“Little Dark Age” by MGMT, Monday, March 22, 2021

 

I first started listening to MGMT in the spring of 2009. Their debut album Ocular Spectacular had been released at the end of 2007, but tracks like "Kids" had hit the alternative radio stations by 2009. My roommate in college loved the opening track "Time to Pretend," which is a fun song about moving to Paris and marrying models, and when things get difficult, just get a divorce. After enjoying OS, the next year the band released their follow up, Congratulations, which boasted more experimental electronica. After reading the review about how the band refused to release radio singles, I never tried the band and felt that they were venturing into a musical realm that wasn't for me. However, in 2019 when I heard their single, "Me and Michael" in a book store and when I started listening to "Little Dark Age," I realized that the MGMT that I loved in college was back. 

THE MORE I STRAIGHTEN OUT, THE LESS IT WANTS TO TRY. The lyrics of "Little Dark Age" refer to two things 1) the political atmosphere, particularly in the United States, starting in 2016, and 2) a period of personal depression that comes from the world imploding. If we think of the Dark Ages in Europe, it was a time following the societal collapse that happened with the fall of the Roman Empire. We have this idea of the "barbarians" ransacking Rome, bringing in less enlightenment, especially as they burned the libraries of the classics. We think of this shift as causing religious superstition to rule over scientific advancement. Fast-forward to 2016 when racist, anti-scientific rhetoric influenced key elections around the world. Conspiracy is given equal footing to data. Fear and hysteria trump every one of the opposition's answers. And while this is nothing new to history, we can only hope that it was just a little dark age that was sparked.

Photographs of sunset June 24, 2016, Gyeongsan, South Korea. Photos by Tyler Kent.

I GRIEVE IN STEREO. I remember the day that I heard that The United Kingdom had voted to leave the European Union. That evening I saw one of the most incredible sunsets. The Seventh-day Adventist teachings about the end times came to my mind as I wondered what was in store for the world. One of my American coworkers said that year that Christians should vote for the worst candidates to expedite the end. Whether or not the end of times is close at hand can be debated. On one hand you can say "look at the world we've set up. It can't last much longer with the hatred growing and climate change threatening our existence." On the other, you could look to the early 20th century and think if it wasn't then, why now? Regardless, we should be on guard of the turning gyre of history's feasts and famines, realizing that a second coming and a third coming of hardships and suffering is never far behind times of great prosperity.

Read “Little Dark Age” by MGMT on Genius