As freshmen at Wesleyan University, Andrew VanWyngarden and Ben Goldwasser first bonded over a perverse dream: Writing what they considered bad songs - on purpose, no less - and then performing them on campus with the intention of alienating as many people as possible.
"It was a mutual drive to be annoying," says VanWyngarden, who with Goldwasser comprises the psych-pop duo MGMT (pronounced as each individual letter), which plays a sold-out, co-headlining show Tuesday at Great Scott with Yeasayer. "It was about being freshmen in college and being excited about everything - having lots of energy and doing drugs. Early on, we were just sitting in each other's dorm rooms listening to music and we would do weird little jams together by ourselves with synthesizers, and bass and guitar, and we'd make these electronic loops. We would just play loud for 15 minutes and then fall on the floor."
That was six years ago, and depending on how you look at it, the strategy either worked fabulously or it backfired miserably. Instead of driving people away, students were drawn to the pair's tongue-in-cheek approach to laptop disco beats and electro-pop experimentalism.
"I guess the drive to annoy turned into a drive to confuse, and also to please - to please with confusion," says VanWyngarden, tongue apparently still firmly, if obtusely in cheek. Eventually, he says, "we wanted to make pop music that was weird but that was also catchy and strange. We were inspired by a lot of creepy psychedelic stuff."
VanWyngarden says he and Goldwasser, who are both 25, initially called themselves the Management "as a jokey, corporate-sounding thing." But just as they were about to release a digital-only EP, the friends discovered that, to their chagrin, another outfit was already using the Management moniker.
"Oracular Spectacular," MGMT's full-length debut on Columbia, recently got an official release; a digital version was issued in October. VanWyngarden admits that the sudden interest in the group seems a little strange. Mention to him that MGMT is on the same label that also signed folks named Holiday, Dylan, and Springsteen and it feels even stranger.
"It's crazy," he says. "It really didn't even feel like a formal band until about a year ago, after we signed with Columbia, and we put some serious effort into songwriting. Before that, it was just kind of messing around."
Columbia A&R representative Maureen Kenny first heard MGMT's early recordings through an intern and immediately wanted to meet the band behind the sound. "I spent the next six weeks trying to get a hold of them because they were living in different cities and had put the band on hold," says Kenny. "It was totally fresh and like nothing I had heard before. Even though it was quirky and left of center, at the core was really strong songwriting. When you can be unique but still grab people, that's the best of both worlds."
The first song the pair ever wrote at Wesleyan, a disco dance-floor groove for indie-popsters called "Kids," is among the many highlights on "Oracular Spectacular." The album, masterfully helmed by Flaming Lips producer David Fridmann, is alternately awash with Fridmann's trademark DayGlo coloring and a hallucinatory psychedelic haze befitting the disc's trippy title.
In fact, there are Flaming Lips vapor trails everywhere, especially threading through the lush sonic panorama of "Time to Pretend," which opens the album and manages to both skewer and empathize with the cliches of aspiring rock stars. "Let's make some music, make some money, find some models for wives," sings VanWyngarden, reciting from a mental checklist that includes moving to Paris, doing drugs, and basically making a prima donna nuisance of oneself. "Yeah, it's overwhelming, but what else can we do?/ Get jobs in offices and wake up for the morning commute?"
Meanwhile, "4th Dimensional Transition" sounds something like an update of the 13th Floor Elevators cross-hatched with the Electric Prunes and Olivia Tremor Control. In short, the stylistic range and breadth on "Oracular Spectacular" is frequently dizzying, and often dazzling. It appears that MGMT's transformation from musically curious practical jokers to artists armed with a record deal is complete.
"I'm from Memphis and went to a big public high school, and I had never really seen crazy, freaky kids," recalls VanWyngarden, who now lives in Brooklyn (Goldwasser grew up in upstate New York and now lives in New Jersey). "It was more of a conservative scene in my high school. So at Wesleyan, I expanded my mind and listened to good music. It was fun."
So, too, is "Oracular Spectacular," and even better for us, it sounds like the fun is just beginning.
