MGMT

Dear MGMT,A few months back, I remember waiting for you to come on stage, filled with anticipation, curious about how the next couple hours would play out. You had announced a last minute show the day before headlining at Treasure Island Music Festival and I had scored cheap tickets. The night was young. The room got dark. People were talking in hushed whispers. You shuffled on stage.For the next two hours, I waited to have fun. I kept thinking that something had to happen soon, that I'd start enjoying myself and dance. That moment never came. You mumbled into the mic about playing some "new tunes." I could barely make out coherent sounds. If this is what their new album is going to sound like, I thought, they're gonna lose a lot of fans.Well, here we are. That feeling of dread that I felt the night of your San Francisco show crept over me when I started listening to your new album, Congratulations.I so badly wanted to give you guys another chance. I wanted to stop thinking you two were pretentious assholes who refused to play your hit single at your live show. I wanted to convince myself that you boys weren't arrogant, immature musicians.Finally, I stopped trying to talk myself into liking you.Congratulations may as well be mindless noise. The album has zero cohesion and is completely uninteresting. It sounds like you tried to emulate "˜70s trip-pop, realized you couldn't, and yet still kept stumbling towards that unachievable goal.Boys, I don't understand. You were doing okay for a while, right? Oracular Spectacular was a little rocky, but it had some solid hits. Even I have to admit that "Electric Feel" and "Kids" were fun. They excited the masses--you made hipster dance music that was accessible!--and for that, I give you some credit.But....seriously? Congratulations is a disaster. Pitchfork says you are attempting to "Create Art" -- I suggest that you turn over your guitars and quit. The album was almost painful to listen to all the way through. Halfway through the god-awful, 12-minute song "Siberian Breaks" I actually had to pause it and take a break myself. When I finally made it to the last song, the title track, I was relieved. Okay, okay, an acoustic song, not too horrible... then I paid attention to the self-aggrandizing lyrics."I'd rather dissolve than have you ignore me"?Well then. I'd rather that you dissolve.With sincere regret,Hannah