I’m not going to bother with much of a preamble for this one. This is only a borderline psychedelic band/album. In fact, the psychedelia on this album is purely an afterthought. All I can say about this one is, I’m glad I got the review over and done with! The link to the album on Grooveshark is
here.
Alien Days – Is this the theme song for a cartoon? Or maybe a sitcom? I’m not sure it’s quite the same quality as the
Cheers theme song, but it sounds to be roughly in the ballpark. Maybe. However I think the
Mary Tyler Moore theme song is better. Psychedelic effects in the last 1/3 of the song are about as forced and out-of-place as you could imagine. Imagine the Cheers theme song with psychedelic sound effects. It just doesn’t work.
0
Cool Song #2 – No, this is NOT a cool song. Not even close. This sounds like a caricature of something. No, I take that back: It sounds like
a caricature of a caricature of something. I’m not even going to bother describing what the song sounds like: Let’s just say it sounds like a 6-year-old’s rendition of what a “tribal” song might sound like.
0
Mystery Disease – Once they started singing I just couldn’t help but to start laughing. I mean, it’s really
that bad! I can’t believe anybody takes this band seriously! Anyway, the song sounds like … I dunno, maybe a vague James Bond-esque tune, kinda sorta. With some special effects. When it ended I went, “Wheh!”
0
Introspection – More of the same. This might be of similar quality to stuff the Partridge Family put out. Or maybe Bobby Sherman. Or worse. It’s got this military beat type of thing over a standard (but poor quality) pop tune. All very corny and predictable. With a few psychedelic effects thrown in, purely as afterthoughts.
0
Your Life is a Lie – Still more of the same. I’m not even going to bother doing a description. The more I hear, the harder a time I have imagining anyone takes this band seriously. I dunno, there’s something about the song titles and lyrics which are telling me that, maybe they’re not supposed to be taken seriously, and they're just being ironic, but that’s hard to tell. But if that’s the case, why do so many people
actually take this band seriously?
0
A Good Sadness – This one started out with a slow/soft instrumental. But once they starting singing, it immediately went downhill. But I think this one's a wee bit better than the others. I think I could imagine this being turned into something halfway decent, with some serious re-working. This was the first song I actually managed to tolerate.
2
Astro-Mancy – This is kinda-sorta like the above song. It sounds like they’re trying to make a Tangerine Dream song sound a bit psychedelic, with a sort-of trace-like quality, or a rapid electronic drone. There’s not much to the song, it’s almost background music. Really badly done, completely forced and artificial sound effects. Better than the first 5 songs (which isn't saying much), but it’s still pretty much a waste of notes.
1
I Love You Too, Death – What IS it about this group where, as soon as they start singing, everything goes downhill? This song is really bad. In fact it might be one of the worst songs I’ve ever heard. It’s so bad I’m going to not just give it a zero, but a
negative rating. I couldn’t even finish it.
-18
Plenty of Girls in the Sea – This sounds like a really bad version of the Monkees “All of Your Toys.” But at least the Monkees song was unabashedly a light/joking, schmaltzy, non-serious song. Like most of the tunes from this band, they take what sounds like is supposed to be a non-serious song, and try to make it a serious work of art. Or maybe I’m not giving them enough credit and they know they’re being deliberately bad, but are trying to pull one off on everyone by making it sound like it’s supposed to be serious music?
0
An Orphan of Fortune – Another plodding, supposedly “dreamy” sounding psychedelic-esque song, somewhat like "I Love You Too, Death" (not quite as bad, however). It sounds like a really, really badly done imitation of Pink Floyd, maybe from
Dark Side of the Moon. Apologies for writing Pink Floyd in the same line as an MGMT song. The outre to this song was this really arbitrary thing. Now, I know of many songs that have similar endings, where the outre is completely different from the rest of the song, but this was just amateur. Unless of course, once again they’re being deliberately bad while duping people into thinking they’re being serious. It’s hard to tell.
1
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Final thoughts: Anyway, after I wrote all that I listened to the album once through again. It did no good, it was just as bad as the first pass (which was about my 3rd or 4th listen of the album). I don’t know if this happens to be this band’s worst album and I picked a particularly poor example of their work, or if this is a “typical” album of theirs, but after listening to this it’s going to be difficult for me to pay attention to this band ever again. Unless they disband, which would be wonderful news!
I’ve listened to musical works where the composer/songwriter is trying to make a mockery of something while simultaneously trying to make it sound like a serious piece of work. The classic example is Shostakovich’s 5th Symphony, wherein the composer wrote something which, on the surface, sounded like it was something sufficiently traditional and non-bourgeoisie to satisfy the Soviet censors, but which, upon closer examination, was actually a mockery. And of course Shostakovich was mocking the censors, not any particular form of music (it’s not like he would mock Beethoven, which is what that symphony was surficially imitating). But in the case of MGMT, I’m not sure what they would be mocking, if indeed they are. Perhaps they’re mocking the listening public, as in, “Gee, let’s see how many suckers we can get to buy our music.” If so, then a whole lot of people are being duped, and maybe this band is more clever than I’m giving them credit for. Maybe they’re mocking the experimental/avant-garde musical scene, but if they are, they’re not doing a good job of it. They could be mocking pop music in general, but I could think of a lot better ways to do that than what they’ve put out on this album.
But maybe they’re not mocking anything at all, and they’re just so bad it sounds like they are. Because unless this album is supposed to be some sort of hidden parody, it’s impossible to take it seriously. And even if they
are supposed to be parody, or maybe a kind-of tongue-in-cheek protest band, they don’t do a good job of it. Overall I’ll give it a
0. In other words, DON’T BUY IT!