Buoys
by Panda Bear
Listen & Collect
Complete your collection or upgrade your listening experience.
Panda Bear bestography
Buoys is ranked 6th best out of 9 albums by Panda Bear on BestEverAlbums.com.
The best album by Panda Bear is Person Pitch which is ranked number 496 in the list of all-time albums with a total rank score of 3,433.
(N.B. Bestographies include all albums by an artist (and their variations), but do not include albums ranked outside the top 100,000).
Listen to Buoys on YouTube
Buoys track list
The tracks on this album have an average rating of 74 out of 100 (all tracks have been rated).
Buoys rankings
Calculated from aggregate positions across 60,000 charts (2 million album rankings). Click to see how the rankings are calculated (Last updated: 2 hours ago)
| Year | Source | Chart | Rank | Rank Score |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2026 | mttr-in-plc | Top 100 Music Albums of the 2010s | 43/100 | 12 |
| 2026 | Steppenwolf666 | Top 100 Music Albums of 2019 | 71/100 | 2 |
| 2026 |  Repo | Top 93 Music Albums of 2019 | 19/93 | 4 |
| 2026 |  RockyRaccoon | Top 100 Music Albums of 2019 | 10/100 | 5 |
| 2026 |  Norman Bates | Top 100 Music Albums of 2019 | 66/100 | 2 |
| 2026 | mttr-in-plc | Top 34 Music Albums of 2019 | 8/34 | 4 |
| 2026 | PapaShiz86 | Top 100 Music Albums of 2019 | 23/100 | 4 |
| 2026 | lanadeleswift | Top 100 Music Albums of 2019 | 29/100 | 4 |
| 2025 | AlienCinema | Top 99 Music Albums of 2019 | 39/99 | 3 |
| 2025 | ThuramThugood | Ranked - Panda Bear (USA) - all incl. collabs - Ranked | 9/14 | - |
| Total Charts: The total number of charts that this album has appeared in. | 38 | |||
| Total Rank Score: The total rank score. | 114 | |||
Buoys collection
Showing all 8 members who have this album in their collection
Buoys ratings
Average Rating = (n ÷ (n + m)) × av + (m ÷ (n + m)) × AVwhere:
av = trimmed mean average rating an item has currently received.
n = number of ratings an item has currently received.
m = minimum number of ratings required for an item to appear in a 'top-rated' chart (currently 10).
AV = the site mean average rating.
Showing latest 3 ratings for this album. | Show all 78 ratings for this album.
| Rating | Date updated | Member | Album ratings | Avg. album rating |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| ! | 07/11/2026 07:23 | Exist-en-ciel | 15,695 | 70/100 |
| ! | 04/04/2026 08:01 | TonySayers61 | 25,733 | 64/100 |
| ! | 01/01/2026 04:37 | Mmorrison22 | 2,174 | 77/100 |
Rating metrics:
Outliers can be removed when calculating a mean average to dampen the effects of ratings outside the normal distribution. This figure is provided as the trimmed mean. A high standard deviation can be legitimate, but can sometimes indicate 'gaming' is occurring. Consider a simplified example* of an item receiving ratings of 100, 50, & 0. The mean average rating would be 50. However, ratings of 55, 50 & 45 could also result in the same average. The second average might be more trusted because there is more consensus around a particular rating (a lower deviation).
(*In practice, some albums can have several thousand ratings)
This album has a Bayesian average rating of 65.0/100, a mean average of 64.1/100, and a trimmed mean (excluding outliers) of 64.1/100. The standard deviation for this album is 14.7.
Buoys favourites
Showing all 3 members who have added this album as a favourite
Buoys forum mentions
Repo 02/27/2025 18:36 in What album are you listening to? (cont.)
Jimmy Dread 01/05/2020 18:43 in Albums You Added To Your Collection Today
paladisiac 04/12/2019 17:05 in What album are you listening to right now?Buoys comments
Top Comments First | Newest First | Positive Sentiment First | Longest Comments First
(Showing comments with any number of votes. Manage Profile)
I'm a big fan of Panda Bear's stuff within and without Animal Collective but this really doesn't do it for me. It might be a lazy criticism but the main problem with the album are the vocal effects. I haven't got anything against these effects as a concept but they just don't work here. There's no emotions they specifically get across, for the most part they don't gel with the instrumentals and they just sound bad compared to Panda's vocals on his other projects.
The instrumentals are another issue, so many are sparse and similar sounding (the guitars in 'Dolphin', 'Home Free' & 'Cranked' are almost indistinguishable). Sparse instrumentals aren't necessarily a problem (they're brilliant on Young Prayer) but on Buoys they force the horrible sounding vocals to the forefront of every song. The title track and 'Inner Monologue' are the exceptions to this and they're also my favourite tracks, but live recordings of the former sound better than the studio cut.
Panda Bear records have grown on me quite significantly before, so I'll post an update if that happens, but I'm really not seeing it with this record right now.
Strangel TOP 100 COMMENTER 02/22/2019 07:21 | #232359
Saw him live in Melbourne recently and held out hopes of an impressive album release to follow. I’m a bit disappointed though. His live set was full and expansive with head spinning effects, both auditory and visual, taking you away on a bit of a trip. The album, however is a bit sparse and limited by comparison. It still captures a unique Pandabearish musical tapestry but it doesn’t dare to go where Person Pitch, for example, went... that’s for sure.
Panda Bear is an interesting and original artist when he is in the band Animal Collective ... I find his solo career quite bad and boring. I'm a big fan of Animal Collective, but, I do not know, I find Panda Bear's albums really empty and uninteresting. Although this album, "Buoys", has some good ideas, it remains in the continuity of Panda Bear's discography.
5/10
Quirky and intelligent. Production is sketchy, too much reliance on effects. The songs are strong though.
VictorVale 05/31/2019 13:15 | #236941
Camadas de som e atmosférica lisérgica, mas irregular. Boas idéias de percussão.
The top-voted comments get featured on our charts, Album of the Day, and the site newsletter.
