Released October 2, 2007 Length 40:18 | Recorded March – April 2007 Release date 2 October 2007 | |
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Genres Indie rock, Psychedelic rock, Alternative rock, Indie pop, Electropop, Psychedelic pop, Neo-psychedelia Similar MGMT albums, Indie rock albums | ||
Oracular Spectacular is the debut album by American psychedelic rock band MGMT, released on October 2, 2007 by RED Ink and physically on January 22, 2008 by Columbia. It was produced by Dave Fridmann and is the band's first release of new content, being recorded from March to April 2007. The album was promoted with three singles: "Time to Pretend", "Electric Feel" and "Kids". Both "Time to Pretend" and "Kids" were re-recorded for the album songs from the band's previous release Time to Pretend (2005), with the opening track serving as a "mission statement" and the theme continued through the album's subsequent tracks.
Contents
Although Oracular Spectacular never sold more than 17,000 in a week, it has consistently sold since January 2008, selling at least 2,000 copies per week during April 2010. The album received positive reviews from critics, who lauded its production style, musical direction and composition. It was nominated for the International Album award at the 2009 Brit Awards. In 2012, Rolling Stone ranked the album at number 494 on its updated list of The 500 Greatest Albums of All Time.
Mgmt weekend wars
Track listing
All tracks written by Andrew VanWyngarden and Ben Goldwasser except where noted.
Personnel
Reception
Oracular Spectacular has received mostly positive reviews, being assigned a Metascore of 76 on Metacritic, indicating "generally favorable reviews". Jason Lymangrover of AllMusic called Oracular Spectacular's tracks "some of the catchiest pop songs to come from NYC since the turn of the millennium" and stated that "the songs never feel insincere and the record is inherently strong throughout, making it a solid start to their career." Prefix Magazine described the album as "a college-dorm experiment gone horribly right." Giving the album a three-star honorable mention rating, Robert Christgau stated that "like Vampire Weekend, only as synth-dance rather than indie-rock, they convert a quality liberal education into thoughtful, anxious, faux-lite pop."
In a mixed review, PopMatters' Matt Fiander criticized the second half of the album, writing, "The second half of the record settles into a more monotone kind of space rock that is as big as the better first half, but gives us no recognizably distinct songs or catchy melodies." The album was named as the best album of 2008 by NME. In 2009, Rolling Stone named it the 18th-best album of the decade. The album was also included in the book 1001 Albums You Must Hear Before You Die.
Songs
1Time to Pretend [Explicit]4:21
2Weekend Wars4:11
3The Youth3:48