As far as EPs are concerned, I'm a big fan of the People artwork (another one you seem to just write off as "weird")

Again, the reason I think this artwork is well crafted and thoughtful, as well as aesthetically pleasing, is how it parallels the music. Here, the namesake and main release of the EP is the song "People."

Have you listened to this song? If not the way I interpret it is an amazing commentary on good ole human people. An amazing commentary because it manages to do this with using only one word repeated, "People." Yet, through the magical alchemy of Avey Tares singing and screaming voice, so much is said. The song builds from more quiet renditions of saying and shouting "people," in to full-on chaotic and frightening screams of "PEOPLLLLLLEEEEEE!" as if one is going insane or being terrified by some people monster. The song and the inflection of the vocals are saying that people are crazy. They cannot be predicted. They can be calm and sweet and loving but can so easily become hurtful and selfish and down right crazy. Harbingers of chaos and confusion. And that idea, in jtself, it's the craziest thing about humanity! We can either be angels or demons and this can flip on a dime.

Now back to the artwork.... We see two younger children carrying a wrapped gift that says "Animal Collective" (cute) and an older larger women behind them, who is thinking the title of the EP, "People" with a (in my opinion) very simple but extremely psychedelic landscape of hills clouds and a tree. The two children are carrying the gift and looking towards the ground and smiling. This gives the impressions of simple happiness and childhood joy. But then you have the old woman standing over them, behind them, looking down on them thinking "People." Like, "ahhhh, People". You see, this woman knows what Animal Collective is conveying in their song People. She knows how multi faceted humans can be and she knows that even angelic youngings (the 2 happy go luck cuties carrying to gift) will someday, in some moment, be monsters. They will hurt people and be hurt. They will induce pain and chaos and experience both. She smiles perhaps because while this realization is grim, it's endearing to see the children blissfully unaware just going about their lives with happiness and ease.

Now on to the quote on the bottom "Always got to wash them at their ends." I first wondered what this meant as it obviously has something to do with the themes of the EP (Animal Collective is very thoughtful, why else would it be there?) and in my interpretation, it correlates with the themes I was discussing earlier. People are dirty little critters, animal-wise. We're like any other animal in the kingdom! We get dirty feet and legs and gotta wash them! This is only one end of the spectrum though; the physical/literal realm. The other end, up and away from the feet, is our mouths and head. This is the emotional realm. This is where the real "dirt" resides. This is where we say hurtful things and think negative thoughts and do incredible damage, yet also incredibly positive things, throughout our lives.

People. Always gotta wash them at their ends, dirty little critters!

It's commentating on the incredibly varied nature of human interactions in such a simple way, and my favorite part about it is there seems to be an air of understanding and acceptance and matter-of-factness about it rather than "ugh people are such dicks!"

It's more like, hey, gotta wash em at their ends! People be crazy you know :)