MGMT ought to be embarrassed. Their third major release, self-titled “MGMT,” is a dull collective of haphazardly thrown together insipidity.
The Brooklyn-based indie pop quintet’s lack of creative growth is evident from the opening minutes of “MGMT” and steadily approaches a dead-end conclusion. Listening to “MGMT” in its entirety –– an onerous chore in itself –– it is difficult to see how the waste of time that is MGMT’s newest CD came from the same minds which produced indie pop gold such as “Kids” and “Electric Feel.”
The album cover speaks volumes about the band’s station. Frontmen Andrew VanWyngarden and Ben Goldwasser, along with a birdcage, a lawnmower, and a walker, are pictured outside of a hair salon/consignment shop. The thrift shop theme is tired. They’ve succeeded more in looking like Napoleon Dynamite’s stoned cousins than in being edgy and ironic. The cover is a perfect depiction of the creative black hole inside.
Leadoff track “Alien Days” isn’t awful, but it is forgettable. It could pass for a deep track on 2010’s mediocre “Congratulations.”
One can’t help but compare the beginning of “MGMT” to that of their 2007 masterpiece “Oracular Spectacular” when the group came out firing with “Time to Pretend.” A significant downward trend in innovation is evident.
MGMT’s ambivalence about their product is nowhere more blatant than in “Cool Song No. 2.” This song isn’t nearly good (or even adequate) enough for its title to have any ironic effect.
“Cool Song” sounds like VanWyngarden took a significant dose of Lunesta and went to a drum circle with U2’s “Mysterious Ways” stuck in his head. The following track, “Mystery Disease” has a more fitting title. Four minutes of rubbish are made unbearable by an irrational slew of spacey sound effects.
Lead single “Your Life is a Lie” is (thankfully) “MGMT”’s shortest track. The repetitive two-chord riff and lackluster lyrics are a far cry from the brilliance displayed on “Oracular.” The first half of “Oracular” is arguably the finest twenty-five minutes of indie pop ever produced. “MGMT’”s first half is nothing more than an accurate preview of the disaster which follows. “MGMT”’s latter half is characterized by irritatingly ironic titles, repetitiveness, and noise. Puzzlingly enough, nobody was credited in the liner notes for playing the garbage disposal on “Astro-Mancy.” “I Love You Too, Death,” “Plenty of Girls in the Sea,” and “An Orphan of Fortune” provide MGMT with a self-indulgent conclusion. Three chords and sound effects are the pervasive themes.
“MGMT” is as original as the simile “like watching paint dry.” Worse, it’s like listening to paint dry (provided the paint has a cantankerous arsenal of sound effects). From its underwhelming inception to it’s self-indulgent latter half, “MGMT” is a train wreck. Any slightly musically inclined stoner with a keyboard and some spare time can recreate this product with ease. The psychedelic vices which inspired “Oracular Spectacular” have left the collective minds MGMT a creative desert. It’s time for the group to cut the irony and write some actual music. They’re one bad album away from the “where are they now” category.
