![]() They followed with Youth before blasting into Electric Feel, both off Oracular. The song is a wild ride culminating in a frenzy of sound and the rat-a-tat of VanWyngarden’s lyrics: “stab your facebook / sell sell sell / undercooked / overdone / mass adulation not so funny / poisoned honey / pseudo science / silly money / you’re my honey” before coming to a screaming, screeching halt. Performing before a background of white-sheet waves, Goldwasser and VanWyngarden - joined by a tight backing band of bassist Matt Asti, guitarist James Richardson and drummer Will Berman - went to Congratulation’s Flash Delirium for the second song of the set. In fact, it appeared that the vast majority attending the sold-out show paid full admission to hear about four songs: Electric Feel, Weekend Wars and the aforementioned Time to Pretend and Kids. ![]() However, it seems no matter the psyche-rock duo’s intentions, many of their fans would prefer not to move past the hits of Oracular. Instead multi-instrumentalists Ben Goldwasser and Andrew VanWyngarden did the only thing they really could by striking out in a new direction and turning their backs on their phenom status. In fact, before its release, the band balked at any singles being released. No radio-ready singles or songs likely to end up in a VW ad. The image is in step with MGMT’s intention to make the album a response to its precipitous rise to fame - OS has sold more than 1 million copies worldwide. At first glance it looks like something you’d see on a Trapper Keeper, but beyond the bright colors there’s a darker image of a surfing hedgehog about to be swallowed up by a wave shaped like a cat. First there’s the cover art from Houston-raised, Low Brow-movement artist Anthony Ausgang. Much has been written about the differences between that 2008 release and 2010’s Congratulations. The latter, whose first album, Oracular Spectacular, was produced by longtime Lips collaborator Dave Friedmann, was riding into town following the high of the weekend’s Free Press Summer Fest. Once I did hear the new tracks, I was extremely happy that the image worked so well with them.Ī little more than 24 hours after the Flaming Lips showered the still-damp crowd at Eleanor Tinsley Park with beauty and kindness and confetti, Brooklyn’s MGMT took the stage at the House of Blues. While painting the cover I was not allowed to hear any of the advance tracks, so I had to listen to Oracular Spectacular while working. Anyway, once the album was released, the heat was off me and people began bitching about the music! Fortunately, all the band members praised the cover and totally backed me up on it. ![]() To my horror, most people thought the cover was a failure even going so far as to claim that the music, which they could not have possibly heard, was also terrible. Once the cover went live, I spent the day reading reviews of it. At this point Sony decided to leak the album cover image since the public was screaming for anything new from MGMT. It took me about three weeks to finish the painting after I got the OK everyone was stoked, and the future looked pretty damn good. I still couldn’t get it right, so I shitcanned everything I’d done, went out and drank about a gallon of coffee, got back to my studio, and nailed it. After a while it became obvious that the idea wasn’t working, so Andrew switched gears and now wanted the image of a surfer about to get wiped out by a wave that looked like a cat. The album was by this time called Congratulations and the concept was that the cover should look like a winning lottery ticket, using “scratch off” ink for part of the image. ![]() Apparently, Andrew had been so impressed by my artistic inclinations that he wanted me to design the cover. A few weeks later, I was contacted by Josh Cheuse, the art director at Sony Music in charge of the artwork for the album. I was invited to hang out a few times, and the last visit I made everybody was, how shall I put this, in a psychedelic mood, so I sat at the dining table and drew funny little sketches when I split, I left them behind. MGMT was recording their highly anticipated follow up album to Oracular Spectacular, and Kember was supervising the recording in a house in Malibu. I met the musicians Andrew VanWyngarden and Ben Goldwasser in 2009 when Sonic Boom (AKA Peter Kember) brought them to my studio.
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