Most Overrated Album of 2008

So, I know that I had a schedule I was supposed to follow...but yesterday kinda passed me by without having done any blogging, but I'll make up for it. Two posts today. I swear. In any case, I feel like this category could have really gone to a few different albums. My Morning Jacket's new album Evil Urges got a ton of love from people this year, even though it was pretty mediocre, even for My Morning Jacket. Likewise with the new album by Kanye West, and even, to a certain extent, Lil Wayne's Tha Carter III. So this category had some stiff competition, but the winner, if you care to call it that, was none other than...

Oracular Spectacular by MGMT

It's kind of tough for me to call this the most overrated album of 2008, because the songs on this record that are good are really really good. "Time to Pretend," "Electric Feel," and "Kids," are some of the best songs of the year. But that's just it. In their rush to put out a modern psychedelia record MGMT forgot to write a complete album. The album really rests on the shoulders of those three songs. It's front loaded with great songs, but the album's back end isn't just weaker than it's front, it's flat-out mediocre. The album is about growing up, and it is equal parts tongue-in-cheek and heart-on-sleeve, but that doesn't ever shine as brightly as it does before track five. The other thing that bothers me is the darker tone of the last half of the album. I'm not someone who feels that every song needs to be peppy and uplifting, but I am of the opinion that if there is such a dramatic shift in tone the lyrical content should probably change too. But here it doesn't. The music implies they want to say something, but they never do. I like parts of this album a lot, but it's a flawed debut. I think that MGMT could either do amazing work in the future...or their albums could go completely off the deep end (by which I mean suck a whole lot). Only the future can tell, but what is certainly true is that this album isn't good enough to make anybody's Top 50 Records of the Year, let alone Spin's number 10 or NME's number 1. That's why it's overrated.