Mgmt

You've probably got some fatal disease or something.

I like 'Kids', which is even more worrying for me. Real 'Prince voice' thing going on in this song, isn't there?

Still, can't hold a candle to Cut Copy, who in my opinion wrote the pop hooks of the year.

This is the only Mgmt song I like. I first heard it in a shop and thought it was a girl singing, for some reason. If I had known it was them I probably wouldn't like it. It sort of sounds like Prince fronting "Tango in The Night" era Fleetwood Mac.

i thought i'd been suckered in by 'kids' too - and had all the appropriate concerns for my mental well-being - after two of my mates put it on their 'best of 2008' comps we've been circulating.

but on listening for the fifth or sixth time, it's just any grandaddy song, isn't it?

they've pulled that kind of thing off several times (am 180, crystal lake, sure there are others), hit a skewed pop moment rather well.. it doesn't move me greatly though.

Was amazed to see that among last.fm listeners MGMT had something the most-played songs of the year that weren't by Coldplay - 3 out of the top 10, from memory... I had no idea they were so big.

I quite like 'Time To Pretend', which I downloaded from somewhere cos it was free. Stuff I'd have to buy I haven't enjoyed enough to do so.

i think they had 3 songs in the NME top 20 of the year as well. Dont worry about liking them, the world will quickly tire of the 'flight of the concords do flaming lips' parody vibe and it'll be stricken from the record. either that or there will be another wave of 3rd generation indie kids making 'pschedelic' music but sounding like the coral with ebay synths

edit: id not actually thought about the grandaddy parallels,good call. Theyre also pretty dreamy looking too which would explain a lot of their success

mos dan said:

i thought i'd been suckered in by 'kids' too - and had all the appropriate concerns for my mental well-being - after two of my mates put it on their 'best of 2008' comps we've been circulating.

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and there was i thinking me slurring their praises at strongrooms would prove the final bit of advocation you needed.

i actually think there's been a lot of really good indie stuff made this year. i'd like to think it's a reaction from the post-strokes disassociative indie that's plauged music for the last five years or so (which, to be fair, the strokes did very well, the libertines did alright, and everyone else did very badly), a new wave where pop's not a dirty world and the emphasis is on multi-colour riffs and big, bolshy hooks again.

it's obviously not as black and white as that- there were plenty of dire post-strokes indie bands who were nothing but hooks, it's just that now you have late of the pier and mgmt who, when the mood takes them, are genuinely great song-writers. 'kids', 'time to pretend', 'space and the woods', 'heartbeat', 'gentle furl' etc, all brilliant in my eyes. with mgmt it's probably because those songs have been kicking around since about 2005 and they've re-wrote them so many times. hopefully they don't get too bogged down in the psychedelic chat, cuz that's cobblers really.

on the other end of the uk spectrum, hot club de paris, mystery jets and friendly fires have always been good. it's also nice to see jay reatard start to gain some real recognition- he's been peddling great, hook-driven pop for a while now and he's better at it than most. that telepathe album that's coming out is good too. very indebted to gang gang dance, and i don't know if it has a lot to do with lotp/mgmt, but it's worth mentioning.

interestingly, ariel pink has apparently re-invented himself and wants to make 'clean' pop without the background noise now.

i just doubt they really viewed it that way when they were making it. now all the psychedelic descriptions have been attached to it, i can see them going very deliberately down that path when in the past it's probably come naturally.

i told a friend sometime in July i think that Electric Feel was going to be the summer jam/anthem. it had all the markings. i really like it, though it gets kind of old after a repeated listenings. but i kind of soured on MGMT b/c one of their songs was used in the film 21, which created some bad associations for me. that movie was awful. maybe i'll give it another listen.

the good thing about it is that it doesn't have quite the hook to really be a summer hit, phew
There's something a bit too lazy about it for me.

enormo derivative mind, a bit like the Strokes trying to be Tight Fit, :slanted:

i'm pretty sure i played their album oracular spectacular more than anything else this year. it's so full, catchy, and plain old good fun it made me want to throw out my minimal techno collection.

if you're interested you can download high quality versions of their vids from their youtube account http://www.youtube.com/user/mgmtmusic

baboon2004 said:

You've probably got some fatal disease or something.

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she's also like, 26. so keep that in mind. (no offense meant what so ever, but IMO age does factor in this case)

anyhow nomad is your favorite band still Black Moped Owners Club? (i kinda like them)

tom lea said:

interestingly, ariel pink has apparently re-invented himself and wants to make 'clean' pop without the background noise now.

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if true that is such a sadness. i just started getting into worn copy and house arrest