 | MGMT |
There are a lot of high-profile indie albums coming out this year, but none promise to be as divisive and bring up conflicting emotions quite like MGMT’s sophomore follow up to 2008′s runaway hit Oracular Spectacular, their new album Congratulations. In 2008, MGMT became the ‘it’ band (between January and summertime ’08 they went from being ‘who?’ to being everywhere) and they captured lightning in a bottle with two smash hit tracks, “Time To Pretend” and “Kids”. Those tracks stood out on what was a bit of a schizophrenic album, with elements of 70s-80s dance/prog rock/psych pop all competing together to create what that album was. However, upon seeing them live at Lollapalooza that summer, and in focusing on the other tracks on their debut, you could see that this was really primarily a 70s psych rock/prog rock band that happened to somehow put together two of the hottest ‘dance/electronic’ tracks of the year. It became clear after seeing them that “Kids” and “Time To Pretend” were the exception, not the norm for these guys, and much to the chagrin of all who loved those songs and none of the others, they have created an album that seems to be pretty close to their roots here. “Kids”, “Electric Feel” and “Time To Pretend” are not here, not even close, and this album bears much stronger relationship to “4th Dimensional Transition” and “Of Moons, Birds & Monsters” than their hit singles. But you have to give these guys credit for not belying their own style and what they wanted to do in order to duplicate/coattail past success, and for going their own way with this one, even if it (likely) proves to be ultimately unpopular.
How bands follow up/deal with runaway success is an age old issue that is ever-present in the world of music, and MGMT is just the most notable example of this right now. Do you follow up the success by trying to duplicate it, or by sticking to what you want? Ultimately, this album feels like they maybe went even farther into the territory of trying to distance themselves from what made them popular, somewhat to their detriment. The album is psych-rock, prog rock, it is all over the place, but is rooted very heavily in a kind of 70s psychedelic haze that will probably have a lot of bandwagon fans from the first record very confused and disoriented.
There are a few solid tracks that are more or less straightforward, “It’s Working”, “Someone’s Missing” and the title track “Congratulations” are definitely very trippy and very 70s (as is everything here), but are really excellent songs and are the stronger tracks on the album. The latter two are kind of slow, acid-laced ballads while “It’s Working”, the album’s opener, is a more uptempo prog jam that wields many instruments and styles together for a rich and somewhat disjointed trip from start to finish. Second track “Song For Dan Treacy” also has enough off-balance and off-kilter to be interesting (although I imagine the cartoonish, goofy, ghoulish first organ solo in this song will be the point of the album where many fans will be like ‘um, what?’), and the same can probably be said for the first ‘single’ “Flash Delirium” as well, though nothing on this album really even comes close to the definition of ‘single’. “I Found a Whistle” is another good, slow, lumbering trippy ballad. “Brian Eno” is just confusing and kind of irritating, and “Lady Dada’s Nightmare” similarly just doesn’t really do much for me. “Siberian Breaks” is incredibly ambitious and is basically 5 or 6 songs all smashed into one 12 minute long headtrip that has its ups and downs and borders on greatness, but never really quite gets there. At times it verges on getting somewhere, but just as throughout the album they seem to use a lot of misdirection and starting and stopping to keep the listener off balance. It keeps things interesting, but it makes it tougher for the songs to really build, and for hooks and melodies to get momentum.
The album is tough to really get a full grip on. On the one hand, they stuck to their guns, they did not try to copy their old songs and repackage them and they didn’t ‘sell out’ in those terms, which is admirable to be sure. They seemingly had carte blanche after their prior success and they just went as far out there as they could go. The downside is that they seem to somewhat be flying in the face of some of the things that worked really well for them on the last record, and are almost being deliberately different, and sometimes that doesn’t always reach the best result. The album is interesting to listen to, but it never seems to really capture your ear and really build to much. There are some inspired moments, but they come and go and the album kind of feels a little muddled up and too all over the place to really get a true sense of it or really get into it.
This is sure to be one of the most controversial releases of the whole year, and is sure to bring on much discussion about playing to your fans, selling out, sticking to your roots, etc. as MGMT has created a wonderfully ambitious and scattered record that really plays on all of our expectations while still remaining a pretty solid record overall, if not at times schizophrenic and confusing and at times swirling and trippy. One thing is for sure though, the disco/dance/80s influences that the band had on the debut record did not survive to this album, and we have what seems to be a more pure representation of the band themselves. I certainly did not hold their first record in as high a regard as a lot of people, and thought it was fairly overrated, and it’s refreshing that they didn’t try to cater to past success here, but the result is ultimately underwhelming even independently of all of the other isssues/elements of this record. The real question will be though now that they have clearly put their ‘true’ or desired sound out there and distanced themselves substantially from what people know them for, where does MGMT go from here?
BV Rate: 67
MGMT just last week announced an extensive tour across the country supporting this new album.
MGMT – Congratulations – From Congratulations (CD, Ltd. Ed., Vinyl, MP3, iTunes)
