MGMT - James

"If you need a friend. Come right over, you don't even knock."

Album: Little Dark Age [4th album]
Recorded:
Genre: Neo-Psychedelia, Psychedelic Pop, Synth-Pop
Album Release: February 9th 2018
Single Release:
Length: 3:52
Producer: MGMT, Patrick Wimberly & Dave Fridmann
Vocalist: Andrew VanWyngarden [age 35]
Label: Columbia

Official Audio

Charts, Streams & Sales

Spotify: Over 11 million
YouTube Music: Over 1 million
Paste Magazine's Top 50 Albums of 2018: #17

Credits

Drums, french horn [James Richardson], synthesizer

Details

• 'James' is a dedication to James Richardson, who normally plays guitar for MGMT's live band, but on this track plays the french horn, and was created after an acid trip. 
• The producer James Wimberly is a part of the American synth-pop band Chairlift.
• The fans of the band refer to them as the management.
  
  
• MGMT's first album 'Oracular Spectacular', released in 2007, was a huge success both critically and commercially and lifted the band from near obscurity into touring worldwide practically overnight. It was adored on American college campuses, and became an integral part of the university experience, selling over two million copies in the US alone.
  
  As the university kids got older however, so did the band, and although their next record reached #2 in the US, it began a downward spiral of creativity which saw the boys burnt-out and not sure what to do next. On 'Oracular Spectacular' the songwriting had been meticulous, painstaking even.
  
  The band members, Andrew VanWyngarden and Benjamin Goldwasser, came to the studio with fully-formed ideas and worked from there. They had time to sit with the songs in a way they weren't afforded when combined with the pressures of touring. It was second-album syndrome, a condition which worsens when your band only has two members.
  
  The decline in quality continued into their self titled third album, but on 'Little Dark Age' they turned it around. Not by holding tighter the reigns, but by letting go, and allowing other people to contribute to the creative direction of their music. VanWyngarden and Goldwasser are perfectionists who would agonise over small details, and then Ariel Pink would come in and write some lyrics in five minutes. He showed the band they could be spontaneous and free. It worked. The boys had their mojo back and released their best work in 10 years

Artwork