MGMT

This article covers the band. For the enzyme see O6-methylguanine-DNA-methyltransferase .

MGMT
MGMT in Saint-Malo , 2008
General information
Genre (s)	Indietronic , psychedelic rock , synth rock
founding	2002 as The Management 2005 as MGMT
Website	www.whoismgmt.com
Founding members
	Andrew VanWyngarden
	Ben Goldwasser
Current occupation
	Andrew VanWyngarden
	Ben Goldwasser
	James Richardson
	Matt Asti
	Will Berman

MGMT is an American Indietronic - band from New York . It was founded in 2002 by musicians Andrew VanWyngarden and Ben Goldwasser.

history

VanWyngarden and Goldwasser met while studying experimental music at Wesleyan University in Connecticut and began to put their ideas together in brief appearances in front of student audiences. They performed regularly within the university and also played with other bands, such as Bear Hands . They called themselves The Management , later just MGMT. By the time they graduated from university in 2005, they had released an EP with six titles through a fan-founded student label and toured once. When they had actually given up again, Rick Rubin from the major label Sony / Columbia became aware of their EP and signed them.

More songs were produced, a promotional tour started and finally the LP Oracular Spectacular completed. The title song of the EP Time to Pretend became the first single. It became popular in the USA and Great Britain through appearances at David Letterman and Jools Holland . It was also featured as the opening song on the soundtrack of the film 21, which was released in spring 2008 , was featured in the British television series Skins and, like Of Moons, Birds & Monsters , is in the soundtrack of the computer and console title Shaun White Snowboarding from Ubisoft. Electric Feel can be heard as a remix by the group Justice on the video game Midnight Club: Los Angeles from Rockstargames . The single and album entered the international charts in March 2008. Moreover, it is Kids soundtrack of the football simulation FIFA 09 from Electronic Arts . The same song is also featured on the soundtrack of the snowboard film That's It, That's All and on the ski film Reasons .

Jon Salmon from Los Feliz shot a video clip for the song Kids with fellow students Abby Fuller and Rafael Pulido , which reached over 113 million views on YouTube (June 2019).

MGMT live at the Voodoo Festival 2010

A side project of VanWyngarden is Blikk Fang with Kevin Barnes from the band Of Montreal , in whose opening act MGMT had already been on tour.

The next album, entitled Congratulations , was released on April 9, 2010. As early as March 22, 2010, the band made the entire album available as a free stream on their website after the album had appeared in various file sharing sites. For the most part, this album was very well received by the critics, and Musikexpress magazine even named Congratulations their album of the year.

On September 17, 2013, MGMT released the album of the same name after it had been made available as a stream on Rdio a week earlier .

After a break of more than four years, the band released the single Little Dark Age in October 2017 , the first release of the album of the same name, which was finally released in February 2018. Further single releases were When You Die and Hand It Over . The critics received the album mostly positively and saw in it a return to the original synth-pop sound of the band, which they had missed on the two previous albums.

Others

In February 2009 it was announced that the band wanted to sue the party of French President Nicolas Sarkozy ( UMP ) for compensation for a violation of copyright law . The party used their song Kids several times in the election campaign without the band's consent , whereby only the fee was paid for a one-time use. The band rejected a symbolic compensation from the PR company Sarkozys of 1.25 euros.

Discography

Studio albums

year	Title music label	Top ranking, total weeks, awardChart placementsChart placements (Year, title, music label , placements, weeks, awards, notes)					Remarks
		DE	AT	CH	UK	US
2005	Climbing to New Lows self-published	-	-	-	-	-	First published: 2005 as The Management
2007	Oracular Spectacular Columbia Records	DE65 (9 weeks) DE	AT72 (1 week) AT	CH68 (22 weeks) CH	UK8th platinum (80 weeks)UK	US38 gold (111 weeks)US	First published: October 2nd, 2007, download First published: January 22nd, 2008, CD & LP
2010	Congratulations Columbia Records	DE15 (4 weeks) DE	AT5 (5 weeks) AT	CH5 (6 weeks) CH	UK4th silver (6 weeks)UK	US2 (12 weeks) US	First published: April 13, 2010 First published: March 15, 2011, remixes
2013	MGMT Columbia Records	DE44 (1 week) DE	AT29 (1 week) AT	CH15 (4 weeks) CH	UK45 (1 week) UK	US14 (2 weeks) US	First published: September 17, 2013
2018	Little Dark Age Columbia Records	DE22 (2 weeks) DE	AT23 (1 week) AT	CH12 (3 weeks) CH	UK27 (1 week) UK	US35 (2 weeks) US	First published: February 9, 2018

Compilations

• 2011: Late Night Tales (Late Night Stories)

EPs

• 2004: We (Don't) Care
• 2005: Time to Pretend (Cantora Records)
• 2010: Qu'est-ce que c'est la vie, chaton? (Live EP, Columbia Records)
• 2011: We Hear of Love, of Youth, and of Disillusionment (Live EP, Columbia Records)

Singles

year	Title album	Top ranking, total weeks, awardChart placementsChart placements (Year, title, album , rankings, weeks, awards, notes)					Remarks
		DE	AT	CH	UK	US
2008	Time to Pretend Oracular Spectacular	DE91 (2 weeks) DE	-	-	UK35 gold (31 weeks)UK	US- gold US	First published: March 3rd, 2008 Re-release: March 30th, 2009
	Electric Feel Oracular Spectacular	DE88 (4 weeks) DE	AT60 (2 weeks) AT	-	UK22nd gold (25 weeks)UK	US- gold US	First published: June 23, 2008
2009	Kids Oracular Spectacular	DE48 (30 weeks) DE	AT42 (43 weeks) AT	CH43 (32 weeks) CH	UK16 platinum (48 weeks)UK	US91 platinum (6 weeks)US	First published: March 13, 2009

More singles

• 2007: Weekend Wars
• 2008: Metanoia
• 2010: Flash Delirium
• 2010: Siberian Breaks
• 2010: It's Working
• 2010: Congratulations
• 2013: Alien Days
• 2013: Your Life Is a Lie
• 2017: Little Dark Age
• 2017: When You Die
• 2018: Hand It Over

As a guest musician

year	Title album	Top ranking, total weeks, awardChart placementsChart placements (Year, title, album , rankings, weeks, awards, notes)					Remarks
		DE	AT	CH	UK	US
2010	Pursuit of Happiness Man on the Moon: The End of Day	DE51 gold (13 weeks)DE	AT46 (6 weeks) AT	CH50 (7 weeks) CH	UK64 gold (8 weeks)UK	US59 × 4 Quadruple platinum (3 weeks)US	First published: January 25, 2010 Kid Cudi feat. MGMT & Ratatat

Further guest contributions

• 2009: Worm Mountain ( The Flaming Lips feat.MGMT)

Music videos

year	title	Director
2005	Boogie Down	Max Goldblatt
	Destrokk	John Miserendino
2008	The Youth	Eric Wareheim
	Time to pretend	Ray Tintori
	Electric feel
2009	Kids
2010	Flash delirium	Andreas Nilsson
	It's working	So me
	Congratulations	Tom Kuntz
2011	All We Ever Wanted Was Everything	Ned Wenlock

Awards for music sales

Golden record  Belgium 2009: for the album Oracular Spectacular 2012: for the single Pursuit of Happiness  Denmark 2020: for the single Electric Feel 2020: for the single kids  France 2008: for the album Oracular Spectacular  Italy 2016: for the single kids 2019: for the single Time to Pretend 2019: for the single Pursuit of Happiness

Platinum record  Australia 2008: for the album Oracular Spectacular 2008: for the single Electric Feel 2012: for the single kids 2013: for the single Pursuit of Happiness  Canada 2017: for the album Oracular Spectacular 2017: for the single Time to Pretend

2 × platinum record  Canada 2017: for the single Electric Feel 3 × platinum record  Canada 2017: for the single kids

Note: Awards in countries from the chart tables or chart boxes can be found in these.

Country / Region	silver	gold	platinum	Sales	swell
Awards for music sales (country / region, awards, sales, sources)
Australia (ARIA)	-	-	4 × platinum4th	280,000	aria.com.au
Belgium (BEA)	-	2 × gold2	-	30,000	ultratop.be
Denmark (IFPI)	-	2 × gold2	-	90,000	ifpi.dk
Germany (BVMI)	-	gold1	-	150,000	musikindustrie.de
France (SNEP)	-	gold1	-	75,000	snepmusique.com
Italy (FIMI)	-	3 × gold3	-	75,000	fimi.it
Canada (MC)	-	-	7 × platinum7th	560,000	musiccanada.com
United States (RIAA)	-	3 × gold3	5 × platinum5	6,500,000	riaa.com
United Kingdom (BPI)	silver1	3 × gold3	2 × platinum2	2,160,000	bpi.co.uk
All in all	silver1	15 × gold15th	18 × platinum18th

swell

1. ↑ MGMT - America's Most Spectacular Flower Children ( Memento August 3, 2008 in the Internet Archive )
2. ↑ Circle of Friends Make Magic in Los Feliz ( Memento of the original from March 26, 2010 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. 
3. ^ RollingStone
4. ↑ Sound spy
5. ^ Killian Young: Stream MGMT's New LP on Rdio . September 9, 2013. Retrieved September 18, 2013.
6. ↑ ^{a b} MGMT have now officially announced their new album "LITTLE DARK AGE". January 17, 2018, accessed on March 5, 2019 (German). 
7. ^ MGMT: Little Dark Age. Accessed March 5, 2019 . 
8. ↑ MGMT: "Little Dark Age" - Fluffy pop songs. Accessed March 5, 2019 (German). 
9. ↑ laut.de
10. ↑ ^{a b c} Chart sources: DE AT CH UK US

Web links

Commons : MGMT  - collection of images, videos and audio files

• Official website
• MGMT at Sony Music
• MGMT at laut.de
• MGMT at Discogs (English)
• "A hermaphrodite" article in Spex magazine(June 2008)
• "Witzkids in Wunderland" - portrait of MGMT in the magazine uMag (April 2010)