Congratulation to MGMT for their upcoming album

Been listening to "Congratulations" a bit more. I think I like it even more than the first album. It's really grown on me. The title track is still my favorite but "I Found a Whistle" and "Lady Dada's Nightmare" are my current fave jamz. This record is far better than it gets credit for.

Also about 70% of "Siberian Breaks" is top notch!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GWawd9Vvpb8&feature=player_embedded

Yes, Virginia, they are covering the Clean.

covering the Clean's not making them any more credible

As predicted, MGMT's oddball album isn't exactly tearing up the charts-- it currently sits at number 166 on Billboard's Top 200, three spots behind Ariel Pink's Before Today. Weird times.

covering the Clean's not making them any more credible

Not making whom any more credible: the Clean or MGMT?

congratulation to mgmt for covering the clean

Not making whom any more credible: the Clean or MGMT?

well, considering The Clean have about 30 great songs as appose to 1 ok one, who do you think?

mgmt late night tales has an excellent track list... v impressed for them including the bix

wow yeah Laughing Boy by Copey! love that one.

New album coming out. I re-listened to "Congratulations" recently and while it didn't wow me as much as when it came out I still really really like it.

"Congratulation" in this thread title always made me lol

Aw hell, "Someone's Missing" is probably my fave track of theirs. But mostly just for the Jackson 5-style ending.

http://pitchfork.com/reviews/tracks/15334-alien-days/

Hard to tell if this is a proper indicator of what the next LP will sound like since it was a Record Store Day release, but it's, uhh...pretty lame.

Whatever, though. Not going to begrudge these guys for going down the road of their choice, but I have better things to do.

I like it it's good

i like it too. i'm glad they are building on their last album instead of retreating back to a more accessible sound. tbh, i loved congratulations from the start and i didn't understand what people were talking about when they said it was "weird" or "challenging." to me it seemed like a really great psych pop album. i listened to it a zillion times.

i mean "plants...as far as i know/ are still bending...towards the light!" is a classic lyric.

This sounds alright.
Could do without the Fridmann/Lips drum sound, but it's nice that it isn't a double back to what made them cake early on.

Liked the last album quite a bit... never really enjoyed the first album.

'Congratulations' is the 'Neither Fish Nor Flesh'/'Beauty Stab' of the p4k era, right?

more like the Don't Stand Me Down

The last album was really great. Hoping they come up w more good melodies/psych-outs.

yea congratulations is a sick record, hope it gets another chance as time goes on

not optimistic about new record though, getting slammed/poo-pooed/ignored for going out on a limb and making a weird(er) album after a pop smash seems to do a number on a band's head... (blue album to pinkerton to green album, mellon collie to adore to machina). they'll either over or under compensate

it sounds like these guys are desperate to be weird. which sucks because they can actually write some great pop songs but they don't do the weird thing very well imo.

^ this

I'm fine with weird/outsider stuff when it doesn't sound labored.

i love congratulations, but this song sounds very dull

it's like they want to be ariel pink but are going about it backwards. they should write a whole bunch of great catchy songs but perform and record them in a weird amateur bedroom kind of way instead of writing weak meandering songs and then doing these big slick productions around them.

bleah, this song is horrid. did the last album sound like this, like doilied-up indie psych?

wk otm

www.ilxor.com/ILX/ThreadSelectedControllerServlet?boardid=41&threadid=96168#unread

oh you made a new thread: MGMT (s/t 2013)

i don't agree with this "trying to be weird" narrative. congratulations had eccentric elements, but the hooks were there; songs like "song for dan treacy" "someone's missing" and the title track are total earworms. i think one of the things people responded to in oracular spectacular was this sort of groovy wiccan undercurrent, which was way more 60s than most 2000s indie, and i think they just are continuing to refine that san francisco sound. i mean "i found a whistle that works like a charm/ and when my noose is tied i can blow it/ and fall right into your arms / fifteen centuries of dissolution and grief/ and return a yellow trickster and a thief." classic psychadelic Odin reference, the god of the hanged. the album reminds me of new hope pennsylvania.

people talk about this album like it's jandek or something but in actuality it is a total joy. i hope they get "weirder" with each new release. also, this isn't noted very often, but the production on congratulations is way better than on oracular spectacular, which sounds really bright and metallic for some reason. i want to hear it remastered.

I think people are talking about the new song, not Congratulations. You think the new song has hooks? I never got into congrats, but my favorite songs on oracular are The Handshake and Weekend Wars which are both somewhat adventurous but still great pop songs.

I mean I guess The Handshake hinted that they were going to screw the label over and spend their advance on acid, but this is not the way to go about it. You can make an uncommercial "fuck you" album that's still great, but somehow I don't think this new one is going to be their Dopesmoker.

maybe not "hooks" on that one, but it seems pretty straightforward melodically and not at all "out there". what it reminds me of most is yoshimi-era flaming lips. idk, it is like camp psychadelia and it sounds really into what it is, if that makes sense.

i just think their music is fun, and their second album moreso than the first one, much as i love "Kids." this song seems like it is in a similar vein to congratulations.

is this album widely considered a masterpiece yet?

this is the best album of the 2000s. that's an exaggeration, but seriously. I'm going to continue to flog this particular horse until it magically comes back to life.

which of the three?

congratulations is light years better than either oracular spectacular or the new, self-titled one.

never got into them. is it different from oracular?

ya. congrats rules. wouldn't say top 20 tho even of the decade
top 50 tho

it's pretty different than oracular. the song structures are generally looser and there are more surprises. but the main thing that's brilliant about it is the way the band plays with the album's inevitable failure in the wake of oracular spectacular, a fluke hit they would never again live up to. i mean, there are few moments in music journalism more memorable to me than mgmt essentially bracing the new york times for disappointment when they were profiled as part of the promotion for the album. similar sentiments abound in the album: "the hot dog is getting cold / you'll never be as good as the rolling stones." "dead in the water / it's not a paid vacation/... yet all is well if the ticket sells." on one level, this kind of thing is just funny, a way of trolling the whole media cycle they were caught up in. but there are also anxieties about artistic belatedness on display that seem more pointed and serious. "we'll always be a step behind him, he's brian eno."

i guess mgmt had already explored their fatigue at the idea of being pop stars in "time to pretend". "congratulations" takes this further, and in more personal directions. i mean, the closing track -- which is the source of the album's title -- is basically a fuck-you to themselves. they are not convinced that their music has any real value. and yet, they clearly have a ton of fun with the wiccan-psychadelia stuff, like "i found a whistle" which would have blown people away if it had been written in 1968. so that's the other twist. there is a way in which the band's stated ambivalence about their work is liberating and i think, for them, that's the whole point of making fun of the whole idea of the pressure of a sophomore album.... to get some distance from the whole thing. and it works! there are moments that seem pure and fun. but also as a listener i can't shake the uneasiness these guys clearly feel about their whole career. all of this stuff is compelling to me.

tl;dr this is the definitive album of the era of clickbait journalism because on a literal, lyrical level it is consumed with anxieties about its reception.

Congratulation to MGMT

@treezy

i'll give it a listen. cheers for the introductory

"I Found a Whistle" is def one of their best tracks. "Something's Missing" was another highlight from that record. Love love love the Jackson 5-style outro hook.

congratulations to treeship

treeship otm this is a forgotten masterpiece and idk why