MGMT

From HitStory, the pop encyclopedia of School of Rock · Artist

MGMT is an American rock band that formed in 2002 in Middletown, Connecticut. Andrew VanWyngarden and Ben Goldwasser started the group during their first year at Wesleyan University. They did not set out to start a band, but simply listened together to music they liked. At first the group was called The Management, and in 2005 this became MGMT. Both are composers and multi-instrumentalists. VanWyngarden is the singer and lyricist. They experimented with noise rock and electronics before finding their own style.

Music and breakthrough

In the autumn of 2006 the band signed with Columbia Records. With the producer Dave Fridmann, known for the Flaming Lips and Sleater-Kinney, they recorded their debut Oracular Spectacular in 2007. That album yielded three successful singles, including Time to Pretend. In 2008 they supported Radiohead in Manchester and played a headline tour of their own in Great Britain. In 2010 came Congratulations, recorded in Malibu with Pete Kember, also known as Sonic Boom of Spacemen 3, as producer and guide. The third album, MGMT, was released in 2013, again with Fridmann. Little Dark Age followed in 2018. The two core members wrote that album partly at a distance, by email. Loss of Life was released in 2024.

Influence

MGMT combines psychedelic rock with synthesizers and a style of writing that oscillates between irony and melody. The band shows how a duo of students, after a debut with big hits, chose stranger records, even though the record company and the public were not waiting for them at first.

Listening

Discography

Studio albums

• 2007Oracular Spectacular
• 2010Congratulations
• 2013MGMT
• 2018Little Dark Age
• 2024Loss of Life

Mentioned in other articles

• Oracular Spectacular AlbumMGMT became a duo of Andrew VanWyngarden and Ben Goldwasser, who in March and April 2007 were in the studio with producer Dave Fridmann for their major-label debut.

See also

• MGMT