Panda Bear: "Boys Latin"
Noah Lennox grew up in Baltimore, so one would assume “Boys Latin” refers to the tony college prep school where the sole admissions requirement seems to be keeping the same haircut as Lennox from K-12. If that’s the case, it’s a much more obtuse namedrop from Lennox’s Maryland upbringing than Merriweather Post Pavilion. The latter was a rare statement of bold intent from Animal Collective—an acknowledgment that, for a certain “indie”-leaning listener, they were a parallel to Lennox’s beloved Grateful Dead or Phish, a band-as-lifestyle capable of filling outdoor arenas with lysergic, communal uplift.
The second single from Panda Bear Meets the Grim Reaper, though… If we’re to believe its list of distinguished alumni, Lennox didn’t even go to that school. Perverse pop auteur John Waters and numerous members of the lacrosse bro ne plus ultra Stanwick family did. So if you want to get deep, brah, the burbling, bumbling electronics of “Boys Latin” does offer a place where two people like that could find a mutual meeting spot between transgression and regimentation. As with many of Lennox’s vocal hooks, this one can seem like a melodic scale that only exists within his own head—the sort of thing you hum to yourself in AP Calc rather than choir practice, though the authority figures in both would tell you to get your head out of the clouds. It’s a multitude of joyous emotions distilled into cool, pure sound, a great accompaniment for a freaky video and recreational drug use—usually the only real unifier between the freaks and jocks in high school before they put on their public act of being sworn enemies again.
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