Everyone should have a psychedelic rock album from their youth, and in 2007 we got ours. Oracular Spectacular was the studio album debut for soon to be indie giants MGMT, and nothing sounds more like my sophomore year of college than this record. Formed by Ben Goldwasser and Andrew VanWyngarden at Wesleyan University in 2002 as freshman, MGMT would explode into the mainstream with a blend of psychedelia, electronica and indie rock that was as catchy as it was brilliant.

The trip starts with the single, “Time to Pretend” a wonderful synthesizer filled ode to dying young and all the fun you can have. There is a point in everyone’s partying youth that this ethos seems plausible, if only momentarily. The hook during the chorus is instantly recognizable, and the lyrics were canon among college students at the time. As they agree to live fast and die young, the future seems absurd, “Yeah it’s overwhelming, but what else can we do? Get jobs in offices and wake up for the morning commute?”

Further on the journey we run into a song about a special lady with the magic touch in, “Electric Feel.” The grooving bass drives a stomping beat that makes you want to move, as slowly as you like of course. This one will hook you with its’ ear worm quality and its hard not to bounce with the chorus, “I said, ‘Ooh girl, shock me like an electric eel, babygirl, turn me on with your electric feel.’” Infectious doesn’t even begin to describe this song at a house party, and this album should come with glow sticks.

The highest charting single on the album, “Kids” which peaked at number nine on the billboard alternative list is one of the best songs of my college years. The synth-heavy track oozes with pop sensibility, the melodic lead synth line that permeates is contagious and it’s really fantastic on large speakers. I have never understood what this song was about, and I have never cared, it’s pop perfection. I have to mention the acoustic cover of the song by The Kooks in 2008 is also worth looking up, in the realm of indie-sublime.

This record came out during the perfect time for me to hear it, and I am nostalgic about it. It’s not rosy retrospection however and I am not overapraising it. It appears on Rolling Stone’s, “Top 500 Albums of All Time” 2012 list at #494, as well as on every roommate’s iPod from the late oughts. It’s a very easy listen with some drinks and friends or your favorite psychedelic sweetener, and it’s catchy choruses just may expand your mind as well.