MGMT blew up huge on the again of their 2008 debut Oracular Spectacular, an album powered to success by expansive electro-pop anthems Youngsters, Time To Fake and Electrical Really feel. However even by the point the document got here out, US duo Andrew VanWyngarden and Ben Goldwasser had already moved on from that sound and into one thing a bit of extra lo-fi and out-there. And their second document Congratulations, launched in 2010, was positively on the market, ditching the day-glo singalongs in favour of jangly, psychedelic rock and proggy experimentalism. It’s superb however lots of people on the time weren’t glad that MGMT not sounded just like the MGMT they wished. They’d been tricked!
Earlier this 12 months, the pair instructed this author in an interview for The New Cue about coping with the fallout of not writing Youngsters Half Two. “It’s humorous, as a result of I believe the portrait of it on the time was that it was a reactionary document on our half, that we have been railing in opposition to the reception that our first document bought or one thing,” stated Goldwasser. “For us, it is unusual, as a result of Oracular Spectacular was a second in time for the band once we’d already existed for some time. It was the primary time anyone heard about us however we would been messing round with totally different kinds of music and altering issues up for years. So Congratulations for us was simply doing the identical factor we would at all times been doing however we had extra sources to do it and will really take our time and correctly document an album with numerous devices and lean into that.”
VanWyngarden agreed. “Oddly, the reactionary a part of it, the half that required numerous psychological gymnastics and in addition simply was naively sudden on our finish got here after we had completed that and launched the album. We went into the album simply so excited and so juiced up from 2008. We have been like, ‘Now we’re gonna do that this wonderful factor the place we lease a home and we get all these classic devices and we get Sonic Increase and Jennifer Herrema, why not? Let’s do all these items.’ It was a extremely exuberant, psychedelic expertise to document it after which we launch it and persons are like, ‘These guys are attempting to destroy their success!’. And we’re like, ‘What? No, we’re simply making an attempt to make like a psychedelic album!’. So then we needed to be like, ‘oh, are we destroying our success?!’. That is what sort of tripped us up I believe.
The singer stated he may see the place some followers is perhaps coming from, although. “I perceive that in case you are a fan of a band they usually make a track like Youngsters, which is simply an electro pop banger, after which they give you a track that feels like Deep Freeze Mice, you are gonna be like ‘fuck you!’, however we weren’t fascinated about it like that. [pause] Possibly we have been a bit of bit. [bigger pause] I imply, to be trustworthy, we in all probability loved the truth that folks bought upset by it.”
The pair comically recalled a present on the peak of their buzz when the gigs have been packed out with followers able to occasion alongside to giddy anthems and acquired one thing else completely. “Pople simply wished to return to our live shows and see, like, Daft Punk or one thing, like, ‘That is gonna be an electro banger live performance!” VanWyngarden remembered. “After which we have been so fried and so exhausted and partying an excessive amount of and we had a extremely lengthy hair and we’d do a 15-minute model of Jesus And Mary Chain’s Teenage Lust. We have been actually, actually into it and I simply get pleasure from fascinated about the entire disenchanted folks within the crowd, simply being like, ‘Oh no, what is that this?!’.”
Congratulations is nice however right here, for previous time’s sake, is one in every of their bangers:
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