No. 104 - MGMT’s “Electric Feel” changed my life
Lilly Hogan’s middle-school hipster daydream meets reality
This Song Changed My Life is an independent music publication featuring weekly essays from people all around the world about the songs that mean the most to them. Created (and illustrated) by Grace Lilly.
• 3 min read •
Growing up, I mostly learned about music through my parents. Classics — the Rolling Stones, Fleetwood Mac, Bob Dylan… sometimes bluegrass like Emmylou Harris, Lucinda Williams, or Patti Griffin. I would listen to pop or whatever random things I found on LimeWire, but I had a really narrow lens on contemporary music.
Everything changed when I met my now best friend Sundara in middle school. She wore skinny jeans and eyeliner, both of which blew my mind. One day she offered up a single earbud connected to her giant iPod Classic (another revelation). She played “Electric Feel” by MGMT at a volume that was way past parent-approved, and it transformed the way I saw music forever.
Until that moment, I had thought of music as something made for “old people,” by “old people.” But here I was, 12 years old, on the precipice of becoming a teenager, discovering something that felt both familiar and completely new. The music itself felt reminiscent of classic rock but remixed in a style that opened up the whole world of “hipster” and “indie” music — terms I was just beginning to understand. It wasn’t just music anymore; it was a gateway to how cool being a teenager could be.
Sundara and I played “Electric Feel” on her record player at her house, and I had it on constant repeat on my iPod Shuffle. Every time I listened, my daydream was the same. Those first few seconds felt like blasting off in a spaceship to this crazy Urban Outfitters-themed jungle party, just like the music video.
In my mind, this party was filled with all these cool people I would meet in my freedom-filled teenage years, who would see me as super cool and mature and hip. Even though I looked young and felt uncool, this song made me feel like a grown-up hipster. I felt like I was discovering the world, and I could see my place in it.
Through MGMT, I discovered a whole universe of 2010s indie music — Sleigh Bells, Cold War Kids, Beach House, Vampire Weekend, the Strokes, LCD Soundsystem. This wasn’t my parents’ music; it was mine to explore, no “old people” allowed. The new-ness of relating to a music scene with my friends was exhilarating. This music became the soundtrack to us becoming teenagers and testing the boundaries of everything we knew. Major.
Then about three years after hearing the song for the first time, I went to Outside Lands in Golden Gate Park. MGMT played at noon on a minor stage, and we got there early, squeezed shoulder-to-shoulder in the harsh morning fog. The band looked stiff and pissed to be up that early, while around us, Bay Area hipsters stood appraising each other through clouds of American Spirit smoke. No one danced.
I pushed to the front, center stage, and when they finally played “Electric Feel,” my magical daydream of the wild, welcoming dance party completely crumbled. I was just a kid surrounded by harsh-looking hipsters who wouldn’t even make enough space for me to dance to a song that meant so much to me. My friend and I left right after the song, totally dejected.
That experience transformed the song for me. Instead of making me feel cool and grown up, it started representing everything I grew to hate about trying too hard to be accepted by the “cool crowd.” It wasn’t about the music anymore — it was about the performance of being a hipster, and that felt worse than being uncool ever did.
Now when I hear it, I’m reminded of that beautiful progression: from childlike wonder at discovering something new, through the heartbreak of disillusionment, to finally finding a more grounded view of the world. It reminds me to resist the urge to try to be “cool,” and instead allow things to move me, whether the crowd makes space or not. ◆
About Lilly
Lilly Hogan lives in New York and always has a hard time describing herself in bios. She is creating a podcast about loneliness and friendship in New York City called the Lilly Friend Project which you can follow here.
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Categories
Friendship • Family • Coming of Age • Romance • Grief • Spirituality & Religion • Personal Development
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The disappointment part was so raw but also yeah, nothing compares to that first song that made us fall in love with the idea of what life could be :’)