Artist · chart history · #236 in alternative artist polls
MGMT
Band Middletown United States Formed 2002 US pop rock group
MGMT formed in 2002 in Middletown, United States. MGMT has 189 chart appearances on 112 radio countdowns from 49 stations on RockLists, spanning 2008–2026. The most successful song on radio countdowns is “Kids”, which appears on 66 lists and was voted number one once. In total the artist has topped 2 countdowns. The station that charted MGMT most often is WYEP (Pittsburgh, PA), with 23 appearances. The artist’s biggest year on year-end countdowns was 2008.
MGMT started out at Wesleyan University, in Middletown, Connecticut, in 2002, when students Andrew VanWyngarden and Ben Goldwasser began making music as the Management. They shortened it to MGMT in 2005, and the music was stranger and more tuneful than any college band had a right to be: psychedelic pop that mixed buzzing synthesizers, falsetto hooks and a knowing wink. Both are multi-instrumentalists and both write, and VanWyngarden sings lead and writes the lyrics.
Their first deal was with Cantora Records, whose co-founder, Will Griggs, signed them, and the early EPs, We (Don't) Care and Time to Pretend, arrived in 2004 and 2005, with "Kids" first appearing on the former. Columbia signed them in 2006, and their debut album, Oracular Spectacular, came out in 2007. It was a sugar rush with a comedown built in. "Time to Pretend" blares a mock-heroic synth fanfare, "Electric Feel" is all slinky, rubbery funk and falsetto, and "Kids" rides a synth riff so big and giddy it's impossible not to sing along. A Justice remix of "Electric Feel" won the Grammy for Best Remixed Recording, and MGMT themselves were nominated for Best New Artist.
Instead of cashing in, they swerved. Congratulations, in 2010, made with James Richardson, Will Berman and Matthew Asti in the studio, was a winding psychedelic trip, and "Flash Delirium" and the title track show just how far they were willing to wander from the hits. The self-titled album followed in 2013 with "Your Life Is A Lie", and Little Dark Age, in 2018, the last album of their Columbia deal, came back to gloomy, catchy synth-pop with "Me And Michael". Loss of Life arrived in 2024, carrying "Mother Nature".
Written with AI assistance from RockLists chart data, MusicBrainz and Wikipedia.
Songs by MGMT on radio countdowns
| # | Song | Strength | Lists | Best | #1s | Peak year |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Kids | 66 | #1 | 1 | 2009 | |
| 2 | Time To Pretend | 51 | #1 | 1 | 2008 | |
| 3 | Electric Feel | 42 | #2 | – | 2008 | |
| 4 | Flash Delirium | 10 | #20 | – | 2010 | |
| 5 | Congratulations | 5 | #18 | – | 2010 | |
| 6 | Mother Nature | 5 | #33 | – | 2023 | |
| 7 | Me And Michael | 2 | #37 | – | 2018 | |
| 8 | It's Working | 2 | #60 | – | 2010 | |
| 9 | Little Dark Age | 1 | #48 | – | 2017 | |
| 10 | Tslamp | 1 | #68 | – | 2019 | |
| 11 | Boogie Down | 1 | #753 | – | – | |
| 12 | Someone's Missing | 1 | #80 | – | 2010 | |
| 13 | Your Life Is A Lie | 1 | #93 | – | 2013 |
Albums with charting songs
Where each song was first released, from MusicBrainz.
Featured on
Songs by other artists credited with MGMT as a guest.
Year-end chart timeline
Combined year-end countdown points per year. Taller bars mean more songs placing higher across more stations.
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