MGMT has a large musical orbit. Mentions of influences, inspirations, and favorite artists/songs/albums are frequent. This thread is intended to be the one place where we can keep all of this straight and refer back to.



The list was started by myself and jcj but is in no way complete and only intended to be a starting off point. Please post new mentions, updates, corrections, discussions, etc. and we will do our best to keep this first original post updated.



Many artists can go under multiple different categories so if you feel strongly about an artist going in a specific category please indicate that and site the source if possible. In order to keep some sort of categorization, most artists are only listed once and not in the multiple categories they can fall under. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~



Types of Influences: American/Psychedelic/Californian/Sunshiny Pop from the 60s, English music from the 80s Lo-fi, Shoegaze, Prog, Post Punk,

Specific Artist Influences: The Beach Boys, Brian Eno, The Deep Freeze Mice, Electric Prunes, Red Krayola, Euphoria, 13th Floor Elevators, Julian Cope, Neil Young, David Bowie, Led Zeppelin, Bob Dylan (specifically 80s material), Suicide (Alan Vega & Martin Rev), The Grateful Dead, Pink Floyd, The Mamas & The Papas, Talking Heads, Television Personalities, The Millennium, The Tornados, Joe Meek, Felt, CCR, Dead Meadow, Chrome, Spiritualized, Spacemen 3, Sonic Boom, Throbbing Gristle, T. Rex, Loop, Stereolab, Prince, Mayo Thompson, Mercury Rev, Sparks, The Specials, Buzzcocks, Magazine, Roxy Music, CA Quintet, Monochrome Set, Love (Arthur Lee), Black Sabbath, Royal Trux, Radiohead, The Flaming Lips, Telegraph Avenue, The Clash, Leonard Cohen, Psychic TV, Captain Beefheart, Cabaret Voltaire, The Band, The Teardrop Explodes, Ben Phelps, The Pretty Things, The Soft Boys, Dukes of Stratosphear, Tones on Tail