MGMT sue Nicolas Sarkozy, get creative while answering boring questions

Sarkozy's party, UMP, failed to give proper compensation for the use of "Kids" in online videos.

UMP has admitted using it, but said it was a mistake and has offered a symbolic gesture of one euro (£0.89).

LOL WHAT. There is something wrong with that. That is a straight-up insult if I've ever seen one.

On winning NME Award for Best New Band:


On winning NME award for Best Track:

"Credit crunch anthem," are you kidding me? I think I'm going to revive my 15-year-old self's dream of being an NME journalist, because apparently you can get away with asking incredibly moronic questions and being a terrible interviewer in general. Ordinarily, I'd say that Andrew must just be really high to come up with something like that praying mantis business, but I'm sure that after over a year, having to talk about the same stuff over and over again gets really boring. I think I've found my calling in life.

Picture.

NME Awards '09

Winners are bolded.

Best British Band
Bloc Party
The Last Shadow Puppets
Muse
Oasis
Radiohead
(Not surprising, although I don't know why you'd choose Oasis over Radiohead.)

Best International Band
Crystal Castles
The Killers
Kings Of Leon
MGMT
Vampire Weekend
(Seriously? Day & Age sucked.)

Best Solo Artist
Ladyhawke
Laura Marling
Lightspeed Champion
Jay-Z
Pete Doherty
(Pete Doherty, I will always love you.)

Best New Band
Glasvegas
Late Of The Pier
MGMT
Vampire Weekend
White Lies
(I can't remember if I voted for MGMT or Vampire Weekend. Still, good for them, they've come a long way in the past year. Also, I found it quite fitting that people out of the Skins cast presented the award to them, considering that "Time To Pretend" was such a huge part of the series 2 finale.)

Best Live Band
The Killers
Kings Of Leon
Muse
Oasis
Radiohead
(No surprises here.)

Best Album
Bloc Party – 'Intimacy'
Glasvegas – 'Glasvegas'
The Killers – 'Day & Age'
Kings Of Leon – 'Only By The Night'
Oasis – 'Dig Out Your Soul'
(But people in the UK are supposed to be familiar with their older and vastly superior work!)

Best Track
Kings Of Leon – 'Sex On Fire'
The Last Shadow Puppets – 'The Age Of The Understatement'
MGMT – 'Time To Pretend'
The Ting Tings – 'That's Not My Name'
Vampire Weekend – 'A-Punk'
(A good choice. And hey, it wasn't "Sex On Fire.")

Best Video
The Last Shadow Puppets – 'My Mistakes Were Made For You'
Late Of The Pier – 'Heartbreak'
Oasis – 'The Shock Of The Lightning'
Radiohead – 'House Of Cards'
Vampire Weekend – 'A-Punk'

Best Live Event
Glastonbury
Isle Of Wight
Reading and Leeds
T In The Park
V Festival

Best TV Show
Gavin & Stacey
The IT Crowd
The Mighty Boosh
Never Mind The Buzzcocks
Skins
(I really need to watch more Boosh.)

Best Dancefloor Filler
Bloc Party – 'Mercury'
Crystal Castles – 'Courtship Dating'
Dizzee Rascal & Calvin Harris – 'Dance Wiv Me'
Friendly Fires – 'Paris'
Late Of The Pier – 'Bathroom Gurgle'

Best DVD
Arctic Monkeys – 'At The Apollo'
Foo Fighters – 'Live At Wembley Stadium'
Kaiser Chiefs – 'Live At Elland Road'
Muse – 'HAARP'
The Rolling Stones – 'Shine A Light'

Hero Of The Year
Alex Turner
Barack Obama
Brandon Flowers
Noel Fielding
Noel Gallagher

Villain Of The Year
Amy Winehouse
George Bush
Gordon Brown
John McCain
Pete Doherty

Best Dressed
Alex Turner
Alexa Chung
Brandon Flowers
Noel Fielding
Noel Gallagher
(Alexa is so pretty!)

Worst Dressed
Amy Winehouse
Brandon Flowers
Johnny Borrell
Katy Perry
Pete Doherty
(Has she given up on those terrible slippers yet?)

Worst Album
Britney Spears – 'Circus'
Coldplay – 'Viva La Vida Or Death And All His Friends'
Jonas Brothers – 'A Little Bit Longer'
Razorlight – 'Slipway Fires'
Scouting For Girls – 'Scouting For Girls'
(hahaha. I must say, if I compare their to the bad emo poetry I was writing when I was 15, they're acceptable.)

Worst Band
Fall Out Boy
Jonas Brothers
Oasis
Scouting for Girls
Tokio Hotel
(I personally voted for Tokio Hotel. However, Jonas Brothers have that nasty thing where they're significantly more pervasive in culture than Tokio Hotel, thus upping their ability to be annoying.)

Sexiest Male
Carl Barat
Keith Murray
Matt Bellamy
Miles Kane
Pete Doherty
(This is a travesty. Keith Murray is much, much, much sexier.)

Sexiest Female
Alison Mosshart
Hayley Williams
Kate Jackson
Lykke Li
Stephanie Dosen
(Are people blind? How could you possibly compare Hayley Williams to Alison Mosshart?)

Best Website
Bebo
Facebook
Last FM
MySpace
YouTube

Best Venue
Brixton Academy
Manchester Apollo
London Astoria
Glasgow Barrowlands
London O2 Arena

Best Album Artwork
The Cure – '4:13 Dream'
Guillemots – 'Red'
The Killers – 'Day & Age'
Muse – 'HAARP'
We Are Scientists – 'Brain Thrust Mastery'

Best Band Blog
Foals
Lightspeed Champion
Little Boots
Noel Gallagher/Oasis
Radiohead

As far as red carpet style went, Alex Kapranos and Paul Thomson from Franz Ferdinand looked like they went shopping in Ozymandias' closet, but they can do no wrong in my eyes. Noel Fielding wore some sort of burgundy velvet tunic thing that David Tennant would probably love and some totally awesome silver boots that I want to make mine. I also really want his bag. (Years ago, I accepted the fact that I dress like a British man.) The Geldof spawn continue to be disgusting, and Patrick Wolf continues to be fierce and crazy. Despite some sort of lace shirt with asymmetrical buttons being involved, MGMT's Andrew VanWyngarden was wearing the most normal outfit I have ever seen him in, though he probably had an emergency head scarf in his pocket. Despite some sort of lace shirt with asymmetrical buttons being involved and looking more busted than ever, I still find him weirdly attractive.

Little Obsessions: Andrew the Taco Psychic

I've been listening to little else besides MGMT for the better part of a week, and procrastination has led me to trawl Flickr for photos of them. I discovered a rather lovely set of pictures of Andrew VanWyngarden hanging out at the beach that I keep looking at over and over. I'm not usually into pastels, but the faded colors are really beautiful and give the photographs a dreamy, vintage feel. (And he's so beautiful he could be a part-time model.) This picture of Andrew having his palm read is particularly striking--I love the composition, with the palm trees in the background.

Check out the whole set here.

Leaked Bonnaroo line-up; Little Obsessions: MGMT

picture by joostvanderdeelen

Electric Feel - MGMT

The Bonnaroo line-up has leaked.

Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band
Phish (2 Shows)
Beastie Boys
Nine Inch Nails
David Byrne
Wilco
Al Green
Snoop Dogg
Elvis Costello (Solo)
Erykah Badu
Paul Oakenfold
Ben Harper and Relentless7
The Mars Volta
TV on the Radio
Yeah Yeah Yeahs
Gov’t Mule
Andrew Bird
Merle Haggard
MGMT
moe.
The Decemberists
Girl Talk
Bon Iver
Béla Fleck & Toumani Diabate
Rodrigo y Gabriela
Galactic
Band of Horses
The Del McCoury Band
of Montreal
Allen Toussaint
Coheed and Cambria
Booker T & the DBTs
David Grisman Quintet
Lucinda Williams
Animal Collective
Gomez
Neko Case
Down
Jenny Lewis
Santogold
Robert Earl Keen
Citizen Cope
Femi Kuti and the Positive Force
The Ting Tings
Robyn Hitchcock & The Venus 3
Grace Potter and the Nocturnals
Kaki King
Grizzly Bear
King Sunny Adé
Okkervil River
St. Vincent
Zac Brown Band
Raphael Saadiq
Ted Leo and the Pharmacists
Crystal Castles
Tift Merritt
Brett Dennen
Mike Farris and the Roseland Rhythm Revue
Toubab Krewe
People Under the Stairs
Alejandro Escovedo
Vieux Farka Touré
Elvis Perkins In Dearland
Cherryholmes
Yeasayer
Todd Snider
Chairlift
Portugal. The Man.
The SteelDrivers
Midnite
The Knux
The Low Anthem
Delta Spirit
A.A. Bondy
The Lovell Sisters
Alberta Cross

I tried watching some videos of MGMT live and didn't think they sounded particularly good; however, I think if I was personally thrashing around in a field with strangers offering me free drugs left and right, seeing them would be an amazing experience. I've been on a huge MGMT kick for the past few days. I have so much new music to be listening to, but I keep coming back to Oracular Spectacular, especially "Electric Feel," the song that properly got me into Pitchfork's favorite slutty hippies. Like many other people, "Time To Pretend" was my first exposure to MGMT, back in that phase last spring when everyone and their dog was lost in vacant-eyed fantasies about running away to Paris. I thought it was a good song, but I wasn't immediately obsessed. When I heard "Electric Feel," the appeal finally clicked. Maybe it doesn't evoke any romantic visions of the stereotypical rockstar lifestyle, but it's catchy, it's sexy, and I like it so much that I actually got excited when I heard it on an episode of Gossip Girl.