MGMT Music Videos, Pictures and Photos including Electric Feel, UnCut, Time To Pretend Music Videos on Roxwel

MGMT

Most bands get together to play good music. MGMT got together to play bad music. Founding members Andrew VanWyngarden and Ben Goldwasser formed the band in 2002 as freshmen at Wesleyan University, a prestigious liberal arts school in Connecticut. The band began as a joke; the pair would play music together in their dorm room, strumming improvised bass and guitar over hastily-created electronic synthesizer loops. Eventually Ben and Andrew decided to take their experiment to the next level, originally naming their act The Management and playing gigs at local bars and school functions. Their intention wasn’t to be a serious band - purposely stringing together annoying songs - but they began to build a fan base nonetheless.

Though the pair originally began making music with the intention of weirding people out, the left-field popularity of their post-post-ironic brand of disco and psychedelic-infused synth pop convinced the duo to hit the recording studio, independently issuing the We (don’t) Care EP in 2004 and the Climbing to New Lows CD in 2005. They also scored a spot as the opening act for Of Montreal’s 2005 tour, further increasing their visibility. By the end of 2005 the band signed to a record deal with Cantora Records (a New York-based label formed by NYU students for the express purpose of issuing MGMT releases), formally changing their name from The Management to MGMT after finding out that the name 'The Management' was already in use by a UK rock band.

Time To Pretend, before major labels began knocking at their door. Time to Pretend came to the attention of Maureen Kenny, a Colombia Records executive, who immediately signed the band to his label in 2006. The band hit the studio with acclaimed music producer Dave Fridmann (The Flaming Lips, Weezer) in 2007, eventually emerging with their major label debut Oracular Spectacular in October of that year.

Billboard Top Heatseekers index and #12 on the UK Albums Chart - not bad for a college joke band. The duo’s debut received praise from fans and critics alike for its eclectic influences and tongue-in-cheek lyricism, obvious in singles "Electric Feel" and "Time To Pretend" as well as other standout tracks like "Kids", which originally appeared along with of a handful of other songs on the Time to Pretend EP.

The Late Show With David Letterman and as the opening act for a Radiohead gig in early 2008, MGMT has gone on to appear at a number of major 2008 music festivals including SXSW, Bonnaroo, Glastonbury, and Lollapalooza. We recently had a chance to interview MGMT; take a look at our UnCut interview and see what the band had to say to us!