ANIMAL MY SOUL

What connects a little Dutch boy, an unknown American writer, and Animal Collective’s new album?

To answer this you first need to read an excerpt from the legend of Hans Brinker, the story of an 8 year old Dutch boy , also know as The Hero of Haarlem:

Just as he was bracing himself for a run, he was startled by the sound of trickling water. Whence did it come? He looked up and saw a small hole in the dike through which a tiny stream was flowing. Any child in Holland will shudder at the thought of a leak in the dike! The boy understood the danger at a glance. That little hole, if the water were allowed to trickle through, would soon be a large one, and a terrible inundation would be the result.

The boy spent a freezing  night with his  “chubby little finger” thrust in the hole until he was discovered the next morning and feted as a hero for saving the town from certain flooding.

This tale originates from a short story from 1865 by an obscure American writer Mary Elizabeth Mapes Dodge.  It has become a popular folk tale although, ironically.  not in The Netherlands.  A statue of Brinker was erected in the town of Spaarndam in 1950  largely as a sop to American tourists.

I remember being taught this story while at primary school. I forget the moral but I suppose  the symbolism of the boy’s bravery and quick thinking was meant to prove that even when the odds are stacked against us, courage and determination can save the day!

So what , you may cry, is the Brinker link with  Animal Collective’s  ‘Merriweather Post Pavillion’?

The story came to mind following the leak of this record – a trickle that has quickly become a flood!

As you will almost certainly know, this much anticipated album, the band’s 9th full length, is scheduled for CD & digital release by Domino Records on  January 20th (Jan. 12th UK/Europe).  This is preceded by a deluxe vinyl release and a series of listening parties to milk the buzz as much as possible.

While i-tunes will carry the album,  members of the other big legal downloading site e-music  has been told that the release is likely to be delayed, presumably with the aim of boosting sales of physical copies of the record.  I guess they count on eager fans hot footing to their local record store (if they can find one!) or get a copy mail order from on line dealers.

Then again, you could simply download a copy from a p2p site like Soulseek or e-mule!  Actually you don’t even need to be savvy with these share sites because a patient search surf of music blogspots will pay dividends too.

Purists may argue that the sound quality of these mp3s is no match for the original vinyl/cd version. This may be so, but given that the vast majority of us listen to music on portable devices or bog standard stereos this is hardly likely to be off putting.

The ease with which you can find (illegal) copies of newly released albums has escalated over the past decade.  I used to buy an average of 10 Cds a month but now I may download this many in a day!  It gets to be a drug as the more you listen to, and read about new bands, the more connections you find.

Animal Collective did better than most in plugging the dike until December 31st.  The fact that the leak came on this date is evident form the ‘New Weird America’ group on Last.Fm which I set up in 2005.  Up until then the number of those listening to the band was on a par with Radiohead (who always top most of the Indie music related group sites).  The new year figures showed a near doubling of the listeners and if you go to the Animal Collective page on Last.Fm it shows that the top listens are all tracks off the new record.

The urban myth of Hans Brinker may show that one flood can be halted but when it comes to flooding the Internet with leaked music, the record companies are fighting a losing battle.

I’d be surprised if ten years from now CD purchases have anything but a marginal impact on record company  revenue.

I hereby confess to having Merriweather Post Pavillion on my hard disk. (I’ve also burned a copy to listen to in the car). Very nice it is too.

I apologise to Geologist, Panda Bear and Avey Tare of Animal Collective  for depriving them of some of my hard earned cash but I sleep a little easier with the thought that I have actually paid money for four of their previous albums and I even bought a T-shirt from their stand at a show they did in Bologna two years back!

So what is the moral to be drawn from all this?

While you may stop a flood with a chubby finger in Holland you can’t stop a Tsunami wave in Cyberspace!

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to inundate (verb) inundation (noun):
1. To cover with water, especially floodwaters.
2. To overwhelm as if with a flood; swamp
e.g.:- If the water were allowed to trickle through, a terrible inundation would be the result.
-The theater was inundated with requests for tickets.
The internet was inundated with leaked copies of Animal Collective’s new album.