Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #246 in Digital Music Album
• Released on: 2007-12-17
• Running time: 2419 seconds

Customer Reviews

'we've got the vision, now let's have some fun'
Along with Vampire Weekend MGMT have been garnering plenty of praise and column inches for their debut album Oracular Spectacular. The music press seems to have it all sewn up at the moment, we're told at the beginning of the year which bands are going to be big and we dutifully go out and buy the albums and hey presto they're big (until the second album comes along usually) so do MGMT measure up?

Well the album gets off to a thumping start. Time to Pretend with its heavy synths and drums makes their intentions clear: to live fast and die young, 'Let's make some music/Make some money/Get some models for wives'. It's not just hedonistic excess though. The Youth is a call to arms filled with optimism about change which brings in strings to its arm waving chorus. As a Prince fan I was very pleased to hear his influence all over the funky Electric Feel.

The rest of the album is soaked in 1970's influences like Bowie, The Rolling Stones, prog rock and lots of others that I'm far too young to name accurately so your enjoyment of this album may depend on how much you liked them the first time around. Produced by Mercury Rev's Dave Fridmann it has a wide soundscape filled with warmth and depth. But most importantly it is filled with invention, humour and the vigour of youth ( having seem them on telly the other day they look about 15 years old, god I'm getting old).

synthesis
Completely agree with some of the other reviews, very strong influences from Bowie, Stranglers and perhaps even The Who. Awesome use of drums and bass which really complements some of the soft or subtle electro sounds.

Great band to start 2008 with, got the album the other day and can't stop listening to the songs. Every song on the album has something interesting about it.

Five Star Quality! Machine Gun Mountain!
What is it with all these four star reviews?
Shame on you. Unclog your ears and you'll see that if there is any justice at all these guys will be the Strokes/Franz Ferdinand of 2008 because they are better than either of them.
Unlike many other 'hot new things' these guys more than justify any attendant hype.

I saw them on 'Later' and ordered the album the next day. I hoped it would be good but didn't expect it to be this good. This is the first band in a while that truly manage to produce perfect pop and remain effortlessly cool. As other reviewers have stated, there are slew of discernible influences in their music, if you choose to go looking for them, but no particular artist or era stands out as a primary source.

This is that rare thing an album of potent musical quality that provides instantly catchy but durable pop music(I loved this album from the start and it's still getting better with every play).If you like music you should own this already.