Music Forum / Congratulations

So I am going to keep it pretty straight to the point. I loved Oracular Spectacular. "Electric Feel", "Kids", and "Of Moons, Birds, & Monsters" are still frequently listened to on some of my favorite playlists on my iPod. I hadn't listened to much of Congratulations aside from "Flash Delirium" and I wasn't a huge fan of the single but I gave them the benefit of the doubt. Now that Congratulations has been released, I have given it a couple of listens and to be honest I am just not getting into this album and find it a pretty big disappointment. Don't get me wrong it's pretty quality music, but it is not at all what I was looking for in an MGMT album. It feels like they stepped too far away from the sound they used in Oracular Spectacular that most people grew to love and replaced it with this overly '60s retro psychedelic sound.

I am sure some of you are also MGMT fans and have given the new album a listen or two so i am interested in hearing your thoughts on this album and if you were disappointed.

Eh, I seem to remember reading something a while back where MGMT warned that Congratulations would be an overall different sound than Oracular Spectacular, so I've kind of prepared myself to be upset, especially because of how great Oracular Spectacular was (Kids, Electric Feel, Weekend Wars, Time to Pretend--all awesome songs). Oh well, I'll still give this one a chance. I didn't even know it had been released already. Thanks for the heads up.

Thanks for the headsup that they released a new album. Gonna have a listen.

If you were expecting Oracular Spectacular 2, then of course you're going to be disappointed. They purposely wrote this album to be the opposite of what they were, and it's given them an amazing sound, regardless of how accessible it may be.

If you were expecting Oracular Spectacular 2, then of course you're going to be disappointed. They purposely wrote this album to be the opposite of what they were, and it's given them an amazing sound, regardless of how accessible it may be.

This is true and all, but I feel it would have been nice to have a couple of songs that were reminiscent of their style in Oracular Spectacular

I'm really sad because they're performing at my school tomorrow but I have no tickets! They sold out too quickly and I didn't have the time to wait 5 hours in a line to buy them. But yes, their first album was very enjoyable, and I have yet to hear their new album. Now I know not to have too high of an expectation-- at least that way I can be surprised rather than disappointed

^ Wow they came to your school?!

I love Congratulations. Flash Delirium is pure brilliance, especially the end, and most of the other songs like Brian Eno are great too. Actually their least psychedelic songs like Electric Feel are their worst imo.

I never cared for "Electric Feel" personally. It's SO insincere and put on compared with a lot of other stuff they've done and who I suspect they really are.

What little I've heard of congratulations seems entirely where I would expect them to go... It sounds more like a BAND, and since they recruited three of their friends/former classmates (or something like that) to play live, and these songs were written in that context, rather than adapted to it, it makes sense that it would be formatted like this.

I really don't appreciate the production though... There are definitely sing-along worthy choruses here that are obscured by the poor choices of reverbs and mixing. I haven't listened to the whole thing mind you, but I've streamed some of it from their site (and currently am).

EDIT: The title track is fantastic though.

Ride6