The charm of Saltburn strikes again. After Sophie Ellis-Bextor found herself reborn as a global darling in the wake of Barry Keoghan giving his undercarriage a flamboyant airing to “Murder on the Dancefloor”, it is now MGMT’s turn to reap the Salt-sync rewards.
“[Debut single] ‘Time to Pretend’ was used in that movie and somehow from that it turned into a TikTok trend,” says multi-instrumentalist Ben Goldwasser, clutching a white-flecked beard down Zoom, still bemused by online events. “I think that’s maybe our top streaming song at this point… It’s pretty wild.”
It’s not the Connecticut (via NYC) psych-pop band’s first TikTok rodeo. Out of nowhere in 2020 Goldwasser and bandmate Andrew VanWyngarden – the uncompromising duo behind the Noughties’ most cosmic dancefloor hits “Time to Pretend”, “Electric Feel” and “Kids” – unexpectedly racked up 600 million streams of their 2018 electro-noir track “Little Dark Age” after it was adopted as a trending sound on the platform.
Overnight it seemed these psych-pop Becks, who had seemingly fallen off the radar and into a fathomless black hole of sonic weirdness for the past decade, were granted a new lease of life. “It just feels like a continuation of the absurdity of our existence as a band,” Goldwasser says, “We’re just doing our thing and these things just kept coming to us. Now it’s like lightning just struck twice.”
“They’re like blessings from the Lord,” VanWyngarden laughs. “At times we’ve actively tried to find ways to break away from these three songs that we wrote when we were in college. It seems like we confused people by not trying to recreate those songs, ever.”
Bu hikaye The Independent dergisinin March 25, 2024 sayısından alınmıştır.
Start your 7-day Magzter GOLD free trial to access thousands of curated premium stories, and 8,500+ magazines and newspapers.
Already a subscriber ? Giriş Yap
Bu hikaye The Independent dergisinin March 25, 2024 sayısından alınmıştır.
Start your 7-day Magzter GOLD free trial to access thousands of curated premium stories, and 8,500+ magazines and newspapers.
Already a subscriber? Giriş Yap
I now swear by Taylor Swift
After a lifetime of avoiding the mainstream, Amy Fleming has grown to love the pop phenomenon, courtesy of her 11year-old daughter – and it’s been a liberating experience
‘Retiring? I'm still striving to be the best in the world'
Marlie Packer has plenty left in the tank and an eye on World Cup success on home soil, she tells Harry Latham-Coyle
'My dad's prepared me for this since I was about seven'
British heavyweight Daniel Dubois tells Alex Pattle about fighting Usyk twice’ in one night, his hunger to take Filip Hrgovic apart’, and a potential clash with Anthony Joshua
England warm up for T20s with victory over Pakistan
England might well be underprepared for the T20 World Cup, but they cruised to a comfortable victory in their final match before the tournament against Pakistan.
Football's the loser in brave new world carved by Perez
Florentino Perez couldn’t have it any other way. On Monday, after a Spanish court gave the latest ruling on the Super League case, those in the Real Madrid president’s circle were very quick to insist to everyone that the judgment actually represented a victory for the project.
ANC may lose majority for the first time since Mandela
Early results show most dramatic shift since end of apartheid
Ukraine allowed to hit parts of Russia with US weapons
President Joe Biden has given Ukraine the go-ahead to use American weaponry to strike inside Russia for the limited purpose of defending Kharkiv, according to three US officials familiar with the matter.
Gaza war waged at election time is Biden's nightmare
Israeli tanks and armoured cars have been seen near al-Awda mosque in the centre of Rafah, while 45 people were killed in a strike at a camp in the east of the city.
Israel steps up Rafah assault as war cabinet splits deepen
Party led by Benny Gantz has proposed a bill calling for the Israeli parliament to be dissolved, reports Chris Stevenson
Trump guilty on all charges in historic hush-money trial
Donald Trump is the first former or serving US president to be convicted of a crime. From Alex Woodward in New York