Ok I've been put in a situation where everyone seems to be polarized.
This is the red state/blue state argument of hip music: Is MGMT's Congratulations good?
Kind of. I've heard both sides of the argument, and this is the argument:
I'll be generalizing both sides as "good" (as in "I thought it was good") and "bad" (as in "I thought it was bad")
ahem:
Good: MGMT's new album is good.
Bad: No it's not.
Good: (sounding wavy in tone) Yes it is.
Bad: No it isn't. Popularity and record sales have infected their sound and now it's bad.
Good: No. It's a concept album. They're trying to experiment a new sound.*
Bad: Wait, wait. Pet Sounds was a concept album. Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band was a concept album. Congratulations is NOT a concept album.
Good: Okay you can't compare everything to the Beatles and then say it sucks. That has to be a fallacy.
Bad: Okay, fine. How is Congratulations a concept album?
Good: It holds a theme of dealing with fame and fortune and experiencing it as a new reality, they would say another dimension.
Bad: Poor songsmithing doesn't mean you can get away was a loose thematic approach to being loaded.
Good: Fuck you.
Bad: Fuck you, too.
(Good and Bad do it while accidentally leaving MGMT's Congratulations on the iPod dock.)
*end scene*
It's difficult to come back after a very decent (some would say great, but I wouldn't) freshman album (ask Vampire Weekend, The Strokes, The Darkness, Coldplay, and most bands who first hit it big between 2000-2009*), and MGMT is no exception.
While I do enjoy the intricacies, you cannot not give the people what they are not expecting, but in that same vane can't rehash the old shit (or else feel the wrath of critical bloggers**). What I'm saying here is MGMT is fucked. They flew to high and are now orbiting accidentally around the planet until they burn up into the earths atmosphere.
But I enjoyed it, I'll just never remember it when I write my decade list in 2020.
*Despite Spoon still clamping on for dear life
**Self-awareness
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