B.o.B. vs. Vampire Weekend...?

This isn't a full-fledged review, but I a) haven't posted anything for 2 weeks now, and b) thought this was really cool.  It's a track off B.o.B.'s new album B.o.B. Presents: The Adventures of Bobby Ray called "The Kids," basically paralleled after Vampire Weekend's "The Kids Don't Stand a Chance."  Overall, it's a decent song and an interesting take on the Vampire Weekend track.  Check it out here.

MGMT - "Congratulations"

I'm one of those people who really only listens to "Time to Pretend," "Kids," and "Electric Feel," of the songs on electro-pop duo MGMT's debut Oracular Spectacular, on a regular basis. I've heard the whole thing, but those three are the only ones that get any playtime on my iPod (aside from "4th Dimensional Transition"). So when the band basically announced that its new album, Congratulations, had no songs like that, no catchy, synth-y singles, my expectations weren't great. Turns out Congratulations is pretty good in its own right, but some of the genuinely enjoyable, simple and fun core of the first album, which manifested itself most strongly on those three songs, is lost in the onslaught of electro-psychedelic weirdness MGMT serves up.

The duo has not so much changed its sound as it has de-emphasized the more pop-y aspects of it. This results in some innovation, such as the Beach Boys-evoking conclusion of the first track, "It's Working," and the vast, spectacular "Siberian Breaks," but it's hit-or-miss in places; along with those songs, you get the truly strange, somewhat obnoxious falsetto "Someone's Missing" and the un-listenable instrumental "Lady Dada's Nightmare." However, the album roughly increases in quality as it goes on, and "I Found a Whistle" feels like a breath of fresh air as you depart from the extreme trippiness of the first few tracks (although "Flash Delirium" gets exponentially better with each listen). MGMT shows their versatility by mixing the driving rock track "Brian Eno" into the ethereal sound soup that is Congratulations. The surprisingly minimalist, Eastern-riffed title track concludes the album, contrasting strongly with what has come before and adding to the sense of incoherency of the album, which is not totally a bad thing.

Essentially what MGMT has created with their sophomore effort is a hodgepodge of styles, shot through with a healthy dose of bizarre electronica and some inside jokes. Although some of the unbridled fun and mass appeal of tracks like "Kids" and "Time to Pretend" is lost in the transition to a more "out there" sound, Congratulations is still a (for the most part) solid collection of songs. Needless to say, all clichés aside, it'll be interesting to see where MGMT goes from here.

3.5 / 5 Stars

"I Found a Whistle:"