MGMT are indie rock's Goldman Sachs

* exactly promote “consumerism”.

Unfortunately, music has become a means to an end vs. an artful pursuit for many young people. The glorification of the past decadence of rock and roll coupled with the constant media attention given todays musicians has resulted in a population whose ideal job is Rock Star. And the reasoning is ass backwards. On the other side, record executives are seeking, not the cream of the musical crop, but an image they can exploit and mold into “the next big thing” in order to line their pockets. Talent has little to do with it. Just look good and take direction well. That’s not to say there’s no great nationally recognized bands out there, but they’re getting fewer and fewer. True musicians, the gifted people who study their craft, tend to resent being told how to write a song, resulting in a life spent playing the local clubs for beer money at best. Or it forces them into a cover band in order to pay the bills while doing what they love. It also results in a generation of young people who will never know what great music is. That’s a crime against humanity in my book.

All good points, but I really have to wonder: How is that any different from the past few decades? Record companies have always exploited artists for the sake of profit, often going for flavor of the moments over talent. Fortunately, it seems that a lot of the power record companies hold are starting to erode and things are mixing up. It’s exciting. Unfortunately, they still do hold a majority of power and arms lengths of influence, so when they uncovered the market potential of “indie,” they went after bands like MGMT. So it goes…

Yes, “Time to Pretend” was meant to be a satire, much like this post was meant to be: for some reason, people take some stuff I write with humor as straight up fact. True, I do dislike MGMT (I’ve heard more than just “Kids” and “Time to Pretend” by the way), but I was using Goldman-Sachs as a metaphor for a more creative way of discussing what I don’t like about them. And the band has taken on this Beastie Boys’ “Fight For Your Right” example: there’s a pretty interesting read there, where the BB’s satire on frat culture eventually manifested itself into more of a truth than a joke as they began to act that way in real life the more the song/band became popular. I can see the same thing with MGMT.

And yes, they were fortunate to do well and grab a record contract and make some money, etc etc. And yes, there are plenty of other “musicians” out there who are just as bad, if not worse, than MGMT and are making a ton of money (I’ve written about them too – BrokeNCYDE ring a bell?)

Besides all this, I think you’ve taken real offense to my piece and taken some things out of context. I’m not saying MGMT are bad because they went to Wesleyan or go surfing in Malibu; these are merely descriptions of why I believe they are out of touch with a majority of what Americans are going through. This was another angle for the MGMT/Goldman-Sachs comparison: just as Goldman-Sachs executives are so out of touch they believe it is appropriate to give billions of dollars in bonuses to employees after receiving tax benefits, I feel that MGMT are gloriously nostalgic for the past (music wise, etc) and that’s something that I don’t necessarily look for in a musician. The real point I was making with the “surfing in Malibu” or “upper-middle-class kids” (believe me, I’ve got a friend who knew one of them growing up – no question there) was merely that this is supposedly a band that’s the cream of the musical crop, that is representative of our culture today, and I just don’t feel that it’s that way. To do that, I compared an extreme of relaxation and higher-class society to an extreme of the unemployment reality today as a method to use the Goldman-Sachs metaphor. Nothing more, nothing less.

The reason I used the quote of the ’06 performance is simply because I still feel that, improvements over time and everything else, the band puts more of an emphasis on image than anything else. In some cases, I feel that works, but MGMT just doesn’t work for me. That quote, I feel, illustrates that, above all, the band places more of an emphasis on “pretending” to play (as it were) than doing it their own way, teaching themselves how to play. For me, it speaks waves about the motives of the band. Since the band became a known item among many of my friends over the years, and a handful have seen them live, I have yet to hear a positive comment about their live set from any friend who has seen them. This summer, I happened to walk by Fenway Park when they were opening for Paul McCartney and what I heard (quite well actually – those Fenway speakers have a lot of juice in them) was, at best, kinda boring.

I’m hardly criticizing a band because of its “hipster” value. The reason I put “replace money with trend-chaser or hipster,” is because I feel a lot of folks who listen to MGMT aren’t necessarily hipsters, but are trend-chasers. Unfortunately, the definition of hipster is so fluid and changes from person to person, it’s harder to provide some form of description with trend-chaser than hipster. Sure, I could’ve written a five-paragraph screed about that, but it would’ve been off-topic. I consider a trend-chaser to be anything (not necessarily person) that finds the foibles of hipster culture and uses them for some other means (such as, say, American Apparel). This is hardly saying that there are fans out there who are trend-chasers or hipsters listening to the band, but a large appeal of the band (if you picked up any music magazine last year) was that they were the “hot, hip” new band. That appeals to people, sometimes more than the music. I tend to listen to bands that “hipsters” like, and when they get famous I still hold my ground. For example: TV on the Radio has been one of my favorite bands since Desperate Youth and I love them even more today.

Listen, these are merely my opinions, and yours are your own. I never try to force mine down on others, just try to create conversation and make people look at things in new ways. Clearly I created some conversation with you as you came up with reasons to defend the band. That’s great – I’m glad you can write some well-argued points about the band. I felt like discussing these points in an entirely different fashion, to remove the usual space within which music is discussed and see it in a new light. Not everyone is going to like it, I get that. But I just think it’s odd that some would call me a “dick” or actually seek physical violence for something that’s relatively innocuous. I’ve been upset with things that other folks have written about a band or a politician or anything before, but resort to wanting to slap someone is just beyond me. Usually I’ll just write a response. So thank you for writing a response, I really appreciate hearing your comments and concerns.