MGMT - Oracular Spectacular (Album)
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Sometimes we forget what it was like to be a child, to be carefree, innocent and without inhibitions. The days when we played in the mud, didn’t care about labels and said what we liked. The boys chased the girls, the girls giggled and screamed. I’m only nineteen, and already those days seem hazy but pleasant memories. But that’s the nature of life, no-one stays young forever (see J.M. Barrie’s Peter Pan). Occasionally something we hear or see or feel rewinds the VHS tape in our memory, and for a moment we vividly recall those wondrous days. MGMT’s debut album Oracular Spectacular had that effect on me, and I am confident it will do the same to you. Read on.
Oracular Spectacular, bathed in synthesizer hooks and featuring up-beat after up-beat, is a record that doesn’t take itself too seriously, one that is primarily interested in laughing and dancing. The vocals especially illustrate this. They are loose, they don’t try to be too precise, and the falsetto harmonies are simply not something you’d hear on a record that is in any way conscious of itself. For an album whose subject matter concerns itself with the transition from child to adult, (see Time to Pretend, The Youth, Kids & Pieces of What) there are no angst-y undertones to speak of. The all-too-often employed approach to such subject matter is feigned melancholy and man, is it refreshing to find a record that avoids that pseudo-introspective bullshit, and just enjoys itself.
By now, you have most probably heard at least one of the tracks from this record on the radio; perhaps Time to Pretend, Kids or Electric Feel. If you have indeed aurally ingested one of these songs, it probably persisted in your head all day. If there’s been a catchier album in the past five years, I didn’t review it. The relatively simple, clearly defined vocal and synthesizer melodies, partnered with aforementioned up-beats, are the components that make Oracular Spectacular so darned infectious. Just don’t listen to it before starting a shift in an office; you might end up pissing people off.
So hopefully I’ve established that this is a catchy, light-hearted record. Often, however, these two elements erode the longevity of a record and band alike. If a record is too catchy, it gets overplayed, and it ages sooner than it might have otherwise. Case in point, Operator Please, who were huge for all of four minutes and thirty-two seconds (It’s just a song about ping pong? Are you fucking serious?) Will my children ever listen to this album? Very unlikely. And you’ll have to excuse me for not shelving it next to The White Album. But then, what does longevity matter anyway? Oracular Spectacular reminds us that life is made up of moments, and that we should occasionally shrug the weight of the world from our shoulders, and enjoy life just like we did when we were children.
