While MGMT’s 2007 album Oracular Spectacular was rendered as psychedelic electro-pop, it could have easily crossed over and charmed stoner-rock fans, hipster cliques, and yuppie circles alike with a brand of cleanly executed pop that was all memorable hooks, and lyrics that balanced emotional weight with lighthearted humor. That record was proof that even four decades after the Age of Aquarius, psychedelia and free love still bring us all together.

Oracular Spectacular, however was an album of singles, club hits that would have easily turned MGMT into “that band that did that song; I love that song!” With Congratulations, their 2010 release, MGMT appear to be making a conscious effort to create an album that is supposed to be played uninterrupted from start to finish. The album cover even has the look and feel of a vinyl record sleeve. For the fans of the radio-friendly sing-along hits like “Time to Pretend” and “Kids,” listening to and digesting an entire album may seem like too monumental a task. But even for new listeners, while Congratulations has some semblance of cohesion, it still manages to fall flat in the end by bearing a close resemblance to a David Bowie tribute album made by someone who merely had The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders from Mars described to them.

Congratulations opens with “It’s Working,” which is reminiscent of the rollicking riffs on the Pixies’ “Cecilia Ann” (the first track from their 1990 album Bossanova), peaks with the 12-minute opus “Siberian Breaks,” and ends with the piano-driven sighs of relief on the title track, “Congratulations.” It has a unifying theme; whatever that theme is still remains unclear, although somewhere between “Brian Eno” and “Lady Dada’s Nightmare,” I was pretty sure the theme was spite, making Congratulations MGMT’s ode to an apparent reluctance to accept mainstream success. (Alice Sarmiento)

Performance photograph of MGMT by Delgoff, via Wikimedia Commons.