MGMT talk ‘Little Dark Age’ going viral on TikTok: “We just keep getting pretty lucky”

MGMT have opened up about their ‘Little Dark Age’ going viral on TikTok, attributing luck to the viral success.

The electronic pop duo – comprising Andrew VanWyngarden and Benjamin Goldwasser – opened up about the 2018 track’s success years after its release. At first, the duo were not aware of the song going viral on TikTok during the pandemic due to them not being users of the platform.

In an interview with Record Collector magazine (per Music News), Goldwasser said: “That was enlightening in that none of the conscious stuff we did to promote that album mattered as much as this random thing that got picked up on TikTok. I think in a way that freed us up a little bit on this record to just focus on the music. Don’t worry about the other stuff and whatever happens, happens.”

VanWyngarden added: “I think when you have a goal to make something that could become viral or be a huge pop song, intentions enter into the creative picture and it’s rare to actually do that. For us, it’s just that we’ve had a career where we keep getting pretty lucky.”

As reported by SPIN, TikTok users have used the track to make “more than 5.5 million videos that weave the song into anime, superhero movies, video game clips and post-George Floyd social justice-themed content,” with other users on the social media platform using the song to “transform themselves into figures from classical paintings, express solidarity with those who identify as trans and, most recently, to soundtrack footage of Russian missile bombardment of Kyiv.”

“It was surprising to me to even have our song be on TikTok at all, and then it was like, ‘Well, how big is this?’” Goldwasser told the outlet. “I don’t even know what a big TikTok song is or what that means.”

He continued: “What I think is really cool about it personally is how much of it is out of our hands. It’s completely unintentional. It’s not like we have control over how people are interpreting this.

“People are just taking it and running with it. For me as a musician, that’s really exciting. That’s more creative than trying to figure out what an artist has to say, or trying to get at the deeper meaning behind something. A lot of times, there is no deeper meaning. The meaning is what’s out in the world.”

In a four-star review of 2018’s ‘Little Dark Age’, NME shared: “After more than a decade of insularity, MGMT have thrown open the doors and welcomed you back into their world. In doing so, they’ve had to engage with our messy, unpalatable reality. The record was partly written in the wake of Donald Trump’s shock election and so concludes with the elegiac ‘Hand It Over’. VanWyngarden recently explained the track “envisions an end to all of this”. MGMT’s return to pop is a much more welcome surprise.”

In other news, MGMT recently shared their stunning new single ‘Nothing To Declare’.

The track is the latest to be shared from MGMT’s upcoming album ‘Loss Of Life’. Set to arrive on February 23 via Mom + Pop Music, the LP is the band’s first in nearly six years, and arrives as the long-awaited follow-up to 2018’s ‘Little Dark Age’.

VanWyngarden and Ben Goldwasser produced the 10-track project alongside Patrick Wimberly (Solange, Lil Yachty), and it was mixed by Longtime collaborator Dave Fridmann.

Christine and the Queens is set to appear on the song ‘Dancing in Babylon’ – the first-ever feature on an MGMT album, and Brian Burton (Danger Mouse) provides additional production on ‘Mother Nature’.