MGMT: Time To Pretend 12" EP Banana Yellow Vinyl

Why you'll love it

This 12" EP comes on banana yellow vinyl, cut at 45 RPM for punch and clarity. It holds the first recorded versions of "Time to Pretend" and "Kids," years before both became the band's breakthrough hits.

This edition

12" EP
Banana yellow vinyl
Cut at 45 RPM
Stereo mix

About the album

Before the hits, there were two college friends and a praying mantis. Andrew VanWyngarden and Ben Goldwasser wrote "Time to Pretend" in their senior year, and by their own account the music was inspired by a pet mantis that liked to dance to The Clash, while the words imagine the rock star life they hadn't yet got round to living.

Cantora Records put out this six-song EP in 2005, with the pair producing and engineering it themselves alongside David Perlick Molinari. "Kids" already has that bright, unforgettable synth hook, and "Boogie Down," "Destrokk," "Love Always Remains" and "Indie Rokkers" show off a playful, homemade electro side, all fizzing keyboards and drum machines, a world away from the big Dave Fridmann productions that followed.

The re-recorded "Time to Pretend" went on to No. 493 on Rolling Stone's list of the 500 Greatest Songs of All Time, with Caroline Polachek making a cameo in its video, and Oracular Spectacular made No. 494 on the 500 Greatest Albums. This is where they were still pretending, which, as career plans go, worked out rather well.

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