MGMT Inspired By Lady Gaga On Nine-Song Sophomore Album ‘Congratulations’

Robbie Daw | February 9, 2010 9:02 am

They didn’t nab either of the two Grammys they were up for last week, but no matter—synthy hipsters MGMT are moving on to brighter things, like their sophomore album Congratulations.

“It’s definitely going to shock people,” Andrew Vanwyngarden, one half of the duo, told Spin of the new album (due out April 13). “We dropped any sort of irony that was on the first record, and Congratulations feels true to who we really are.”

And who are they really? Apparently a band whose influences this time around ranged from surfing to Lady Gaga.

“There’s a surfing thread throughout the record,” Vanwyngarden said of a new song called “It’s Working.” “When you’re surfing, there’s a specific break you’re paddling to. And when the waves are really good you say, ‘It’s working.’ The song kind of has a surf-y vibe. It’s like surfing on ecstasy!”

That makes sense since the pair split up the recording of Congratulations between New York and Malibu, CA. Altogether there are nine songs (see the tracklist below), including one not-so-thinly-veiled, “very nightmare-ish sounding” track called “Lady Dada’s Nightmare.”

We can only imagine that Lady Gaga‘s nighmares involve a closet full of Target clothing, empty glitter bottles and Ke$ha. At any rate, “Lady Dada’s Nightmare” is an instrumental track. The entire record, Andrew told Spin, is “sequenced to flow with sonic and thematic coherence.”

Here’s the full tracklist for MGMT’s Congratulations. And with only nine songs, let’s hope it’s priced accordingly on iTunes:

1. “It’s Working” 2. “Song for Dan Treacy” 3. “Someone’s Missing” 4. “Flash Delirium” 5. “I Found a Whistle” 6. “Siberian Breaks” 7. “Brian Eno” 8. “Lady Dada’s Nightmare” 9. “Congratulations”

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