This is a response to the criticism by popular websites such as Hipster Runoff, which I love reading on a regular basis but have to disagree with their rampant bashing of MGMT as of late.

Archetypal opinions fester across the internet in earnest, as long ago bloggers learned that taking an indifferent position on topics that content is already overly-saturated for will lead to few readers. To ascend from the great wash of posts about the same subject a blogger wishes to cover, some part of their take has to exceptionally stand out. Along with this standing out, also comes a need for speed of delivery, as being behind on a story or meme or musical review will lead to, once again a void of readers. And so, with these characteristics backing much of internet culture, archetypal generalized opinions and speed of delivery which forces even less thought go into these generalizations, sometimes truly jarring content is not given enough time by the critic to be truly appreciated.

Such is the case with MGMT’s Congratulations, an album that has been widely panned by the internet and has been considered a complete flop by many leading critics. The main critiques seem to fall under these categories; the album does not sound in any way similar to the old MGMT, the album simply is not good, that the album is too weird to “get into,” and as always has been the case with MGMT, that they are simply too mainstream to be cool. Allow me to at least attempt to prove these arguments to be false while remaining all kinds of “fair and balanced.”

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