Being in a band, you constantly face a barrage of things on stage: from people looking bored, to possible riots and once in while fans throwing things at you to assault you or feel more connected to you. MGMT was playing in Manchester when someone threw a bottle of pee and it pelted Will Berman’s chest, I guess exploding all over him causing him to drown in the urine. So I mean as a regular human being, I would not want to come back onstage-especially because I was just humiliated. So the webs is saying how the band had to ‘plea’ him to come back and finish the set (which he didn’t forcing the band to finish the concert without him), because you know performers are robots and absolutely must ignore whatever ‘human emotions’ and let the crowd dictate what they want from the dancing monkey. To add insult to injury the internets also piled on top the fact that the label was unhappy with Congratulations, the same album that was completely opposite from their first album.
I’m not really sure what both MGMT and the record label expected out of this union. I’m not sure what this will mean to so many indie bands that are being signed by majors. Not sure why they expect Katy Perry or Rihanna out of MGMT. Major labels are in it to sell records, they could care less about your artistic vision as long as it sell millions and you’re able to fill stadiums and merch and what not. You can’t hate on the majors either considering the amount of money they invest into breaking acts and maintaining their status in the world. They need those mega pop acts to pay the bills and everyone on their payroll, not sure why they think signing MGMT or Die Antwoord or anyone else who is barely mainstream is a great idea. Maybe the whole urine thing and the label’s leash order is something that forecast the growing tension between out of touch executives and trying to capture the essence of the youth into a marketing campaign. Maybe it was a record label exec that went to the show, peed in a bottle, and chucked it onstage as protest to them just not listening to orders. Ok so maybe it wasn’t the label exec but seriously, not surprised by any of this. It feels like repeated history, kind of like when majors were signing all those ‘grunge’ bands in the early 90’s leading to this overload of ‘grunge’ consumerism. Remember when everyone was wearing flannel, in a grunge band or wanting to move to Seattle? I’m not sure what their next album will sound like if the label is breathing all over their necks.
I love MGMT. I love bands doing what they want, when I heard of major record labels courting any sort of indie band I thought it was like a grant or a band you take on to make your label to seem cooler. I thought out of anyone, major label executives would know that these bands don’t produce mega millions no matter how many times they appear on Leno or SNL. We shall see where any of this goes and what happens in the future. Not sure if I would sign to a major after reading something like this. What do you think?
**** After writing this shortly after Pitchfork posted MGMT’s reaction. The urine was actually ale and according to the band label relations are actually very friendly. This would also negate the article written by Spinster and Ace. You can read the response here.
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