MGMT - Kids

February 11, 2013 Critic Jonni 0 Comments

MGMT is a band I've never been interested in, and a band I never thought would appear on my blog. But here they are thanks to one of my flatmates suggesting me to review this video.

MGMT are 5 piece band from America, consisting of Andrew VanWyngarden, Ben Goldwasser, Will Berman, Matt Asti and James Richardson. They aren't quite a successful charting band, with this song being their highest charting single at number 16 in the UK, and it's a similar story with America. On the other hand, their albums have charted high, this is definitely one of those bands that will forever be on the rocks, not quite sinking into the water, but not flying high either.

"Kids" was written by Andrew VanWyngarden and Ben Goldwasser. This is usually what makes a brilliant song because the artist believes every single word they are singing, and you can definitely see that in the music video along with the voice in the song. But it's just not my sort of thing. I usually take a dislike to some songs, and I will never turn around and say I like it, never ever. Although I tend to end up singing a long to it by accident, so it shows this is just as catchy as the next song I take a dislike to.

This music video has confused me. My flatmate told me it was a great music video, and I agree to some aspect, but it's quite scary and then towards the end the video changes so dramatically it makes me think they may have ran out of money? It's like they've put two similar but different music videos together.

So there's two parts to this video, the live-action side which has a narrative with an extra performance scene, and then there's the animation side of things. I shouldn't split this video up, but that is what I'm going to do because it is split (although the music never splits so still don't quite understand).

The live-action side really gripped me, I was involved. I managed to get past the bad acting of the monsters, and managed to focus on how scared the boy looked. I can totally understand why critics went at this band, because the boy does look genuinely scared, but a behind the scenes video has proven it not to be the case. The monsters are scary and the only calm bit is MGMT dressed as a futuristic band, which fits perfectly with the song as it is quite futuristic.

Then for no reason whatsoever we turn to complete animation, where unrecognisable, unthinkable and shocking things happen that you wouldn't imagine would work, and we are completely right, it doesn't. What I really wanted was an ending that made me want to watch it again, but there was no such thing, leaving me unhappy and questionable about the switch to animation.

Overall a song that will inevitably be catchy although I am going to carry on disliking it. A music video that starts well and grips me making me think this is going to be a 5 star music video, but it soon changes with the animation and it just doesn't fit or work at all. So I'm indecisive with this rating, so I'm going straight through the middle today.

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