My vote for most overhyped band of the past year has got to go to Brooklyn's MGMT, pronounced "Emm-Gee-Emm-Tee" Why everyone makes a big deal about these guys is beyond me. Their songs create a sense of jubilation when they come on anywhere in New York. People start jumping up and down and screaming when the opening for "Kids", "Electric Feel", or "Time To Pretend" blares on a speaker system. Yet when I ask people why they like MGMT so much, they can't give me one legitimate reason. They tell me things like "Because their music... it takes me to another place, man" or "Because everything else sucks". Yeah, like I haven't heard that one before. Every single band tries to market their music by convincing their fans that everything else out there sucks and they are the only band worth listening to. I've bought into that mentality with a band so many times before. But not this time! I've heard guys in Brooklyn comparing the music of MGMT to Bowie and Zeppelin, and comparing their live shows to "an experiece" But I have several distinct personal reasons why I am not in that crowd:
1. What's up with that name?
Why couldn't they have just stuck with their original name "The Management"? It would have made things so much less confusing. If I ask people if they know The Management, they will look at me like I am speaking Chinese. However, if I spell out the letters of their name, then people will get all excited.
2. Their live shows SUCK.
The first time I saw "The Management" was during the CMJ Music Marathon in 2007, and I'm pretty sure I yelled at them to "get off the stage, pretty boys". They just played their songs, nothing more nothing less, and showed nothing even close to resembling a stage presence worthy of me shelling out 60 bucks. A couple of people outside their overhyped Halloween show at Webster Hall confirmed pretty much the same thing, that for your money's worth you cannot find a more disappointing live act. They stand like mannequins onstage while expecting everyone to worship them like Pink Floyd.
3. They are pretentious pretty boys
This point brings me back to last Fall of 2008, when I embarked on a spontaneous road trip that one of my friends wanted to go on- 3 and a half hours into upstate New York with the sole purpose of seeing the almighty Emm-Gee-Emm-Tee. When we finally got there, we learned that the band had canceled their set for what sounded like a made--up excuse, their drummer had "broken his leg". OK first of all, the band does not officially have a drummer, just two shaggy-haired dipshits. Second of all, I checked their website two days later to find out that everyone was fine and the band was touring as planned- a tour which people had to PAY FOR. The show we went to was free. Hmmm...
I mean even Justice, another group whose music I abhor (they sound like five French fucks farting in a bag), at least did us the courtesy of performing a half-assed set for all our troubles. And even if MGMT did acquire a drummer- oh please, the Who performed entire rock operas while their drummer was nearly unconscious. I don't buy it. That's just irreparable.
4. They don't offer anything that special
Sure, MGMT are the only "psychadelic" band out of the whole "hipster scene" in Brooklyn. But their music, beyond maybe one curious listen, just isn't that good. For example, the lead synths in "Time To Pretend", their breakout single, are pretty much like hearing nails scratch across a chalkboard. Trust me, when you've heard a song that many times, your mind goes to weird places. Their lyrics are abhorrent. Sample: "I'll move to Paris, shoot some heroin, and fuck with the stars. You man the island and the cocaine and the elegant cars." Jesus Fucking Christ, are people THAT desperate to find a band in the musical jungle that they have to buy into that cheap crap. Their singer, Andrew Van... something, sings in a Prince-aping fake falsetto shrill enough to make Justin Hawkins of the Darkness cringe. Their album cuts have bizarre, spacey names like "4th Dimensional Transition" and "Of Moons, Birds, and Monsters", and they just sound like hastily put together messes going all over the place. Talk about consistency.
5. They are representatives of a jumbled and confused scene.
Why they have become the most successful band in the New York City scene and attracted a larger audience than a bunch of sweaty dudes in a Brooklyn basement is really beyond me. Someone just had to break out of that scene with millions of fucking bands, and I guess they were just in the right place with the right stuffy A&R guy listening. I have been following the New York music scene for the last three years, and let me tell you there are some weird fucking bands out there. The band to come out of that scene could have been a garage-funk black dude who screams. Could have been some chick and some dude who picked up instruments last week and had Charlie Kane from Warner Records there when they played their sister's bar mitzvah. The New York scene is so ambiguous and out there, that really any act could have come out of it, and these two psychadelic doofballs from Wesleyan just won the lottery.
MGMT are a victim of the oversaturation of music in the marketplace, and a perfect illustration of how pathetic "Hipsters" are as a barometer of what is cool in music.
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