as an extreme example that matches some dumb indie band retroactively changing their racist (and I guess also ableist, thanks Jas) work for PR.

Album Rating: 3.5

I dunno I dont like that they took the michael jackson simpsons episode completely out of circulation. lol

Album Rating: 4.0

"I just don't see how altering their titles and art does anything to actually benefit the people they were being racist toward"



pretty sure proceeds from both this and People go towards indigenous rights groups and the Equal Justice Initiative

Album Rating: 3.5

jasdevi is 100% right fwiw

Album Rating: 4.0

" dunno I dont like that they took the michael jackson simpsons episode completely out of circulation"



that episode has been cited as an example of Jackson's PR stunts at the time to try and reclaim his public image in the wake of the paedophilia allegations. imo it was an attempt on Jackson's part to effectively "groom" the public conscious into mentally exhonorating him as simply a "misunderstood eccentric" instead of, you know, a paedophile. and in this sense, i completely understand why disney would be uncomfortable keeping this in circulation

"pretty sure proceeds from both this and People go towards indigenous rights groups and the Equal Justice Initiative"

I pointed out half of this (the indigenous rights groups part) earlier and I agree that this was admirable of them.

To play devil's advocate... what if they still put part of proceeds towards these organizations and then didn't rename/re-art the work? Would the net good be lower or the same?

In the case of The Simpsons episode, why not do what Looney Tunes did?

For all of their racist/controversial cartoons, they now put a disclaimer before it:
https://i.imgur.com/U8UZyVI_d.webp?maxwidth=760&fidelity=grand