Yeah, I honestly think a big part of why this got so big is how surface level dark and depressing a lot of it is, like in the age of doomer playlists filled with the Smiths LDA fits so snuggly into the "depressed pop music fan" zeitgeist it's not even funny. The songwriting itself is actually pretty weak, yeah the production is good, great even but the actual songs themselves aren't anything above mediocre pop fare. And I don't say that as a slight to pop music, I love lots of pop music, but compare to the songwriting of an artist like Prince, or even Carly Rae Jepsen, aside from "James" none of the songs on LDA have that really yearning melancholy quality to them that makes most great depressive pop tick, "When You Die" and the title track get shitposted about a lot but I find them shockingly limp tracks, even "Me and Michael," supposedly the big pop hit, is kind of a weak chorus, like the vocals stay pretty impassioned throughout and idk it just doesn't take me anywhere emotionally, like I feel like pop is supposed to hit you somewhere very emotional and this album NEVER gets that for me, except for, like I said, on "James."
Yeah, I honestly think a big part of why this got so big is how surface level dark and depressing a lot of it is...
being discussed on here doesn’t mean it got big
Thas too much writing to read about music desu
the absolute state of zoomers
normies only care about their 3 hit songs from a decade ago.
i listened to the entire album in the time it would have taken to read that wall of autism. it was mediocre.
>I feel like pop is supposed to hit you somewhere very emotional and this album NEVER gets that for me
You're actually retarded if you listen to pop music to exercise your emotions. Pop music is about being as catchy as possible, not delivering serious emotional art. This is the essence of why you can't appreciate this album. None of it is meant to make you contemplate it or make you feel with it. MGMT's shtick is that they produce high-quality pop songs that are slightly tongue-in-cheek. They aren't meant to be taken completely seriously, which is why they're so good, because they have the production quality and beautiful melodies of serious songs written by talented individuals, but communicate an air of slight silliness--a slightly ironic view of pop songs. It only appears to be "surface level" dark because you don't understand what producing an aesthetic composition of synth-pop and goth looks like within the framework of their artistic directives.
based desu
This is an optimistic album not depressive.
Got less impressive after a few listens spread out over the months. I still think there's a place for it every now and then but it's not nearly as good as the hype made it out to be.
I meant emotional as in primal, not intellectual. You completely misread me. I understand everything you are saying, but a big reason I don’t think the album succeeds in its goal is I don’t think the melodies are there, as you seem to think they are. I was saying it doesn’t hit me in that “emotional” (you can read this as primal or non-intellectual) way that good pop music does. It’s just not catchy enough to be a good pop album, like in terms of songwriting i think it’s really subpar. That’s my whole contestation. I was saying it’s a subpar pop album and the only reason it is so if is because of the ironic goth aesthetic.
The only reason it got so much attention here*
You may just have autism and looking hard for something that isn’t there
Whether or not you find the album catchy is entirely subjective. If the melodies don't give you that immediate infatuation that pop songs normally do, it might just not match up with your tastes all of the way, which is totally fine.
I would disagree that the song-writing doesn't carry the album. The synth-goth aesthetic is appreciated because it's cool and dark, and people who like that kind of thing find it perfectly developed in the album. Appreciating the aesthetic is like appreciating the melody, it is immediate (you like it or you don't--it's not found through reasoning to it) and possesses you simply being being taken in. That's different than the mechanics of the song-writing, which are superb. The album wouldn't be good if it relied on the aesthetic alone. Each song has an attractive melody (to me), I love the synth-goth aesthetic, and each one has a distinct set of sounds and instruments. For me it's 10/10
I feel the need to remind everyone that "surface level" doesn't exist. Life is not linnear and people feel similar things at different times. This also goes for "entry level" and "babby's first music", these concepts have nothing to do with reality
Congratulations is their only good album
need more synth-goth music. Anyone got recs?
teen suicide
based
no one wants to read your wall of text theory on why people like a great album