MGMT: "Metanoia"

First, let’s get this straight: “Metanoia” isn’t a great song. It’s thirteen minutes long without anything more than an occasionally repeated guitar line to bring it all together. It’s a b-side and sounds as such, a repository for unused ideas. Yet somehow the sheer audacity and effortlessness, the heap of melodies and new directions impresses nonetheless—when a keyboard-based band cuts a convincing guitar epic for kicks, it makes you pay attention. More than that, the song acts as a sort of MGMT-song-under-the-microscope, with all the opposing yet harmonious elements that make their songs so well crafted torn apart and set next to each other, allowing us to see what is otherwise hidden by layers of the shiniest polish that major label money can buy.

Perhaps it’s that high sheen which makes MGMT sometimes fall in the shadow of their less talented, yet more blogged over new-NYC counterparts like Yeasayer and, sigh, Vampire Weekend. But as a band that consciously plays for the indie crowd, such production is no less than a fuck-you to the self-righteous thousands weaned on Fugazi soapboxing and posturing towards impossible ideals. And while it would mean nothing without the chops to back it up, MGMT has enough natural melodic skill and layered pop sweetspots that anything else would be an insult to their ability. “Metanoia” retains all of that, but its Raconteurishly dead-on ’70s guise, here more proggy than heavy, reduces the number of instrumental parts to more manageable bites.

Accordingly, metanoia means to change, and each bite is seemingly a different angle on AOR classic rock, a genre perfectly suited to MGMT’s take on fame, authenticity and growing up. “Mystic referee don’t look on me in scorn!” singer Andrew VanWyngarden wails in perfect Plant/Morrison/Donovan geekiness. Then, abruptly, a stop, a semi-intelligble anecdote, and an uncharacteristically heavy interlude raging on behalf of a jilted fan: “Now he’ll never come to another show! Now he’ll never come to another show!” The lyrics have the same effect as the music, self-consciously betraying indie commandments by refusing to buy into any credo, puckishly critiquing themselves with reverse vulnerability. Here the anti-agenda is louder and more unavoidable, everything clearer and less weighed down by poetic surreality.

But the lyrics are still unmistakably in the same vein: all this business about change is admittedly a little overwrought. The high priced synth washes are still there, the music major chord changes. It’s notable as “classic rock” only in how it understands the heart of the old stuff better than retro wannabes like Kings of Leon. But the playacting is flawless, and in the end MGMT is all about playacting: reacting to the bullshit of “cred” while simultaneously embracing it, poking fun at the people who really do buy into the mythology of fame while enjoying its benefits at the same time, and most of all enjoying these contradictions. Why “Metanoia” is so important doesn’t make any sense, but neither does MGMT, and for that matter neither does much else—which is perhaps why it all resonates so well.