When it comes down to MGMT, I stand alone.
Most of my friends and relatives will have zilch to do with them.
Nothing personal, lack of interest.
Why did I become a fan, when did it all start?
Time To Pretend video.
Cheap, dumb fun. Flaming oceans, septic day-glo, bows and arrows, multitude dimensions.
The song was so alive.
Huge production, harsh synth lines, massive drums, sugar sweet melody.
Yet very perceptive, if you listened closely.
Barbed lyrics planned a manifesto, a cycle of cliches, the ultimate dead end rock dream.
The emptiness shone with a wretched, rank sheen.
I underrated their debut album, thought it was tasteless and irritating.
But the songs weirdly crept up on you.
Weird yeah, because they seemed so desperate to be liked. Crying ribboned puppies, mall rhapsodies.
Electric Feel and Kids burst with tongue in cheek exuberance.
The Youth spun and webbed a crystal elegance.
Weekend Wars and Of Moons, Birds & Monsters hinted at a rising intricacy.
Andrew VanWyndgarden is in his own informal, nonchalant way, a perfect rock star.
Like an actor playing a part in say, Dazed And Confused or Almost Famous.
Handsome, playfully laconic, high on adoration and chemicals.
A dosage of trash lapped up by a knowing, eager ingenue.
Surface and depth, dunked in the taunting revulsion of star seeking.
For Congratulations, MGMT have rummaged a thrift store of icons to pay homage. Two songs are entitled Brian Eno and Lady Dada's Nightmare. Jennifer Herrema shows up as a guest artiste, probably with the same level of enthusiasm as posing for a Calvin Klein campaign ad. All are clear examples of the twain between frivolity and intuitive diversion. Intellect dressed in blithe silliness. Early Eno dandified serious minded electronic innovation in a lexicon of glamorous irony. Herrema confounds the potential bourgeois with her ravishing redneck persona. Interviews, fizzed on red bull, revel in surf, Rocky IV, corporate metal and pledging allegiance to Dubya and ELO. Subversively low-brow, she launches a take no prisoners obstruction to her art which happens to be formidably cunning and extremely esoteric, when interpreted as a body of work. As for Madonna's wee apprentice, the pedagogy has yet to translate from the rapt, nihilistic pornographic image to cutting memorable tracks, but she is causing much worry for reactionaries, which proves the worth of her regal eroticism. A smudge of grotesque intent destroys the voyeuristic gaze. So how do these Brooklyn guys bare out, now they've laid their cards on the table?
Flash Delirium, the first 'single' woke up to a change in direction. To the directionless? No, a kaleidoscopic ride with the logic of a hallucinogenic trip. Fragments of the random constantly shifting, threatening to attain conclusion or resolve, instead choosing to reach out for that next special idea. The main hook is a delightful Beach Boys rip, which would suggest retro. But that in turn would suggest replication, not the dizziness that's so abundant here. One could refer to Zappa, that studio savvy insanity, but his lethal satire would never have allowed the title song itself, which is simply heart warming and gorgeous, if definitely a tad cynical. Are they still committed to providing a critique of their own practice? Or has all that self-awareness melted in a haze of wonder? We've made it now, this is the real us, sounds an all too familiar motto, worthy of groaning ridicule. At sixteen I said to a girl I wanted to impress 'This teacher doesn't care who we are'. 'Do we?' she replied. Her response left me trumped and bewildered. We are fated to pretend.
You won't find many records as wide eyed and melodically alluring this year. They have caught a certain golden mood when mod culture escaped into the summer of love. The songs stream into your unconsciousness, unfurling free association, falsetto contemplation, bubbling with a good natured vision of pop utopia. They aren't afraid of sentimentality now, which is a viable emotion when genuine. It can be seen as defeatist to emulate the past, but if your so wrapped up in it's daydreams, why begrudge a connection to creativity. MGMT's odes to their idols are humbled by a fey reverence, masking their virtuoso alterations of texture and structure. The epic Siberian Breaks is obviously the centre piece, a fascinating mosaic that refuses to settle for linearity. It's not easy to separate the other songs out since they all flow as a whole, and often seem to be conversing in a lucid dialogue. Lady Dada is an exception, where Stereolab's sophistication transfigures into Goblin shlock, what the Dadaist herself would make of it who knows. Dumping a case of the smarts, they've introduced a romanticized idealism which reverberates in nostalgia.
Sometimes moving on can mean traveling backwards.
Infinitely tender and troubled; The Letter, September Gurls, Holocaust, Take Care.