MGMT - There! I said it!

Where to start with MGMT. So many things annoy me with this band i don't even know where to begin. Firstly, their name is dumb and it's derived from the even stupider name, "Management." Secondly, their album cover, costumes and over all demeanor smacks so hard of trying to be different from the so-called mainstream that they are pretty much an oxymoron. Note to MGMT: you are the fucking mainstream.

This fabricated facade is even more infuriating due to the fact that it's already been done in the 80's, the record executives are just re-hashing a marketing plan to people who are too young too remember the glam-rock days of old. Well, who'd want to remember them anyway? But still, this is most likely the reason no one over the age of 25 has paid any attention to MGMT - they are a collage of every 80's style the world has since tried to destroy, most of which can be found at any local opp shop. My point being, they're not that fucking unique.

The majority of my reluctance to join their world-dominating cult though stems from the simple fact that their music is not as good as everyone says it is. Seriously, the second half of the album is like drinking sour milk, you don't notice how bad it is until it's halfway down your throat...but even this wouldn't be as bad if they didn't cock tease their listeners with momentary flashes of brilliance that promise so much more than they deliver.

Opening track Time To Pretend is harmless if not a bit mundane. It has all the predictable weird effects on keyboard synths and electro-tampered vocals that (Yawn, sorry) have been playing in shit indie nightclubs through even shittier sound systems for years; the only difference is that these guys are on a major record label and have a higher publicity budget. Add this predictability to the fact that the lyrics are based on the lives of Pete Doherty and Kate Moss. The band they will say they are trying to be ironic or that they're making social comment. But they are still dedicating the first song on their debut CD to one of the most over-rated. fuckwit musicians in modern music and his paper-thin, air head model ex-girlfriend. Both of these people should not ever be the focus of a song or any other form of popular culture, it's just demeaning to art.

Weekend Wars is one such flash of brilliance I mentioned before, a four minute lightning flash of brilliance that makes you hope a storm is coming. The tampered vocals are gone, the over-produced sound is gone and the lyrics are semi-decent. Pretty much all of the
things that hampered the opening track disappear, replaced by a dreamy chorus and a rollicking beat that saves first impressions. Hopes are high at this point.

Despite having a name that makes it sound like a Jonestown hymn or something those Hillsong people would have printed on their shirts, The Youth is a perfectly fine and forgettable third track. But even right now as i write this, i can't remember a single lyric or what it sounds like, so I'm going to have to go put it on before I write anymore...that itself says a lot doesn't it? Oh yeah now i remember, more tampered vocals, more weird noises. Surprise surprise! The verses are shithouse, incredibly slow and meaningless but the chorus is somewhat catchy if not slightly grating and a wee bit annoying. Still, the overall song is inoffensive, a neutral song that some critics would call a waste at this point in an album. In hindsight, it sadly might be a highlight of the album, funny how things turn out like that...

Single Electric Feel is good. Yes i agree it's good. It's kooky, it's cool, it hits the right edges, but it is you that have made this song shit. Yes, you. Plus the fact that them singing about electric eels reminds me of a weird sex show i saw in Thailand once. But mostly its the public, with its unjust, over-emphasised glory and hype leading it to be played on 6 different radio stations simultaneously that have killed it. So thanks, thanks a lot for that, i hope you teeny boppers with your fucking ringtones are fucking happy now because it's dead. It's in the ground and for people like me, it's never coming back again. You can dig it up and throw this jewel in the shitpile that is the rest of the album because i can't stand hearing it anymore!

The only thing else on the album that comes close to the gold MGMT fans must see covering the CD is the song Kids. Now this is the part where all the indie-not-so-indie-lovers will complain, "That's like the BEST song on the album!" It's over five fucking minutes and has an eight-bar melody. It's too fucking long! Yes the intro is cool and i dig it as well, i definitely think it's very catchy, but isn't anyone else sick of it after 5 minutes of repetitiveness? The band milked it, plain and simple. If it was three and a half minutes long i would be agreeing with all the skinny-jean wearing, deathly-white looking boys who swear by this so-called anthem - but that extra 2 minutes just shows that MGMT do not have enough experience in this bizz to know when a song is going to drag on. An amateur mistake that wastes the potential for a classic song.

Look to be honest i don't want to even waste my time writing about how mediocre the rest of the album is. The last five songs drop off considerably from the edge MGMT had been resting on uneasily so far in the album. Of Moons, Birds & Monsters is the only song of note that manages to pass a test of whether i can listen to a song all the way through. It should be commended for that, it comes to a pretty cool climax, if not taking its sweet time to get there.

While there is definitely room for improvement, the band shows hints that they can make a cool song, but this album doesn't deliver more than one. As for all their unjustified praise and adoration, well i have to come back to my prophet Alex Turner who said "I guess all that's left, is the proof that love's not only blind but deaf." (Sigh) Maybe I'm getting to old for this sort of thing.

C