Music 10K: 66. Oracular Spectacular

Oracular Spectacular by MGMT
My rating: 4.5 of 5 stars

I love the playfulness of this incredibly creative group. I mean, you immediately feel it with "Time to Pretend" and "Kids." With old-school 80s synthesizers, sweeping melodies, thought-provoking lyrics, and music that sticks in your head in the good kind of way, this band creates a marriage of depth with lightness. Wonderful stuff.

"Weekend Wars" has a definite retro vibe with the vibrant electronic arpeggios creating psychedelic rainbows of sound. The airy vocals carry you through and make you want to sing along. Similarly, "The Youth" has a soft falsetto vocal quality that emulates trance synthesizers. As the lyrics repeat melodically throughout, you can't help but get caught in the melody along with it.

I really love "Electric Feel". It's definitely an homage to the late 70s/early 80s. There's a funkiness that makes you wonder how these 2 young guys from Connecticut managed to channel Prince. This song takes you back to those nostalgic disco times with the silver disco ball and flashing lights, leg warmers, monstrously curly hair, and blue and pink eye shadow.

"Kids" - there's something this song just does to me. I love how there really isn't a song like it anywhere. With synthesizers heavily prevalent throughout, you'd think the song would sound like a throwback to the 80s, but it somehow isn't retro at all. It's timeless. It doesn't sound like an 80s song or a 2000s song. I don't feel I can attach a date to it. There's a resolute, yet emotional subtlety to the lyrics with an ever-so slight eagerness in the musical lull of the chorus. It makes me want to believe what's being spoken in the song is a message of importance, but it's hard to make out what "a family of trees wantin' to be haunted" could mean. It's a little cryptic. Still, it's totally and completely awesome.

Then the radiance and vibrant movement of "4th Dimensional Transition" sweeps you up with fast rhythms and melodious singing once more. I like how each song on this album is different from the other in structure, mood, instrumentation, and tempo in a fairly big way. Like Deerhunter, MGMT keeps me interested.

"Pieces of What" mellows out and I want to reflect. There's a somber feeling to the music that creates a nice transition between itself and the prior tracks. In a somewhat similar way, "Of Moons, Birds & Monsters" has a melancholy vibe with major psychedelic retro twanging guitars and digital twittering that makes me think of the 70s, even though the guys of MGMT weren't even born and I was barely even alive.

"The Handshake" is really cool. It takes many unexpected turns. It's kind of all over the place with a very traditional start that just suddenly takes me to different musical tiers that I would have never expected to have gone without totally fucking it up. It's not often a band can manage that well.

Before I get to the Japanese re-release tracks, "Future Reflections" is a delight. The song is mostly a choral play of voices with some electronics twittering and droning here and there. What makes it sound complex is the interplay of the vocals as the main musical theme while also as background noise.

"Metanoia" is epic. I have to mention this song. It's like Pink Floyd - a mini musical for nearly 14 whopping minutes.

Check out the rest of the Japanese tracks too. They are worth it and it makes me wonder what it is about the Japanese market. I mean, they always seem to get the really cool bonus material of all my favorite bands.