Oracular Spectacular is the first major label studio album by American band MGMT, released digitally October 2, 2007 on RED Ink Records and physically on January 22, 2008 by Columbia Records.^[1] The album, which has sold over 1 million copies worldwide, was nominated for best international album in the 2009 BRIT Awards. It features new versions of both "Kids" and "Time to Pretend", songs from their previous release, Time to Pretend EP (2005), the opening track serving as a "mission statement" and theme continued through the proceeding tracks. Though Oracular Spectacular never sold more than 17,000 in a week, it has been a consistent seller since January 2008, selling at least 2,000 copies per week through April of 2010.^[2]

In 2012, Rolling Stone ranked the album at number 494 on its list of The 500 Greatest Albums of All Time.^[3]

Track listing [link]

All songs written and composed by Andrew VanWyngarden and Ben Goldwasser except where noted. 

• "Time to Pretend" originally appeared on Time to Pretend EP.
• "Kids" originally appeared on We (Don't) Care, "Climbing to New Lows" and Time to Pretend EP.

Personnel [link]

• Andrew Vanwyngarden – lead vocals, lead and rhythm guitars, keyboards, drums, percussion
• Ben Goldwasser – vocals, keyboards rhythm guitars, percussion, synths and samples

Quotations [link]

• "Knowing that the Almost Famous notion of stardom doesn't exist anymore (if it ever did), the duo of Andrew VanWyngarden and Ben Goldwasser realize they're "fated to pretend". It's a charming idea — making a career out of fantasizing—and on Oracular Spectacular, they not only accept their playacting destiny, they demonstrate that, just maybe, it's a path more people should take." - Eric Harvey, Pitchfork Media
• "This space-rock gem mocks the clichéd cocaine-and-hookers rock-star lifestyle, over big synth whooshes." - Kevin O'Donnell of Rolling Stone on the single "Time to Pretend".^[6]
• "We redid a lot of our songs that sounded too polished... Dave (producer David Fridmann) ended up running the tracks through this thing that crushed them and made them sound really gross again. They're a lot better now." - Ben Goldwasser in Rolling Stone^[6]

Reception [link]

Professional ratings
Review scores
Source	Rating
Allmusic	link
The Guardian	link
NME	(8/10) link
Pitchfork Media	(6.8/10) link
PopMatters	(5/10) link
Prefix	link
Robert Christgau	link
Rolling Stone	link

Oracular Spectacular has received mostly positive reviews. On the review aggregate site Metacritic, the album has a score of 76 out of 100, indicating "generally favorable reviews".^[7]

Jason Lymangrover of Allmusic called the album "some of the catchiest pop songs to come from NYC since the turn of the millennium." Lymangrover continued: "the songs never feel insincere and the record is inherently strong throughout, making it a solid start to their career."^[8] Prefix Magazine described the album as "a college-dorm experiment gone horribly right."^[9]

Not all the reviews were positive, though. In a more mixed review, Popmatters' Matt Fiander criticized the second half of the album, writing, "The second half of the record settles into a more monotone kind of space rock that is as big as the better first half, but gives us no recognizably distinct songs or catchy melodies."^[10]

The album was named the best album of 2008 by NME.^[11] In 2009, Rolling Stone named it the 18th-best album of the decade.^[12]

Charts [link]

Awards [link]

References [link]

External links [link]

• Oracular Spectacular at Metacritic