“Animal” by the Neon Trees

This song was one of the first of a wave of Indie Rock crossover hits that has lasted close to two years, and while it’s definitely one of the weaker songs to ride that wave, I suppose it’s decent enough. The fact that it’s comparatively lightweight for Indie Rock isn’t really the problem…so were its two most immediate peers in that field, Owl City’s “Fireflies” and Foster the People’s “Pumped Up Kicks”, and they’ve both aged quite well. The real problem is that it’s just not that interesting a song, especially when you compare it to the Indie crossover classics from the next few years like “We Are Young”, “Somebody That I Used To Know”, “Pompeii”, or “Shut Up and Dance”. It’s really just a fairly typical sex jam of the era, only set to Killers-style retro-New-Wave instead of processed club beats—pleasant, but it doesn’t have a lot of actual content.

Verdict: Okay, but not interesting enough to really stand out in the Indie Rock crossover field.

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