How does one properly react as a musician when achieving unexpected fortune and fame with only one record and a few hit singles? It sounds overwhelming, but for MGMT, the answer’s quite simple: Run far, far away from it.
They’re not the first to do this, of course. In the past, artists like Nirvana, The Flaming Lips, and Radiohead have all challenged their early, unexpected fame with more adventurous and difficult releases. Though they risked alienating new fans and blowing record deals, some artists just can’t resist flexing their artistic muscles to prove that they’re real “artists.”
And boy does it seem like MGMT feels that they need to prove something. After all, success doesn’t come more abruptly and unexplainably than it did for MGMT, as their first album, 2007’s “Oracular Spectacular,” sold millions of copies, garnered countless enthusiastic fans, and spawned infectious singles like “Time To Pretend” and “Kids,” which still receive strong radio play. They were taking the pop music world by storm, and no one could stop them.
Except for MGMT itself, of course. Since their breakthrough, members Andrew VanWyngarden and Ben Goldwasser have tried avoiding pop music like the plague, choosing instead to indulge in more experimental, psychedelic influences on their 2010 follow up, “Congratulations,” and now culminating on their new, almost completely inaccessible album, “MGMT.” But at what cost does all of this come?
Unfortunately, the cost is good music. Unlike artists like Nirvana and Radiohead, MGMT’s efforts to explore stranger, commercially-unfriendly territory on their third album come with a complete lack of focus and discernible melody, with the end result being a middling and overall frustrating affair.
Things do start out somewhat reassuring. Opening track “Alien Days,” for instance, kicks things off like a Broadway musical, with sweet, longing vocal melodies creeping up and resolving into something that sounds hopeful and elegant. The track, which is marked by playful synths and crashing drums (which, admittedly, sound excellent), has something of a whimsical vibe to it, and you begin to think that things won’t be so bad.
But as you listen closely, the albums problems begin to reveal themselves. Despite the fact that “Alien Days” has quite a bit going on in it, you realize that little about the actual song itself changes much throughout its five minute duration, as the song instead just piles on layer after layer of sound and studio trickery. Ultimately, however, things just get monotonous.
Sadly, this is pretty much the exact path that nearly every song on “MGMT” follows, and it gets really old really fast. Here’s basically what I imagined the writing process was like for VanWyngarden and Goldwasser for this album: start with a simple chord structure with only a few instruments, add vocals with bizarre lyrics sung with little or no emotion, and then just keep adding gratuitous layers and layers of noises and sound effects until the song is just one big, muddled blur.
It sounds like I’m exaggerating (or just ranting), but it’s hard to overstate how tiring this approach gets. I know MGMT were really steering clear of pop music this time around, but I’d doubt I could properly recall a single piece of music I just heard after my first, second, even third time listening through.
Songs like “Astro-Mancy,” “Mystery Disease,” and “An Orphan of Fortune” literally feel like they’re going in one ear and out the other, as while they’re certainly very detailed and meticulously crafted, almost nothing about them really stick out and grab your attention even slightly.
I can’t say that I dislike every song on “MGMT.” “A Good Sadness,” for instance, is easily the albums biggest standout and probably the most bracing moment on the album. The track features the same muddled, dense production as the rest of the album, but the charged, abrasive synth melodies give the track much more urgency and momentum than at any other moment throughout.
“MGMT” is clearly just a bad case of “trying way too hard,” but what they seem to be trying the hardest at is making an album that honors their influences. Being a couple of psych-rock weirdoes from day one, I imagine that the populist appeal of their first album made MGMT feel a bit misunderstood, as everything they’ve made since recalls much stranger artists like Brian Eno, Spacemen 3, and the stranger sides of Pink Floyd.
But while “MGMT” more clearly reflects these influences than the squirmy hooks of “Time to Pretend,” they’re far from being able to implement and execute them in an even mildly coherent way. Influences are mashed and bled together so frequently and spastically in nearly every song that the duo often just sound confused and disorganized.
MGMT have stated in the past that they wanted “MGMT” to be the kind of album that most people wouldn’t get on the first listen – that multiple listens are absolutely necessary to understand it. OK, I understand that rationale, but here’s the thing: In order to make that approach successful, you need to give listeners a good reason to come back and explore the record more. Simply piling on layer after layer of psychedelic noise over monotonous songs, unfortunately, is no way to do that.
A part of me does respect MGMT’s ambitions on this record – the duo could have easily spent the last few years milking their hits for all they’re worth and made out handsomely, but clearly, they had no such desire to remain simple pop stars. But before they start reaching out to new, more adventurous territories, they really need to get a grip on where they’re going in the first place.
If MGMT’s overall plan with their new album was to throw all their old fans for a loop and weird everyone out, than mission accomplished. But alienating their old fans might not be the best route for MGMT, as their latest certainly won’t grant them any new ones.
PHOTO TAKEN from hypetrak.com
