“Kids”—MGMT

This week, Rob assures you that yes, he was there, boots on the ground, for the indie rock (nay, indie sleaze?) boom that hit New York City in the 2000s. Rob sets the stage for the music scene that MGMT launched itself into, before he ultimately unpacks the pop sensation qualities of its megahit “Kids.” Later, music writer Larry Fitzmaurice joins to parse the indie pop scene, share what it was like to cover MGMT during its ascension, and weigh in on the legacy that the band's music and particular aesthetic have today. Host: Rob Harvilla Guest: Larry Fitzmaurice Producers: Jonathan Kermah, Justin Sayles, and Bobby Wagner Additional Production Support: Olivia Crerie Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

• 0:01Speaker 00

  I'm Yasi Solak and I'm here to announce a brand new season of my Ringer original podcast, Bandsplain, the show where we explain cult bands and iconic artists to you and yours. This time, babe, we're going across the pond. That's right, I'm absolutely chuffed to be talking about the music scenes of 80s and 90s Britain. I'm talking Madchester, I'm talking Baggy, I'm talking shoegaze, I'm talking Britpop, mate. So tune in every Thursday starting November 7th for a new episode of Bandsplain on Spotify or wherever you listen to podcasts.

• 0:32Speaker 01

  This episode is brought to you by Boar's Head. You know what I love about football season? It's the football, but also the football watching food. And nothing hits like a Boar's Head sandwich when I'm watching a game. Really, any game day sandwich better with Boar's Head. Philly cheesesteak, layer up buttery slider rolls with Boar's Head London broil roast beef, American white cheese, and picante provolone. Delicious. Then add roasted onions, peppers, and Boar's Head pub-style horseradish sauce. I love horseradish. And you've got the ultimate game day cheesesteak. They've also got a whole lineup of premium meats, cheeses, hummus, and dips, condiments, and more to serve up on game day. Head to your local Boar's Head deli counter to shop now. For game day sandwich inspiration and more, visit boar'shead.com. Boar's Head, committed to craft since 1905.

• 1:16Speaker 01

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• 1:51Speaker 02

  I was there, you know. We don't talk enough about how I was there. The Big Apple, the city that never sleeps, the cultural epicenter of the universe, the concrete jungle where dreams are made of. I'd frankly never heard of the place before, but then Andrew WK wrote a song about it and I thought, hey, that sounds pretty good. Let's move there.

• 2:23Speaker 02

  And so I moved there. New York City. Oh, yeah. That was the song I Love NYC from Andrew W.K.'s 2001 album, I Get Wet. The one where he's got a bloody nose on the cover. For like 10 minutes, that album made me think that the future of rock and roll would be 80s hair metal, but taken either way more seriously or way less seriously. I couldn't figure out which. But so, yeah, I moved to NYC. That's another way to say it. And one time in 2008, I interviewed Andrew W.K. backstage at the New Museum on the Lower East Side. And for like 45 minutes, I was like, are you serious?

• 3:04Speaker 02

  And for 45 minutes, Andrew W.K. was like, yes, I am serious. And then he went out and played a bunch of songs on a grand piano. And I was there. I was there at the LCD Sound System Show at the Bowery Ballroom. I was there at the Vampire Weekend Show at the Bowery Ballroom. I was there at the Cool Keith Show at the Bowery Ballroom, where before the show, I sat at the bar in the basement and I watched four drunk white dudes sing the chorus of Brandy, "You're a Fine Girl" a cappella. I will never forget this for as long as I live.

• 3:54Speaker 02

  That's the studio version of Brandy parentheses, "You're a Fine Girl", released by the New Jersey rock band Looking Glass in 1972. That band does not sound like New Jersey at all, I have to say, in my capacity as someone who once lived in a state next to New Jersey. But I do wish I'd somehow recorded the four drunk white guys singing Brandy parentheses, "You're a Fine Girl" at the Cool Keith Show. I feel like in that moment, I came close to a major revelation. About the nature of rap fandom, but then I lost it. It's gone. Too bad. Ooh, here's a good one. Don't ask me why I was there, but I was there at the Owl City Show at the Bowery Ballroom,

• 4:39Speaker 02

  where rumor has it, Taylor Swift was up in the balcony because Taylor Swift and the Owl City guy were rumored to be a thing for like 10 seconds. And then a couple of years later, I was at the Odd Future Show at Santos Party House. That's an even cooler club over in Tribeca, co-owned by Andrew W.K. It's closed now, and I wish I hadn't looked up why. And my whole trip to Santos Party House, from the moment I left our apartment on the subway, the walking, all of it, the whole time on my iPod, I was playing Enchanted by Taylor Swift on repeat, a song heavily rumored to be about how enchanted she'd been by the Owl City guy.

• 5:24Speaker 02

  This was maybe not my finest hour, but it was definitely the Owl City guys.

• 5:43Speaker 02

  Enchanted, top five all time Taylor Swift. Hear me now and believe me later. And then I got to the Odd Future Show and Tyler, the creator, introduced one song by saying, quote, "I just want to slap the fuck out of all parents and bloggers and fucking ugly people," end quote. And at the time, my wife was like seven months pregnant, so I personally was at least 1.5 of the three types of people Tyler, the creator, wanted to slap the fuck out of. I was there at the Pavement reunion show at the Williamsburg waterfront. That was rad. I was there at the Faith No More reunion show at the Williamsburg waterfront. That was even radder.

• 6:26Speaker 02

  Faith No More opened with "The Real Thing," and this first colossal power card, this too, I will never forget for as long as I live.

• 6:50Speaker 02

  To this day, once a month or so, I spend a few hours with that power cord stuck in my head. I'm mowing the lawn or whatever while going "brrrrrr" that rule so hard. I was there at the Grizzly Bear show at the Williamsburg waterfront where Beyonce and Jay-Z showed up. No, I wasn't. I wasn't there. But I did edit blogs from people who were there. I was there at the Beach Fossils show when the Brooklyn indie rock band Beach Fossils played at Water Taxi Beach in Long Island City and the bassist threw his bass into the East River. The bass he was playing the whole time. Just took off his bass and yeeted it into the river and I

• 7:34Speaker 02

  was there. No, I wasn't. That really happened, but I wasn't there. Apparently, nobody was there except some frightened children. But I did watch the video on brooklinvegan.com of the Beach Fossils guy. He's like thrashing around or whatever like you do and then whoop, just chucks his bass into the freaking river. It is amazing. I am amazed. I try to re-watch this video every year or so just to spiritually re-center myself. How'd you like to be a striped bass or a squid or whatever in the East River and you get clonked on the head by the Beach Fossils bassist's bass and your last thought before you die is, "I hate this band." I was

• 8:15Speaker 02

  there. I wasn't there for the Beach Fossils East River bass toss, but generally, I was there. New York City. I was in the mix. I made the scene. To quote Jay-Z, after he watched that Grizzly Bear show that I wasn't at, Jay-Z says, quote, "What the indie rock movement is doing right now is very inspiring," end quote. I agree with Jay-Z. Every week, a hot new inspiring band from Brooklyn. Every week, a whole rad new revolutionary music genre to frantically catch up on. Every week, an absurdly cool show I personally was not nearly cool enough to attend, but sometimes I was there. Every week, fresh proof that we were

• 8:59Speaker 02

  indeed all living in the cultural epicenter of the universe. And every day, a new song could change your life. And that song could come from anywhere and it could find you anywhere.

• 9:20Speaker 02

  Okay. Full disclosure, I was at home for this one. I was watching TV with my future wife in our 400 square foot Brooklyn apartment, not Williamsburg, alas, Brooklyn Heights. How do we manage that? I'm gonna guess we were watching Lost, maybe season three of Lost, when the others are a big whoop. And here comes a commercial for Quiznos, the submarine sandwich chain Quiznos. And how do I even describe this? Two crudely rendered floating mutant rodents with human teeth are singing this song about how much they love Quiznos. And one of the mutant rodents has an acoustic guitar and a pirate hat.

• 10:03Speaker 02

  And I'm watching this ad and I'm thinking, well, that does it. My brain has finally broken.

• 10:21Speaker 02

  So I first see this ad around 2006, when Quiznos is still a viable contender in the sandwich wars, a worthy adversary of Subway. But Quiznos flames out pretty quickly, hampered by, in no particular order, one, a bizarre coupon strategy that pissed off their franchise owners; two, the tremendous success of Subway's $5 foot long; three, the 2008 financial crisis; and four, another controversial ad campaign in which a talking Quiznos toaster oven sexually harasses Quiznos employees. I read that description in an article on thedailymeal.com and I thought, there is no way that's actually what happens in that ad.

• 11:05Speaker 02

  But then I watched a Quiznos ad advertising the Toasty torpedo in which a toaster oven says, "Put it in me, Scott", to a Quiznos employee named Scott. And obviously, I regret this whole line of inquiry. I do apologize. Quiznos filed for bankruptcy in 2014 and they're still around today, but maybe see if there's a Jersey Mike's nearby first. Still better than Jimmy John's, though. But so in the peak Quiznos era... When you got these mutant rodents with human teeth singing the company's praises in a national ad campaign, every Quiznos restaurant had a little self-serve kiosk

• 11:44Speaker 02

  where you could get pickles and banana peppers and pepperoncini and jalapenos to put on your sandwich. I'm sorry, I can't think of a good way to summarize this.

• 11:59Speaker 02

  That's it. That's great. Thank you. That wasn't so hard to describe, actually. They got a pepper bar. Thank you. Listen, I've been to a couple thousand concerts in my life, many of which in the Big Apple, and I have never personally witnessed any live human being sing anything, any song, any line, any phrase with the pure visceral passion of "they got a pepper bar." Incredible. These singing mutant rodents with human teeth are known officially as sponge monkeys. That's what they're called, sponge monkeys, sponge with no E. And they look familiar to me, the sponge monkeys. They are the creation

• 12:43Speaker 02

  of Joel Veach, a British animator, musician, eventual TV showrunner, and early 2000s internet sensation via the crude and delightful flash animations on his website, rathergood.com. I loved rathergood.com. And it just so happens that rathergood.com once featured the only rock band that I personally would describe using the words indie sleaze. And that rock band, of course, is from Detroit.

• 13:34Speaker 02

  The Electric Six. A sophisticated punk disco metal outfit from Detroit, Michigan. The Motor City, Hitsville, USA. Here we have The Electric Six, regaling us with their 2003 breakout hit called Gay Bar. Imagine that you're on the internet in the early 2000s. You're killing time at your first job as an arts writer for a Midwestern alt weekly. You're tinkering with your Yahoo Fantasy Baseball lineup. You're writing elaborate parody versions of Sublime's Caress Me Down for your Yahoo Fantasy Baseball message board. You're rewatching those G.I. Joe PSA parody videos on ebombsworld.com.

• 14:19Speaker 02

  And you stumble across this song, Gay Bar. But this song is being performed by, there's no other way to put this, Viking kittens. Crudely flash animated, dancing and singing kittens, dressed in Viking armor and wielding Viking weapons, maces and axes and what have you. There's a third kitten, I think it's a kitten, maybe it's a puppy, this doesn't matter. There's a third cute fuzzy animal with angel wings and a cherry red electric guitar. And he or she flies around and plays the guitar solo. There is a political dimension to this song, Gay Bar. No, there isn't, but it's funny to pretend that there might be.

• 15:14Speaker 02

  Maybe turn the volume down on your computer if you're at work. Yeah, RatherGood.com also has another video featuring crude flash animation kittens on a pool table, a rock band composed of cute screaming kittens on a pool table, and they're playing a song by The Vines, the Australian rock band, The Vines. Not get free, another Vine song. Out of the Way, I think that song was called. It doesn't matter. The Viking kittens also appeared in my favorite RatherGood.com video for Led Zeppelin's Immigrant Song. The kittens are headbanging on a Viking ship on a raging, bright blue sea, crudely flash-animated clouds are whizzing by, etc.

• 15:56Speaker 02

  I have been a very sophisticated internet user for a very long time.

• 16:11Speaker 02

  I need you to trust me that a giant kitten, standing on its hind legs wielding two, like, halberds, or whatever those pointy axes are called, with lightning flashing behind it, while Robert Plant sings "We Are Your Overlords," I need you to trust me that this was the best thing available on the internet in 2002. So, the internet in 2024 reliably informs me that this life-changing, gloriously hedonistic, indie-rockin', cocaine-snorting, Quiznos-sub-eating era of New York City that I personally lived through, the mid-to-late 2000s, basically,

• 16:55Speaker 02

  is encapsulated now by this term indie sleaze, a term that nobody used at the time. I have never tried cocaine, but I have eaten at Quiznos. Indie sleaze is an entirely retroactive term, like yacht rock, except with more cocaine, if that's possible, which it isn't. Indie sleaze is a marketing scheme. It's an overgrown Twitter joke. It's a nostalgia ploy. Me, I got no time for nostalgia. We didn't talk about indie sleaze back then. We talked about hipsters. So, let's talk about hipsters for like, two minutes tops. And while we talk about hipsters, I'm gonna play you some electric six songs that I like. Recognize this guy? I do believe he's from Detroit as well.

• 17:50Speaker 02

  Hey, it's Jack White. That's nice. Is Jack White a hipster? Maybe. Would Jack White dropkick you into Windsor, Ontario if you called him a hipster? Definitely. Windsor is in Canada, across the river from Detroit. They got casinos over there. That song's called Danger Exclamation Point High Voltage. The Electric Six are led by frontman and songwriter Dick Valentine, stage name. They have like 20 albums and they're weirdly gloriously consistent. My second favorite Electric Six album came out in 2007 and is called, "I Shall Exterminate Everything Around Me That Restricts Me From Being The Master."

• 18:30Speaker 02

  But all of these songs are from their truly transcendent 2003 debut album called Fire. The Electric Six sound like Weird Al Yankovic fronting the MC5. And consequently, obviously, I love them very much. Okay. So hipster is the term of art from roughly 1999 to 2009, and nobody wants to be one. But if you know enough about being a hipster to know that you don't want to be one, then guess what? You are one. There's that famous Onion headline, right? "Two Hipsters Angerly Call Each Other Hipster." "The Hipster Wears Clothing From American Apparel." Not me, I'm too tall and/or large. "The Hipster Wears Skinny Jeans." Not since COVID.

• 19:14Speaker 02

  "The Hipster Drinks Pabst Blue Ribbon." I'm more of a Natty Ice man myself. "The Hipster Reads Vice Too Mean." And McSweeney's Too Twee. And Gawker Extra Too Mean, especially to the publications I was writing for at the time. "The Hipster Goes To Cool Parties." Whose names I forget now if I ever knew them. The Misshapes? That was one? I didn't go there. And at these parties, the hipster is photographed candidly in stark, lascivious, unflattering, but somehow extra flattering lighting by a guy called the Cobra Snake. And what transpires at these parties? Improper dancing.

• 20:07Speaker 02

  This is my favorite Electric Six song. It's called "Improper Dancing." This band is objectively ridiculous and also very, very serious. Like Andrew W.K. level serious. It's the sleaze part of the term indie sleaze that makes me think of the Electric Six and only of the Electric Six. Yes, the specificity of this word sleaze. The leering, self-serious, but also self-deprecating oil slick of instant regret. It's gotta be dirty, but also a little goofy. Porny, but also patently absurd. Indie sleaze to me is 95% visual in nature, yes? And if I'm honest, it's 95% old American apparel ads.

• 20:51Speaker 02

  The tights and the tank tops and the underpants and the lewd mustaches. I would look up a bunch of old American apparel ads right now and give you more specifics, but I'm writing this on a plane and I do not wish to be escorted from the plane. The guy sitting next to me is wearing a cowboy hat unironically, and I do not want to have this conversation with him. The American apparel vibe is ostensibly sensual, but overpoweringly, irredeemably gross. It's like the magazine you're reading just slapped you with a restraining order. It makes you want to throw yourself into the East River. It is a profoundly unpleasant feeling in my experience, and there is only one band I trust

• 21:33Speaker 02

  to translate that terrible feeling into invigorating rock and roll music and thereby redeem that terrible feeling. Take it to the bridge.

• 21:55Speaker 02

  I have, in fact, been to New York City. One thing I love about the Electric Six is that sometimes during the guitar solo, the front man, Dick Valentine, stage name, he goes, "Solo!" Or if there's a bunch of rad drum fills happening, he'll go, "Exceptional drumming." I love it. You know the best part of the song "Improper Dancing"? It's right at the end. You have to be of a very specific disposition, an infantile and yet dad joke-oriented disposition to find this funny. And it just so happens that I am of that disposition.

• 22:41Speaker 02

  Stop, continue is extremely funny to me. I don't mind telling you, the sizable part of my brain that's just this is Spinal Tap playing on a loop forever, lights up like a Christmas tree at stop continue. Did the indie sleaze era generate great art? Did hipsters generate great art? Did the mid 2000s generate great art? The fear, at least as the decade ended, was fuck no. In October 2010, New York Magazine publishes a famous essay by the writer Mark Grief called, "What Was the Hipster?" This piece was adapted from a book called, "What Was the Hipster?

• 23:21Speaker 02

  A Sociological Investigation," published by the editors of N+1, the New York literary magazine N+1, which I didn't read, too fancy. So, Mark Grief, in this piece, he goes at hipsters pretty hard. He says, quote, "One could say, exaggerating only slightly, that the hipster moment did not produce artists, but tattoo artists, who gain an entire generation's arms, sternums, napes, ankles, and lower backs as their canvas. It did not produce photographers, but snapshot and party photographers. Last Night's Party, Terry Richardson, stay out of it, The Cobra Snake. It did not produce painters, but graphic designers.

• 24:06Speaker 02

  It did not yield a great literature, but it made good use of fonts. And hipsterism did not make an avant-garde, it made communities of early adopters." End quote. Well, that's grim. Let's palate cleanse with a random Electric Six song, shall we? Totally random. Throw a dart at the dartboard and see what happens.

• 24:39Speaker 02

  Okay, full disclosure, that was not entirely random. You got me. I picked the song called Naked Pictures (of Your Mother) on purpose. Because I love this song also. Though it occurs to me now that the words Naked Pictures of Your Mother are now in bold type and highlighted yellow on my computer screen. And the guy next to me on the plane in the unironic cowboy hat would only have to glance down and to the left to see this. And then we're having another conversation I don't want to have. He's in the bathroom right now. Type faster. You'll notice that Mark Greif didn't explicitly trash hipster music in that scathing "No Painters, Just Graphic Designers" rundown. Yes, he does write quite a bit about mid 2000s hipster music.

• 25:23Speaker 02

  And it's more bemused than scathing, but he's maybe not totally into it. He calls the music of this era hipster primitive, actually, which he describes thus, quote, "In culture, the hipster primitive movement recovered the sounds and symbols of pastoral innocence with an irony so fused into the artworks it was no longer visible." He goes on, quote, "Here are the names of some significant bands post 2004. Grizzly Bear, Neon Indian, Deer Hunter, Fleet Foxes, Department of Eagles, Wolf Parade, Band of Horses, and, most centrally, Animal Collective.

• 26:05Speaker 02

  Listeners heard animal sounds and lovely Beach Boys-style harmonies. Lyrics and videos pointed to rural redoubts on wild beaches and in forests. Life transpired in some more loving, spacious, and manageable future, possibly of a day glow or hallucinatory brightness. It was not unheard of to find band members wearing masks or plush animal suits." End quote. Does any of that sound particularly sleazy to you?

• 26:37Speaker 02

  Nah, Grizzly Bear, Animal Collective, et cetera. Are those the only bands you think of when you think of mid 2000s hipster bands? Of course not. Not all of the biggest bands back then were zoological in nature, name-wise. But you say you want ironically conveyed pastoral innocence and day-glow hallucinatory brightness. You want a hint of sleaze tempered by a self-awareness that tips into self-loathing? You want to start a nuclear war at the gay bar? You want to aesthetically combine Cool Keith psychedelia with retro Brandy, "You're a Fine Girl" soft-rock tunefulness? You want to misremember and misidentify the recent past?

• 27:20Speaker 02

  You want to abuse your natural nostalgic impulse? Well, then, let's do all that. Let's get enchanted. It is time to walk back into the middle of the street and dance improperly.

• 27:50Speaker 02

  My name is Rob Harvilla. This is the seventh episode of 60 Songs That Explain the 90s, Cole and the 2000s. And this week, we are discussing "Kids" by the duo MGMT, from their 2007 debut album, Oracular, Spectacular. "Kids," a boppy and childlike and bright and hallucinatory and quite disconcerting song about the terrors of both childhood and adulthood, about the soothing falsehoods and haunting oppressiveness of nostalgia, about wayward young adults taking far more than we needed of everything from everyone, about singing the words "control yourself" in an era when many of us could not, or at least did not.

• 28:33Speaker 02

  Took us a while to get here, so let's not dither, eh? Let's take a quick break and then get on with it.

• 28:42Speaker 03

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• 29:13Speaker 02

  Ad break. Exceptional ad break. They are called MGMT. Their names are Andrew Van Weingarten and Ben Goldwasser. They both write songs. They both play a bunch of instruments. And Andrew sings, usually. "Kids" is one of three songs. Exactly three songs. Three singles. On their 2007 debut album, "Irracular Spectacular", the songs "Kids", "Time to Pretend", and "Electric Feel", that blow up, that turn MGMT into hipster rock stars, festival rock stars, critically acclaimed rock stars. No caveat necessary, rock star, rock stars. The rest of "Irracular Spectacular",

• 29:58Speaker 02

  the other seven songs, are weirder, unrulier, less immediate and way more disconcerting. They are not hit singles. They are not trying to be hit singles. And then, on every subsequent MGMT album, everyone wants MGMT to write more songs, like those three huge, fun, super poppy hit singles. And MGMT refuse. They decline. They'd prefer not to. And so they don't. This is not a one-hit-wonder situation, because first of all, MGMT got three of them, three hits. And more importantly, what defines a one-hit-wonder? Every bit as much as the one-hit

• 30:40Speaker 02

  is that a one-hit-wonder keeps trying to write another hit. The sweatiness, the increasing desperation, the frantic attempts to recline the mountain. mountaintop. These are essential elements historically. The MGMT saga is different, less conventional, much more frustrating, but arguably more rewarding. Arguably. Okay. Can I play you the Quiznos Sponge Monkey is going, they got a pepper bar one more time, please? Just a world historical wine delivery here. I'll never get over it. Okay. Last time. Thank you.

• 31:19Speaker 04

  They got a pepper bar.

• 31:22Speaker 02

  Thank you. I appreciate your patience. Andrew Van Weingarten was born in Columbia, Missouri, and grew up an outdoorsy kid in Memphis, Tennessee. Ben Goldwasser was born in Mishawaka, Indiana, and raised in Westport, New York. All-American, meat and potatoes, small C conservative upbringings. And then Andrew and Ben meet in the fall of 2001 as freshman music majors at Wesleyan University, a small, posh, apparently quite raucous liberal arts school in Middletown, Connecticut. Andrew and Ben meet their first week of school. As the writer Vanessa Gregoriadis puts it in a 2010 MGMT profile in Rolling Stone,

• 32:07Speaker 02

  quote, "Both guys had signed up for rooms in the weird dorm, a haven for jam band lovers, ferret owners, and kids who arrived at college very familiar with psychedelic drugs," end quote. "You can't have a ferret in a dorm room. That's absurd." I was an RA in college and I'm almost sure about that. And then in their second week as freshmen at Wesleyan University, the Twin Towers fall. In Rolling Stone, Andrew Van Weingarten says, quote, "I was so paranoid as a freshman because everything at school was so different than home. And then September 11th happened. I became really scared about terrorism to the point where I'd hear a low-flying plane

• 32:51Speaker 02

  and think everything was over," end quote. No matter how bizarre, how debaucherous, how infantile, how frustrating the situation gets with these. Fellas with this band, don't ever lose sight of the paranoia and the terror and the sense of imminent apocalypse that undergirds and overshadows every song that this band ever makes, the hits and the non-hits alike, from the very beginning.

• 33:30Speaker 02

  This song is called "Everything is Happening So Fast," and the jauntiness only magnifies the accelerating sense of apocalypse, I think. Andrew and Ben both grew up in wholesome American conservative towns, and now they're in the apparently clothing-optional weird dorm at a bonkers Connecticut art school whilst trying to process a globally destabilizing terrorist attack. And so, as the writer Victoria De Silvario puts it in a 2008 MGMT profile for Spin Magazine, quote, "They started writing ridiculous by-design songs in different genres and singing karaoke-style to an iPod at unhinged campus shows, the first of which

• 34:14Speaker 02

  saw them play a 45-minute instrumental of the Ghostbusters theme," end quote. Andrew says, "We were less about quality, more about absurdity." Ben says, "We're trying to be obnoxious, but somehow people got into it." Andrew and Ben call themselves "The Management," spelled out. They debut as recording artists with a 2004 glorified demo EP called "We Don't Care." This is an informal burn CD that gets passed around situation. That's "we" parentheses "don't" close parentheses "care." You got it? "We don't care." The first song is called "We Care." The sixth and last song is called "We Don't Care," no parentheses. The second song is called "Everything is Happening

• 34:59Speaker 02

  So Fast," and the fifth song is called "Well, That Didn't Take Long, Now Did It."

• 35:16Speaker 02

  The fifth song on their first demo is called "Kids." There it is. Holy moly, it's raw, it's blaring, it's very much a demo. It's trying to be obnoxious. You can smell the Sharpie ink on the blank CD they burned it on, but it's there. The monster hook is there.

• 35:38Speaker 02

  The monster drums aren't quite there yet, but the monster drums are heavily implied. The chorus is there, the verses are there, the lyrics are completely there. The foundation, the full skeleton and much of the muscle for the epoch-defining pop song with 850 million Spotify plays is there already. I don't want to hear about it if I mispronounce that word. And the kids are there, laughing and cheering in the background. You heard the kids, right? The song "Kids" don't work without the kids.

• 36:17Speaker 02

  That's the bridge, the instrumental break to "Kids 1.0", where fancier, shinier, more professional drum stuff will happen later, soon. But like, we've all heard demos of famous songs where the famous version of the song is like 25% there at best. Whereas this initial version of "Kids" is like 75% there. A year later, in 2005, the management put out a second, longer glorified demo EP. This one called "Climbing to New Lows." Can I interest you in the "Kids After School Dance" mega mix?

• 37:06Speaker 02

  That's the new instrumental break. That's the "After School Dance" mega mix component of the "Kids After School Dance" mega mix. There's lots of kooky, fun, shambolic nonsense on these demos. There's no other pop song half as monumental. And undeniable as kids, but it's clear already that these knuckleheads excel at a sort of ultra hooky psychedelic synth pop that they'll quickly perfect and then spend the rest of their careers trying to subvert spoiler alert, but for now they're still aiming for pure absurdity and still hitting on something resembling quality. Let's do one more. This one's called hot love drama. Don't get your hopes up sleaze fans.

• 37:59Speaker 02

  Roll your eyes if you wish at a liberal arts college kid singing when I was younger, life was all magic like he's Prince or something, but that sentiment hits me way different when it comes from a liberal arts college kid in 2005. George W. Bush at the helm, nine 11 still a present tense trauma. Now we're in the midst of two American wars with the crushing Quiznos decimating 2008 financial crisis on deck. I am projecting here. I'm exaggerating. I am not under oath, but what I hear from the management in their earliest days are a couple of super

• 38:41Speaker 02

  smart ultra talented guys trying to take drugs until they're back in the womb. And that's not a noble aim necessarily, but I do think it's a pretty understandable one. You know how the Onion has that American voices feature the fake quotes from fake man on the street interviews? And it's the same six stock photos of people. One time in the year 2000 in this issue of the Onion, the topic was high school drug testing. The prompt was like, a high school in Texas is going to start doing random drug testing. What do you think? And one of the quotes next to the guy's picture, it says, man, if they do that, I'm going to take so many drugs that their like

• 39:24Speaker 02

  drug machine will blow the fuck up end quote. And I will never forget that line. And that line is MGMT to me. This is take so many drugs that the drug machine blows the fuck up music.

• 39:54Speaker 02

  But the worrying runs parallel to the partying with this band. From day one, there is no partying without worrying. Often, there is so much worrying that it blots out the partying altogether. All right, time to get a little more organized. Andrew and Ben hook up with a tiny Brooklyn record label called Cantora Records. There's apparently some other bands named the management. And so Andrew and Ben rename themselves simply MGMT. And then later in 2005, MGMT released their official debut, a six-song EP called Time to Pretend.

• 40:44Speaker 02

  And here we have the original version of Bonkers' hit single number two, "Time to Pretend," still my favorite MGMT song, if you want the truth. This is the first MGMT song most people are gonna hear. And this is not the famous version. The EP version is slower and sludgier, and the monster drums ain't there yet. And in this case, with "Time to Pretend," the monster drums are gonna be extra awesome and monstrous. But once again, the original version is already 75% there. The whole skeleton and a lot of the muscle. In about 90 seconds, MGMT are gonna be signed to a major label and working with a big shot producer. And that's gonna help, or at least not hurt.

• 41:24Speaker 02

  But MGMT bring the instinctive best-case-scenario pop magnificence with them. They already sound like rock stars before the big, shiny corporate machine turns them into rock stars. "Time to Pretend," in fact, is a song about how MGMT are gonna be rock stars now.

• 41:55Speaker 02

  But it's ironic, see? It's a joke, it's a goofy little sneer. The song is mocking the old, staid, empty hedonism rock star bullshit. Recall that this song is called "Time to Pretend." In that Rolling Stone piece on MGMT, Vanessa Gregoriades writes, quote, "They wrote 'Kids' and 'Time to Pretend' as a way of processing their collegiate experience. They fantasized that they would make it as a band. A friend recalls dinners with Van Weingarten where the conversation revolved around what life would be like when they became rich and famous. But they were also interested in stopping time, in staying at college forever.

• 42:36Speaker 02

  The band wasn't a joke, the way Flight of the Conchords is a joke, but they injected a tongue-in-cheek quality into songs like 'Time to Pretend.'" And then Andrew Van Weingarten says, quote, "Those songs are a combination of being sincere and not sincere, caring and not caring. We were such different people back then," end quote. And the people MGMT were back then, at least pretended to fantasize, about getting a little sleazy.

• 43:16Speaker 02

  For a year or so after college, Ben and Andrew had drifted apart and traveled a bit on various side quests with no particular rock star aspirations, no pressing desire to even continue as a band at all. But then they reconnected in Brooklyn in 2006, in the heat of the action. I was there too. And this "Time to Pretend" EP has six songs, and "Time to Pretend" is the first track, and "Kids" is the last track, and an A&R at Columbia Records gets a hold of it, and suddenly MGMT are being wined and dined. The "Let's Be Rockstars" joke is becoming not a joke. They have semi-accidentally faked it until they made it.

• 43:58Speaker 02

  They have, at least in theory, manifested the island and the cocaine and the elegant cars.

• 44:16Speaker 02

  The major label whining and dining of MGMT generates some of the funnier whining and dining stories of the indie sleaze era. In a few profiles, it says that MGMT demanded puppies on their tour rider. There had to be puppies backstage at their shows because puppies are awesome. And the spin article quotes a Columbia Records A&R named Maureen Kenny, who says she took Andrew and Ben to the swanky Peninsula Hotel in Manhattan. And Maureen says, quote, "They ordered the most expensive drinks, $24 Bellinis, and Andrew asked if they'd get fur coats. And then they emailed me a dream list of producers that

• 44:56Speaker 02

  included Barack Obama and not Sheryl Crow," end quote. "Not Sheryl Crow on a list of potential producers is very funny to me." Honestly, no offense to Sheryl Crow. And so, as requested, on their 2007 major label debut album, "Irracular Spectacular," MGMT are produced by not her.

• 45:34Speaker 02

  And so here we have the famous maximalist, super poppy, monster drums version of "Time To Pretend," which is produced, along with the rest of the first MGMT album, by Mr. Dave Fridman, the pride of Buffalo, New York. If you know only three things about Buffalo, you know the Goo Goo Dolls, you know drunk dudes in Zubaz pants joyfully chokeslamming one another through folding tables whilst tailgating outside Buffalo Bills games, and you know Dave Fridman, member of the Buffalo art rock band Mercury Rev and producer of various other exceedingly rad bands, including Mogwai, Slater Kinney, Sparkle Horse, Lo.

• 46:17Speaker 02

  And who else? Ah, yes, The Flaming Lips. The pride of Oklahoma City, Oklahoma. First ballot, take so many drugs that your drug machine blows the fuck up. Hall of Famers. Bizarro 90s one-hit wonders. Shout out, she don't use jelly. Turned maximalist art rockers, who in 1999 put out one of my favorite albums of all time, called The Soft Bulletin and produced by, you guessed it, not Sheryl Crow.

• 46:54Speaker 02

  That part of The Flaming Lips song, "A Spoonful Weighs a Ton", that's what I think of when I think of The Soft Bulletin, when I think of The Flaming Lips, when I think of Dave Fridman. That's one D, two N's. Dave Fridman producing The Flaming Lips. The absurd concussive majesty of those drums. Like you stuck your whole head into the kick drum. Like every beat of the kick drum flattens another house in your neighborhood. Now Dave Fridman's producing MGMT. And so now, MGMT, get those drums.

• 47:47Speaker 02

  And the concussive maximalism becomes part of the sarcasm. Yes, the huge drums are in on the joke. MGMT are play-acting as rock stars. Embracing the cliches, the cocaine, the heroin, the fucking with stars, the rapturous sleaze. But they also sing, "What else can we do", knowing full well what everyone else does and what even they might have to do eventually. Get a real job. Get jobs in offices and wake up for the morning commute. We all did that. Even in the indie sleaze era. Even in New York City. Were our jobs ridiculous and frivolous and borderline insulting to our ancestors? Probably. Did we wake up for the morning commute at like 10:30 a.m.? Maybe.

• 48:32Speaker 02

  Maybe, but nonetheless, we're supposed to live vicariously through rock stars. That's the whole point of rock stars. They give us something to daydream about, someone to daydream about being. But Time to Pretend shows us that in 2007, even the rock stars can only daydream about being rock stars.

• 49:06Speaker 02

  But the huge drums don't make the song. The huge drums only amplify the song. The song already has that monster hook.

• 49:20Speaker 02

  Time to Pretend is already a colossal song before the major label, before the big shot producer, before the vast majority of the attention arrives. The huge drums and the big shot producer and the major label can only hold up a bullhorn to the inherent ecstatic enormity of Time to Pretend. Oh, man, this is happening. MGMT are going to be huge rock stars. They already are huge, huge rock stars. And Time to Pretend is only track one on the first MGMT record. Oh, man, watch them get even huger on track two.

• 50:07Speaker 02

  Okay. Oh, geez. Track two on Irregular Spectacular is called Weekend Wars, and it starts like that. And that's fine, right? The song's fine. Andrew's voice is a little strained and that acoustic guitar sounds quite feeble after all the colossal drums, but it's fine, right? It's fine. This song sounds like Barack Obama produced it. Actually, this is the first song Obama ever produced. A while back, back in the 90s, we discussed the idea of a CD having a good song percentage, right? All CDs, all albums have two types of songs, good songs and not good songs.

• 50:47Speaker 02

  And the only statistic that matters, even in the post-CD era, is an album's good song percentage. And so... Just to pick a random hypothetical example, "Irraculous Spectacular" by MGMT has 10 tracks total and three good songs, resulting in a good song percentage of, let's add this up, beep boop beep boop, 30%, not great, honestly, not ideal. And so, historically, with this, the first MGMT record, when I play it, I play track one, "Time to Pretend", which is the first good song, and then it ends, and I hear the first 10 seconds of track two, "Weekend Wars", which is the first not-good song,

• 51:31Speaker 02

  and then I click my mouse a few times and play "Time to Pretend" again. Yes, rude but true, even ruder, just a few weeks ago, back when I was a much different and ruder person, while discussing the Killers album "Hot Fuss", we decided, I decided, but you heard me, so you're complicit, we decided that "Hot Fuss" by The Killers had four good songs, or six good songs, but really it's four. And the rest of the album was, and that's super rude and unhelpful, to dismiss the vast majority of someone's musical output as, and so now, here, in the cold light of maturity and adulthood, we can get past the first 10 seconds

• 52:14Speaker 02

  and listen to the MGMT song "Weekend Wars" in its entirety, and acknowledge that the paranoia and the terror and the sense of imminent apocalypse is already mingling, intriguingly, with the rock stardom.

• 52:45Speaker 02

  "I'm a curse and I'm a sound. When I open up my mouth, there's a reason I don't win. I don't know how to begin." The drums are huge, but the dudes singing over the huge drums are shrinking. Not shrinking in the spotlight, they're shrinking just generally. Or maybe it's just that the sun is expanding and our planet is dying. These dudes are vibrating with terror. What you learn about MGMT over the course of the first MGMT record is that, yes, they wrote a couple of giant pop songs back when they were much different people. But really, these guys are pretty freaky. They like freaky shit. They like art rock. They like prog rock. They like hobbit-ass folk music. They like psychedelia.

• 53:30Speaker 02

  They like confusing people, perhaps even antagonizing people. On their website, whoismgmt.com, they offered a mission statement for Oracular Spectacular. That begins as follows. Quote, "This is not a concept album, and we do not want it to be promoted as a concept album. However, it does address many similar themes, dealing mostly with current apocalyptic confusion and post-apocalyptic survivalism, paralleled by an underlying narrative of signing to a major label and leading fantasy rock star lives. Some of the key phrases that can be used to describe the album's sound are future 70s,"

• 54:14Speaker 02

  as in the decade, the 70s happening in the future, "future 70s confusion zone," "world country," "mystic future 70s," and "mystic bullshit." End quote. Okay, then. Let's take MGMT's own framing. 70% of this record is mystic bullshit.

• 54:52Speaker 02

  This song is called "The Youth." It is track three. The woozy falsetto-driven cult-like vibe here is designed to freak you out a little bit, I think. "The Youth" is not one of this album's three good songs. Rather, "The Youth" is one of this album's seven not-good songs. But you have a choice when you put Oracular Spectacular on. Either you submit to the full future 70s vibe and listen to the whole thing and take the good with the not-good, or you just fixate on the three songs you want and the hell with the rest of it.

• 55:44Speaker 02

  Electric Feel, track four, is the second good song on Irregular Spectacular. The bassline, the falsetto slinkiness, the even more convincing Prince adjacency, the lasciviousness, sure, the sleaziness. Electric Feel defies explanation, or at least obviates the need for explanation. I think Kansas City Chiefs tight end Travis Kelsey said it best in 2010 when he tweeted the following, quote, "Ooh, girl," two exclamation points, "shock me like an electric eel," three exclamation points, and eel is spelled E-A-L.

• 56:25Speaker 02

  "Ha ha, MGMT Electric Feel has been playing in my head all day," one exclamation point, end quote. I agree completely. You need somebody to spell eel? Travis ain't your guy. You need someone to date Taylor Swift and anchor your fantasy football team? Well, nowadays Travis can definitely do one of those things. Yasi Solak reminded me of that tweet. Thank you, Yasi. Electric Feel is rad. Don't overthink it. And the song after Electric Feel is rad as well.

• 57:13Speaker 02

  Track five, and the third and final good song on Irregular Spectacular, is Kids. A baby is born crying out for attention. This is a fundamentally childlike song on a fundamentally childlike album. The adult world is terrifying, which makes you want to be a kid again. But when you're a kid, the world is even more terrifying. This point, this thesis is driven home by the video. For Kids in which Joanna Newsom, harp virtuoso, mesmerizing singer songwriter, inherent vice actress, indie sleaze deity Joanna Newsom, plays a distracted mother who stalks around New York while her one-year-old baby is terrified by various grotesque monsters.

• 57:58Speaker 02

  The baby's crying, like really crying, like half the time. The kids' video is genuinely upsetting. The kids' video generated a great deal of vigorous internet debate. MGMT even published some behind-the-scenes footage to show that the kid in the kids' video was smiling a lot of the time. I found a Reddit thread on the MGMT Reddit with the title, "Any update on kids from kids' video? Like his mental health?" And my favorite comment on this thread reads, quote, "He just vibin', bro. He chillin," end quote. 10 upvotes for that comment. I would upvote that as well if I were on Reddit. Call it 11 upvotes.

• 58:42Speaker 02

  Nostalgia is its own nightmare. Take my word for it, or take theirs.

• 59:06Speaker 02

  "I thought this wouldn't hurt a lot, I guess not." I'll be honest and say that line whizzed right by me at the time in 2007, in my Brooklyn years, my hipster years. It ain't whizzin' by me now. "I thought this wouldn't hurt a lot, I guess not." Does he mean growing up? Does he mean actually becoming a rock star? Does he mean moving to Brooklyn? Does he mean moving out of Brooklyn? You want to know what I think? I can sum up what I think in one word: solo.

• 59:46Speaker 02

  It's a fun little solo. A fun little solo that kinda sounds like an anxiety attack. How about that? A fun meta element of the super nostalgic MGMT song Kids is that for the rest of this band's enviably bizarre and combative career, people will be nostalgic for a time when MGMT wrote songs like this. The second MGMT album comes out in 2010 and is called Congratulations. That title is sarcastic.

• 1:00:26Speaker 02

  This song is called Flash Delirium. It is the first single off the second MGMT record. And I do believe he just said, "You can't get a grip if there's nothing to hold." Talking to New York Magazine in 2009, Andrew Van Weingarten says, quote, "People think we're associated with Lady Gaga or something because we have a dance song that we wrote when we were 19," end quote. Those people are mistaken. Talking to Rolling Stone in 2010, Andrew Van Weingarten describes this song, Flash Delirium, like this, quote, "I was imagining a sock hop and there's a bunch of kids at it, but then there's a terrorist attack.

• 1:01:06Speaker 02

  It's about partying but being paranoid about terrorism and the chaotic world we're in," end quote. Flash Delirium is like 12 songs crammed into one song, and all 12 of those songs intend to cause grievous bodily harm.

• 1:01:33Speaker 02

  That's the cult-like chanting part of Flash Delirium, and I do believe he just said, "Here's a growing culture deep inside a corpse." The chanting part is followed immediately by the flute solo. Flute solo. I love this song, Flash Delirium. This might be my favorite MGMT song. I have no choice to respect what a resounding slap in the face this song was at the time to anybody who wanted another kids. A slap in the face that is still reverberating. In October 2024, Rolling Stone put out a list of the 50 most disappointing albums of

• 1:02:09Speaker 02

  all time, and there's congratulations at number 31, the 31st most disappointing album of all time. For the record, the 32nd most disappointing album of all time was "I'm In You" by Peter Frampton, and the 30th most disappointing album of all time was "One Hot Minute" by the Red Hot Chili Peppers. I will defer to all you Peter Frampton scholars out there on the Peter Frampton question, but "One Hot Minute" got some jams. That's the Dave Navarro record. That's as moss as the Red Hot Chili Peppers have ever lived. Here's the final screamy part of Flash Delirium.

• 1:02:52Speaker 02

  The one line from this song that did jump out at me at the time was, "Mass adulation, not so funny." Honestly, this is a little loud, so brace yourself.

• 1:03:13Speaker 02

  Yeah, MGMT are gonna be fine. Everything's great. They kinda are gonna be fine, which is even more surprising. MGMT puts out a third album, self-titled in 2013, that doesn't do much. And then in 2018, they put out a fourth album called "A Little Dark Age" that's got some jams on it, actually. And then in 2024, they put out a fifth album called "A Loss of Life." That's, there's no jams on this, per se, but I was really struck. I was honestly really moved by this one song called "Nothing Changes."

• 1:04:03Speaker 02

  This song, "Nothing Changes," caught me at a low moment this past summer. Nothing major, just a stereotypical, middle-aged funk reflecting on my debaucherous past. That sort of thing, stay out of it. "The memories fade like looking through a fogged mirror. An old man is born crying out for attention." But I do still occasionally pay attention to the present day. And I pay attention to the song playing in the present day. And every so often, a line still jumps out at me.

• 1:04:48Speaker 02

  Did MGMTs stop pretending, or did we? Or maybe we never stopped pretending, and we never will.

• 1:04:57Speaker 01

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• 1:05:38Speaker 01

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• 1:06:02Speaker 02

  We are thrilled to welcome Larry Fitzmorris, a writer and editor who has written for Pitchfork, The Fader, The New York Times, and many other fine publications. He also has his own newsletter, Last Donut of the Night. Larry, welcome. It's great to talk to you.

• 1:06:17Speaker 05

  Thank you for having me.

• 1:06:19Speaker 02

  Of course. You profiled MGMT. You hung out with them for a Pitchfork cover story in 2013, you know, when they'd already been famous for a while, and they'd already been pretty public about not wanting to be this famous for a while. Like, did it seem to you like these guys wanted to be rock stars, or did they clearly not want to be rock stars anymore? Or what?

• 1:06:42Speaker 05

  So, I mean, I caught them at kind of an interesting time. It was during the making of their self-titled third album, which ended up being kind of almost as contentious of a record as "Congratulations," the record that preceded it, honestly. Because, you know, the, I think it's been enough time that I can say this, but like, there was like a hard push from their label at the time, Columbia, to get them kind of back on the pop track, so to speak. And even like, when I was talking to the label, people at the time, they were like, "Oh, yeah, no, this time, they're coming back with stuff that like, is very accessible." And then, you know, I would hang out with them, I'd go to the studio with them, Dave Friedman's studio in upstate New York. And I was like,

• 1:07:25Speaker 05

  "Oh, yeah, they are not working on anything close to what they're promising people," which is kind of interesting. I mean, Dave, like, this probably won't be the only time I bring this kind of comparison up through this conversation, but I feel like they are a lot like Animal Collective to me, in that they had this massive cultural moment with music that was a lot more accessible than what they're actually interested in doing. And as soon as that moment passed, they were just kind of like, "All right, we're gonna go back to being ourselves and just do what we'd like." I mean, the difference is, of course, Animal Collective had that moment like 13 years into their career. MGMT started

• 1:08:05Speaker 05

  their career like that. So, but yeah, I feel like they have always wanted to be, you know, themselves, and like a reflection of, they're kind of like, very like, you know, esoteric, like, non-indie-friendly influences. They're both big Rush fans, for example. And- You know, I think people are finally starting to catch up to them these days, but you know, there was kind of this mass confusion for most of the 2010s of like, what are these guys up to? I thought they were something else.

• 1:08:36Speaker 02

  I feel like I see a lot of quotes from them being like, we tried to write pop songs and it just turned out really weird. Like, do you think they tried to be the band that like the label wanted them to be? Or was it just total defiance all the time?

• 1:08:51Speaker 05

  I mean, when you listen to Irregular Spectacular, the first record, like, you almost hear their, like, big three songs, kids absolutely included as like an accident.

• 1:09:01Speaker 02

  Right, absolutely.

• 1:09:03Speaker 05

  Because they were always this really like dissonant and strange. When I first heard their music, I, it took me a while to get into it at all until I realized that they were kind of in the same universes of Montreal. And then I, at that time, and I was like, oh, okay, like, this makes a lot more sense to me. I get what they're doing now. So, yeah, I mean, I, I, I mean, I think it's like a fun thing to tell people for sure that, you know, like, we try, but we can't. I think it's more just like, they make what comes out of them. Sometimes it's super accessible and, you know, they've had like, you know, they had, they've had like something resembling a hit again in the past couple of years, which is kind of strange. But most of the time, they're just like, nope, this is just, this is who we are. This is what we're doing.

• 1:09:48Speaker 02

  Do you think that they sort of know they're being alienating and they're not giving people what they want? Is there like a glee to them that they're subverting these expectations?

• 1:09:58Speaker 05

  I think that for a very long time, they were like acutely aware of that and trying to push back. When I went on tour with them, they were not playing kids and had removed it from their setlist completely.

• 1:10:13Speaker 02

  He was pretty hostile, yeah.

• 1:10:15Speaker 05

  Very hostile. And like, you know, I honestly didn't think that much of it while I was in town. I was like, I'm a little surprised they're not playing this song, but like, it doesn't, you know, like, they've got a lot of other songs at this point. They're doing their own thing. But I would wander amidst the crowds at the shows. I went to two shows, one in, one at the Wellmont Theater in New Jersey, shout out to northern New Jersey, and one near Niagara Falls in upstate New York. And, you know, I would spend a lot of time before both shows in the crowd just talking to, you know, kids about kids. I would be like, do you, are you excited for this show? And they'd be like, yeah. And I'd be like, Did you know they're not playing kids tonight? And every single time, uh, they would just be like, what?

• 1:11:00Speaker 05

  What are you talking about? Um, it would either be like this very like dejected response or in like a few instances, you know, underage people asking me to buy them alcohol, which I declined.

• 1:11:11Speaker 02

  I think you owe them alcohol at that point, Larry. I bummed them out pretty severely and you gotta make up to them.

• 1:11:16Speaker 05

  I owe them something.

• 1:11:18Speaker 02

  That's hilarious. Like you're walking around before the show spoiling the show for people. That's a very MGMT construction.

• 1:11:25Speaker 05

  Yeah, and I mean, it was strange too, because I was, um, I'm trying to think it was 2013. So it's like, I was, I was on kind of the upper end of my twenties at that point and I felt old in the audience. Like I felt like, I felt like I shouldn't have been there. I felt uncomfortable. Um, so, you know, like their, their, their audience expectations and I, I don't know if they actively disdain their audience, but you know, it should be noted that it should be noted that they don't tour anymore. Um, so I'm not sure they're really interested in engaging with them on that level, or at least that era of their audience.

• 1:12:05Speaker 02

  They're like the Beatles now, in that respect, and in only that respect. You had a very funny viral tweet recently that I think dates from this period about how you introduced MGMT to the topic of the dark web. And like you really freaked them out by describing the dark web to them. And I was just wondering if these guys are pretty easy to freak out in general.

• 1:12:28Speaker 05

  Yeah, that was funny because, um, I actually like, um, when I was, I ended up like kind of blowing their minds a few times because during the Niagara Falls show, James Gandolfini died. Um, and after the show, like, you know, like, and anybody who's like reported pieces like this knows that like, you're spending a lot of downtime just making conversation with people, sometimes with the subjects, sometimes with just like people hanging out with the subjects, um, sometimes their team. And, uh, you just can't kind of like, in my case, like I end up just kind of telling people the news sometimes and I, uh, you know, they get off stage and they're like, they're like, yeah, great show. And I was like, yeah, James Gandolfini died. And they're like, what? Um, so, you know, that was like one, one instance.

• 1:13:13Speaker 05

  And then like, we got back into the, we got back into the van and went back to the hotel and like, um, I, I think I was just trying honestly to kill the silence, uh, which is just

• 1:13:24Speaker 02

  Sure.

• 1:13:24Speaker 05

  Like a, maybe a questionable trait of mine, but I, I was like, hey, have you guys ever heard of the deep web? And they were like, what are you talking about? And I just like, for like 20 minutes, I told them all about, you know, what I learned about, uh, the, the deep web and like how to surf it and like, you know, like I had never spent any time on it myself, but like, this is like, again, like 2013 and it was kind of like a relatively new concept in the mainstream. And yeah, like the next day, like before the Wellmont show, I, you know, I go up to Andrew in the green room and he's like, I'm like, how, how, so how, how are you doing? Like, how was the rest of your night? And he was like, honestly, I had a hard time sleeping. I just couldn't stop thinking about the deep web.

• 1:14:06Speaker 05

  And you know, like I, I, I, it was a very endearing moment for me because like, I do think that both of them, when you give them information, they take it seriously. And like, having, having spent a lot of time with musicians, especially musicians on their level, that's not always the case.

• 1:14:23Speaker 02

  No.

• 1:14:24Speaker 05

  Especially when you're on tour with them, like, you know, maybe you're saying something with somebody and it's in one ear, out the other. But, you know, I, I told them about the deep web and they really, really took it to heart. Somebody actually joked online, they were like, so you're responsible for them getting obsessed with conspiracy theories, uh, in Little Dark Age? And I was like, well.

• 1:14:43Speaker 02

  You probably are.

• 1:14:44Speaker 05

  It could be, I don't know. We'll see, we'll see about that. But yeah, no, I mean, they're, they're very thoughtful, um, intelligent guys really. Um, and I, I feel like any kind of misconceptions otherwise has been mostly because of kind of the, what, what people like assume their music represents in terms of the listener base.

• 1:15:03Speaker 02

  You have a very intense interviewer energy, Larry. You're like, did you know James Gunn, did you know they're not gonna play kids? Did you know the deep web where you can, you can, yeah, it's just, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's cool though. I mean, you, you get good stuff out of them clearly. It really works for you.

• 1:15:18Speaker 05

  I try, yeah.

• 1:15:19Speaker 02

  But it works for you. I'm sorry to ask you this, but Larry, is indie sleaze a real thing?

• 1:15:28Speaker 05

  I mean, it's interesting. I've spent a lot of time thinking about this because it's like, I think like as a phenomenon, indie sleaze exists, you know, out of the pandemic.

• 1:15:42Speaker 02

  Sure, sure.

• 1:15:43Speaker 05

  I think that a lot of younger people, like, I don't know, like, I made a joke to a friend that was like, if I'm 37, I was like, if anybody above the age of 35 is like seriously talking to you about indie sleaze as like a thing that exists, do not trust them. Like, don't give them your credit card.

• 1:16:01Speaker 02

  That's correct.

• 1:16:03Speaker 05

  Because there's something going on there. But, you know, like, I think a lot of younger people, you know, they spent this prolonged period of time inside and in some instances, kind of missing social rites of passage.

• 1:16:20Speaker 02

  Their own adolescence and

• 1:16:22Speaker 05

  Exactly, yeah.

• 1:16:23Speaker 02

  Early twenties, yeah.

• 1:16:24Speaker 05

  And then you start thumbing through, you know, like 2000s nostalgia, which is definitely like revving up a bit. And you see a lot of the surface level stuff there, pictures of people at parties seemingly having a good time. And you're like, well, I would like to do that, too. Like, that sounds good. And like, I don't, I don't fault anybody for that. Like, I think like, that makes sense to me. And like, you know, like, honestly, like, I'm not, I'm never gonna be one to tell a young person what to do with their lives. But in terms of what indie sleaze actually was, like, I don't know. It seems like something that is just like referred to as a catchall for like music of the 2000s right now. If you ask me to define it really quickly, I would say it's blog house. Like, I would say it's like a lot of like,

• 1:17:07Speaker 05

  you know, buzzsaw sim stuff, yeah, Justice, Ed Banger, Last Night's Party.

• 1:17:12Speaker 02

  Ed Banger, yeah.

• 1:17:13Speaker 05

  Yeah, but. You know, like I've seen people make some like really crazy assertions about what indie sleaze is. Um, like I think maybe in the bathroom obviously has like inspired a lot of people to be like, maybe the strokes were in these sleeves. Um, I honestly think at this point indie sleaze as a concept kind of like died as soon as Charlie XCX released BRAT because like

• 1:17:37Speaker 02

  Yeah, right.

• 1:17:38Speaker 05

  This hedonistic impulse that like the younger generation had, like there was nothing really in the first couple of years pop wise that was allowing or even like indie wise that was allowing them to, you know, attach that action onto it. And as soon as BRAT came along, it's like, okay, like we can reframe this as something in the present rather than the past. So, you know, like maybe, maybe Charlie XCX killed indie sleaze for us, which we, we would thank her for that, I think.

• 1:18:04Speaker 02

  I really liked that. I had never thought of that, but I think you're exactly right. Um, I think you're right about the pandemic. I think you're right about how it began and how it ended. I think we just, you just solved this. I just listened. I think you nailed it. I'm serious. All right.

• 1:18:18Speaker 05

  Glad to hear it.

• 1:18:20Speaker 02

  I go back and forth, like I, I can define indie sleaze like visually, right? Like Cobra Snake, American Apparel, whatever, like, but I look at an indie sleaze playlist and it's that band, The Dare, who are basically just cosplaying LCD Sound System. Like does M, do MGMT strike you as an indie sleaze band, even in the broad incorrect definition of the term?

• 1:18:44Speaker 05

  I, I mean, the big thing about, you know, you mentioned like Cobra Snake and I mentioned Bloghouse as well. And I feel like the big thing about how bands would kind of, how like indie rock bands would kind of sneak into that scene was directly through remixes. Um, you, you get these really like, I mean, like, you know, the blog still exists, the hype, uh, hype machine. Hide Machine was something where like when I was in college in the late 2000s, mid, mid late 2000s, I was, you know, obsessively refreshing and just like seeing if they posted a new good remixes and stuff like, you know, that was kind of like the peak of like indie and dance kind of emerging there. You had also like copy coming out as well with like music

• 1:19:28Speaker 05

  that like, you know, to a lot of like indie rockers already sounded like a remix. Um, so you know, like I, I remember hearing tons of MGMT remixes around that time and that kind of being, yeah, justice, I mean, justice is a big one. Um, and that kind of being like, oh, like this is, this is how they like make sense in that world. It's funny though, when I talked to them for the Pitchfork story, um, and they talked about kind of like that period of time where like, you know, they got like really big, really fast. Um, you know, they, they did like a little bit of partying and they were like, it doesn't suit us. Like it's not who we are. Like we don't, this is not how we like to be and it makes us feel gross. Um, so you know, like if they are considered like a part of that era, I

• 1:20:13Speaker 05

  feel like it's definitely not something they would have asked for, so to speak.

• 1:20:18Speaker 02

  There's an interesting tension in their early interviews. I forget which way it went, but like Rolling Stone interviews them right around when kids is huge and like they, they talk about all their drug escapades. And then like a little while later in Spin, they talk about how embarrassed they were reading about their drug escapades in Rolling Stone and they don't want to do that. I think they had gotten all of that out of their systems by the time they got to you. But there is this, they're like hedonist, but then they're embarrassed immediately by their hedonism and they don't want to be defined by it anymore.

• 1:20:50Speaker 05

  Well, it's funny because they also got upset with me, um, after I did the piece because one thing that, um, I was told by, uh, Jennifer from Royal Trucks, who was on Congratulations was that the first time they met, they like took a lot of mushrooms and went to a diner, um, and like just couldn't stop staring at, you know, maple syrup on the, on their Monte Cristos. And like, you know, like honestly, like that to me is like, that's not like partying, druggie stuff. That, that's like what makes sense to me.

• 1:21:22Speaker 02

  Yes.

• 1:21:22Speaker 05

  With that kind of music. Um, and but I but like, you know, they they didn't like the fact that I mentioned that they kind of bristled because like, you know, they were they were trying to be like, hey, we're not like, we're not like the druggie partying band. And now I was like, no, you guys aren't a partying band. You just occasionally like, you know, trip balls to make your music. I don't I think I don't think anybody would be surprised about that at all. I mean, again, back to Animal Collective, it reminds me of when Panda Bear did a High Times interview around like 2011.

• 1:21:54Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:21:54Speaker 05

  I remember some people being like, oh, like, like some experimental music, like fans being like, oh, like, this is a little too obvious for them to be talking about weed like this. And it's like, well, like, you know, they're Animal Collective. Where did you think this was coming from? Um, you know, so I don't know, like, I get why they bristle against. I feel like it's kind of seen as a badge of honor for them now, though.

• 1:22:14Speaker 02

  I'm really enjoying reframing MGMT as staring at your Monte Cristo music. That's just a really beautiful environment. Just mesmerized by the dripping maple syrup. That's just that's exactly what this band sounds like.

• 1:22:28Speaker 05

  It's a good setting. Yeah.

• 1:22:29Speaker 02

  Actually, it absolutely is. You mentioned briefly, I think it was 2018, right? It was Little Dark Age. Like, that was like a hit, you know, by 2018 standards. Like, have this has this band had like a longer and more interesting career because they refused to chase, you know, more obvious pop hits?

• 1:22:50Speaker 05

  I think so. I think it took a while for that to take hold. I think it was like a hard sell. I mean, I know it was a hard sell. Um, because, you know, you would just like, I would talk to people about congratulations on the self titled record and be like, these are really interesting. Like, these are much better than anybody is saying they are. And, you know, there was this kind of resistance, skepticism that like, you know, if they were doing something weird with this stuff, it it was maybe like not to be trusted. Um, but you know, Little Dark Age as a record was kind of kind of like a combination of their two selves. Like, you know, it was proof that they could write, they can write pop songs. Because there's some of their like, most straightforward pop material from the

• 1:23:31Speaker 05

  last decade is on that record. But it's also very weird. Um, I mean, you know, it has like, you know, there's a like, it's very doomy. It's very, uh, kind of like apocalyptic. I think that's why the title track, um, went viral in the last couple of years on TikTok.

• 1:23:49Speaker 02

  Sure.

• 1:23:50Speaker 05

  Became like incredibly popular again. I think that, you know, they were maybe like a few years ahead of embracing the paranoia, so to speak, in that type of music. You know, I feel like they are kind of a band where like they're always very close to getting their flowers, but they're never really doing something that satisfies everyone because they're so in their own heads, which I say that with like, that's kind of a compliment to me. I think like

• 1:24:21Speaker 02

  Of course, yeah.

• 1:24:22Speaker 05

  They're true artists in that sense.

• 1:24:26Speaker 05

  But I think, I think that people regard them a lot higher than certainly they used to circa like Oracular Spectacular.

• 1:24:34Speaker 02

  I think Saltburn is probably also something we should discuss, like they, they had sort of the, the classic Stranger Things Kate Bush moment, right? Where Time to Pretend, you know, is introduced to a new audience or maybe reminding, you know, its old audience. Like, what do you make of, you know, that song now as like a signifier of that era in a movie made now?

• 1:24:56Speaker 05

  Well, it's funny because if we talk about, you know, misplaced nostalgia from people who weren't there, like Saltburn is like the, the peak of that. I mean, even like, it's very, it's, it's, it's an anachronism to even have the song in the movie.

• 1:25:12Speaker 02

  Right, yeah.

• 1:25:13Speaker 05

  The song didn't exist yet. And the movie does that several times. You know, there was actually, no, I mean, it's, I mean, like, it's hard to tell if it's a feature or a bug with Emerald Fennell's filmmaking for sure. Like, when I saw it in theaters, like, I actually, there's like in one of the opening scenes where they're at a bar and a pub, sorry, they are in, and, and Neon Bible is playing and like the album and I, I turned to my wife and I said, this is ridiculous. My wife was like, shh. But you know, like, I was like, I was like, what is this? Like, this is suspect. So, you know, like, that, that was like, kind of like, very interesting to me. But I think Saltburn honestly works as a very

• 1:25:59Speaker 05

  Good stand in for people being like, oh, so like, this is what the 2000s were.

• 1:26:04Speaker 02

  Right, yes.

• 1:26:05Speaker 05

  You know, it must have been like, everybody is like, you know, having a great time, doing, doing drugs, partying in the woods, running around naked with their friends. And it's like, this is not what the 2000s was like. For like, nearly anyone. And if you were even coming with this.

• 1:26:20Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:26:21Speaker 05

  Not for me. And like, you know, like, I mean, I tell the, I tell this anecdote a lot to people about kind of the indie sleigh stuff. But it's like, you know, I remember like, you know, one of the big like indie sleighs, uh, venues, uh, if we're calling indie sleighs a thing, in the late 2000s was Studio B in Williamsburg. And I was, I was like, maybe like, I was 20, so I was like, maybe like, six months away from, uh, like, being able to legally buy alcohol at a bar. So, you know, like, I go to this venue to see, uh, the Cool Kids, uh, the very blog-friendly rap act from the late 2000s. And I remember thinking to myself like, oh, like, you know, I've, I've read so much about Studio B, like, what's this gonna be like?

• 1:27:04Speaker 05

  And, you know, I go there and I'm, I'm stone sober in this place that just looks kind of like boring and seedy.

• 1:27:12Speaker 02

  It's an airport, yeah.

• 1:27:14Speaker 05

  Yeah, yeah, like, kind of like an airport where you feel like something like, you know, maybe like mildly dangerous might happen to people who aren't paying attention to their surroundings enough. Um, so, you know, like, in the, in the end, you're just kind of like, yeah, like, this, this, this like scene like is nev- was never really that interesting. Um, I don't even know if it was a scene, you know, um.

• 1:27:35Speaker 02

  Right.

• 1:27:35Speaker 05

  But, you know, when, when people, when you want to like make art or, you know, visual representations of what the 2000s looked like, I think it's easier to gravitate towards this sense of free-willing hedonism than like, I don't know, like the fact that everybody was like, you know, reading Daily Chaos and like obsessed about Bush, you know, like, that's not really, that's not really the vibe.

• 1:27:55Speaker 02

  Cinematic.

• 1:27:57Speaker 05

  If Saltburn was about that, I don't think anybody would have been that into it.

• 1:28:01Speaker 02

  I think you're right. I have one more question for you, Larry. This is very, very important. Why did the guy from Beach Fossils throw his bass into the East River? Why did he do that, Larry? What's the deal?

• 1:28:16Speaker 05

  I am so happy that you asked about this because honestly, I interviewed Dustin from Beach Fossils. Not the bassist. And I wanted to ask him about, I wanted to ask him about the bassist and the water thing, the bass in the water thing. And I just thought to myself, I was like, you know, in the end, like, I don't know. And this is, this kind of works as an answer. I think a lot of people around that time, there was this kind of freewheeling sense in New York City, in Iraq, around, let's say, like, 2007 to like 2012, 2013, that like, this was going to be kind of like a naturally renewable scene.

• 1:28:58Speaker 05

  Um, you know, like, there, I don't think anybody was seeing money, but there was like a lot of money like flying around for sure. And, you know, more, more like, you know, of what we call like brand activations today than there really are associated with indie currently. So, you know, like, I could definitely see the mindset of a band, like, of a, of a, of someone like the bassist in Beach Fossils circa 2010, 2011, where it's like, oh, you know what? Like, I'm gonna throw my bass guitar into, what was it, the East River?

• 1:29:32Speaker 02

  It was the East River, yes. It's still there, probably.

• 1:29:35Speaker 05

  It's still there, yeah. They'll dredge it up at some point. Um, I'll throw my bass into the East River and, you know, I'm sure, I'm sure I'll come in contact with another bass pretty soon. Like, I could definitely see that mentality happening. Um, I feel like today-

• 1:29:51Speaker 02

  An abundance mindset, right, okay.

• 1:29:54Speaker 05

  Today, I'm not sure they would, they would do that. I think you would, I think you would like find, you'd be hard pressed to find a bassist that would throw their bass into the East River in 2024. The prices-

• 1:30:06Speaker 02

  I would hope so.

• 1:30:06Speaker 05

  -instruments are too high at this point.

• 1:30:09Speaker 02

  Well, we got a breakup. We don't, we don't have a bass anymore. I guess that's it. I guess that was our farewell show.

• 1:30:17Speaker 05

  Exactly.

• 1:30:17Speaker 02

  That was rock and roll. That was indie sleaze. Larry, this has been wonderful. You've solved a lot of problems for us. I think, I think we nailed indie sleaze. It's over. We don't have to talk about it anymore.

• 1:30:27Speaker 05

  It's dead in the water.

• 1:30:28Speaker 02

  I think to everybody. That's exactly, thank you so much, Larry.

• 1:30:32Speaker 05

  No, thank you.

• 1:30:34Speaker 02

  Thanks to our guest this week, Larry Fitzmorris. Thanks to our special guest producer, Bobby Wagner. Wow, Bobby Wagner. Thanks to our producers, Justin Sales and Jonathan Kerma, who've been here the whole time. Thanks to Olivia Creary for additional production help. Thanks to Juliana Ress for fact checking, and thanks very much to you for listening. And now let's all go listen to Kids by MGMT. We'll see you next week.

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