MGMT Unveil "Congratulations" Song "Flash Delirium"

You've already feasted your eyes on MGMT's WTF album cover for their upcoming album Congratulations, and now you can hear what the band's been cooking up for their April 13th LP with "Flash Delirium." MGMT unveiled the track a free download on their Who Is MGMT? site today. The adventurous song — MGMT seem to pack four distinct parts into four minutes — is a bit of departure from the band's Oracular Spectacular songs, scaling back on its predecessor's electro-bop for a song that sounds similar to Deerhunter in its first half and Zombies in its second.

"Some will love it, some will hate it," Andrew VanWyngarden told Rolling Stone of Congratulations' stylistic shift in our Spring Music Preview. "We want to freak people out." This first song does just that, and it takes multiple listens to grapple with the track's constant curveballs. "Flash Delirium" ultimately keeps building until it explodes into a rapturous harmony, breaking into full-out thrash in its waning seconds. The song's message: "Dance until the heart explodes and we'll make this place ignite."

For more on Congratulations and all the huge releases due out this season, check out Rolling Stone's Spring Music Preview.

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Song Stories

“Smells Like Teen Spirit”

Nirvana | 1991

"Smells Like Teen Spirit," named after a brand of deodorant marketed to girls, was Kurt Cobain's attempt to "write the ultimate pop song," he said, using the soft-loud dynamic of his favorite band, the Pixies. Cobain "had that dichotomy of punk rage and alienation," the song’s producer, Butch Vig, told Rolling Stone, "but also this vulnerable pop sensibility. In 'Teen Spirit,' a lot of that vulnerability is in the tone of his voice." Sadly, by the time of Nirvana's last U.S. tour, in late '93, Cobain was tortured by the obligation to play "Teen Spirit" every night. "There are many other songs that I have written that are as good, if not better," he claimed.

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