I wish to speak to the MGMT

 I suppose it's a pointer to the average age of people commenting at this blog that in the Inspirals-inpired thread about artists who take the name in vain of their heroes or heroes's work (as the Carpets did, ach, with "Bitches Brew" - the effrontery! the gall!), that nobody mentioned MGMT, who on a single album, 2010's Congratulations, have a song titled "Brian Eno" and another titled "Song for Dan Treacy". 

Eno and Television Personalities are are quite good pointers to their aesthetic, if you also factored in Todd Rundgren, Ariel Pink, Flaming Lips...

So they are Anglophiles but also Anglophile-philes, if you get me.

And maybe some Hot Chip is in there. 

Here's the Eno tribute. 

So tired, soul searching

I followed the sounds to a cathedral

Imagine my surprise to find that

They were produced by Brian Eno

Past the gates, quite stark

The roses trimmed and the windows dark

I see the walls through a limestone crack

Not red, not blue, not yellow but black

And all the spaces left for you

If the sky was synthesized you'd probably know

He taught me many things

The wisdom of oblique stratagems

The prophet of a sapphire soul

Presented through creative freedoms

And everything I say is true

'Cause if I was telling lies it'd probably show

I can tell that he's kind of smiling

But what does he know?

We're always one step behind him

He's Brian Eno, Brian Eno

When I was stuck he'd make me memorize elaborate curses

Tinctures and formulas to ditch the chorus and flip the verses

My whole foundation came unglued

When I tried to humanize by ambient light

Dipping swords in metaphors, yeah

But what does he know?

We're always one step behind him

He's Brian Eno, Brian Eno

He promised pretty worlds

And all the silence I could dream of

Brian Peter, George St. John

Le Baptiste De La Salle Eno

Well, all alone by the oldest stone

Where the shade trees grow

The creature by the water

Feature with a ghostly glow

Yeah, he's making sure that time's preserved well

We reap what we sow

We're always one step behind him

He's Brian Eno

Yeah, I can tell that he's doing well, yeah

But what does he know?

I'm always one step behind him

He's Brian Eno

Yeah, dipping swords in metaphors, yeah

But what does he know?

I'd like to see him plant a forest 'cause I don't know

Brian Eno

I can tell that he's kind of smiling

But what does he know?

I will always be a step behind him

He's Brian Eno

Yeah, he's making sure that time's preserved well

We reap what we sow

I'm always one step behind him

'Cause I don't know Brian Eno

And here's the Dan Treacy one

He spends his time or maybe half of his time

Or part of the time wandering

'Round the creeks and cobble stones

Of Hackney lanes

With a tear in his eye

As the children walk by, he's thinking of a song

Then stops to paint a picture of a frown

Walking around

Dan Treacy's smile, leaves you trying

To decide who's the victim, what's the crime?

No rest for the mind

That's seen it all before

And I don't know where he lives

But he's a myth of a man

And Texas Bob the cameraman

Is off to fix his seat before the show

Yeah, but where did he go?

To know when your time's up

You flip the glass and watch the hours quickening

Oh, oh, oh

In the back of the station

Fluorescent lights about to quit their flickering

Well, he speaks his mind

He says, "What is crime?"

Dan Treacy's eyes

Stop in the middle of the park

When the underground is dark

He's a poet, he's a lark

He starts thinking about a place that no one knows

And when the creeks run dry, he stays frozen in time

Strange lights in the sky start blinking

I can see the car outside but he's listening

Ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh

He's listening

Ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh

He's listening

Ah, ah, ah, ah

And he's making up his mind

He made his mind up

To get things done and overcome

He made his mind up

Yeah, he's gonna let it go

He made his mind up

In the park and at the station

He made his mind up

Yeah, he's gonna get it done

He made his mind up

Yeah, he's gonna get it done

He made his mind up

Yeah, he's gonna let it go

No matter the time, oh no

When the creeps run by, oh, no

He's making his mind up, oh, oh, oh

Yeah, he's gonna get it done, oh, oh

Yeah, when the creeks run dry, oh, oh

Said yeah, he's gonna listen to his soul

Said yeah, when the creeps walk by

"Come here, boy, look me in the eye"

Bow to the heart, back to the beat of Dan Treacy

I suppose it is the next logical extension of the TVP's own efforts like "I Know Where Syd Barrett Lives"

But it also reminds me of the Mighty Boosh... 

But yes I'm guessing nobody here listens to MGMT.... I only noticed these songs because a student did a presentation on the group and it reminded me how much I liked the radio hits and had always meant to check out the albums properly.

Nick S in comments points to the original EP version of "Time To Pretend" - more DIY fuzzy

Looking at the presentation, which includes these videos I'd never seen for the hits off the debut, the sort of DIY  retro phantasmagoria look of the promos and the sound and the Maus-y / mousy Angloid vocals did remind me of Ariel Pink. None of the students could see the connection but then I found that another favorite tune, "When You Die" was actually a (pre-disgrace) collab with AP, which would explain the dark lyrics maybe. It's another cool video involving trippy animation and Alex Karpovsky, the actor who plays Ray in Girls. 

I'm not that nice

I'm mean and I'm evil

Don't call me nice

I'm gonna eat your heart out

I've got some work to do

Baby, I'm ready

I'm ready, ready, ready to blow my lid off

Yeah

Go fuck yourself

You heard me right

Don't call me nice again

Don't you have somewhere to be at seven thirty?

Baby, I'm ready

I'm ready, ready, ready to blow my brains out

You die

And words don't do anything

It's permanently night

And I won't feel anything

We'll all be laughing with you when you die

sourced in this image from "The Heart of Man; Either a Temple of God, or a Habitation of Satan; Represented in Ten Emblematical Figures, an 1851 book by German religious figure Johannes Evangelista Gossner."

MGMT  are one of those groups I could never pick out from a police lineup. Like Phoenix or Foster the People (whose "Pumped Up Kicks" very much struck me as a cleaned-up radio-ready rip on Ariel P - bouncy catchy retro-y tune, twisted lyrics about a school shooter). Or the Swedish chaps who do "Young Folks" - Peter Bjorn and John. 

These are acts I know only from the rotation they get on modern rock stations in Los Angeles. Which was a lot in the first years we arrived here and were driving around, using the radio, whereas nowadays it tends to be Spotify or Tidal in the car.  But you still do hear "Young Folks" or "Lisztomania" on the radio now and then. 

Tempting to shove MGMT into the category of Clever Dick Pop just for the production obsession and the retro synth penchant, but I think there is some real feeling in there hiding behind the layered-ness. 

They do seem unAmerican  - I sort of imagined them being much more popular in France. In fact, Switzerland seems to have a thing for them judging by their chart placings - it was the only place "When You Die" was a proper hit. 

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An earlier post on "bands from nowhere" aka faceless rockno bollocks

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update

Here's clever sod Momus with a newish song called "Life With Eno" off an album called Quietism

Off the map

Insofar as there is one

A film soundtrack by Eno

Plays in my ears

Events in Thick Fog

Is what it’s called

No singing 

Just a pleasant sense of being lost

As the fog of the real world

Starts to swirl

And Eno, I imagine him

As friendly

Like a guide for the blind

Showing the dead

The catacombs beneath the Panama Canal

At the airport

There’s a Chinese supermarket

And a briefcase synthesiser

Eno now unfolds

To play us sounds he’s made

From birds

I believe

He just wants his music

To sound like animals and birds

Fair enough

Every day is a good day

When nothing’s planned

I sink into my bath

In our hotel

And drown in these events

In thick fog