"Little Dark Age" is a song by American

rock Rock most often refers to: * Rock (geology), a naturally occurring solid aggregate of minerals or mineraloids * Rock music, a genre of popular music Rock or Rocks may also refer to: Places United Kingdom * Rock, Caerphilly, a location in Wales ...

band

MGMT MGMT () is an American indie rock band formed in 2002 in Middletown, Connecticut. It was founded by multi-instrumentalists Andrew VanWyngarden and Ben Goldwasser. Alongside VanWyngarden and Goldwasser, MGMT's live lineup currently consists of ...

. It was released as the lead single from their fourth studio album, ''

Little Dark Age ''Little Dark Age'' (abbreviated as ''LDA'') is the fourth studio album by the American Rock music, rock band MGMT, released on February 9, 2018, through Columbia Records. It is the band's first album of new material in nearly five years, after ...

'', on October 17, 2017, through

Columbia Records Columbia Records is an American record label owned by Sony Music, Sony Music Entertainment, a subsidiary of Sony Corporation of America, the North American division of Japanese Conglomerate (company), conglomerate Sony. It was founded on Janua ...

. In an interview with ''

Newsweek ''Newsweek'' is an American weekly online news magazine co-owned 50 percent each by Dev Pragad, its president and CEO, and Johnathan Davis (businessman), Johnathan Davis, who has no operational role at ''Newsweek''. Founded as a weekly print m ...

'', Andrew VanWyngarden, the lead vocalist, guitar player and songwriter for the band stated that 1980s

Soviet The Soviet Union,. officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR),. was a List of former transcontinental countries#Since 1700, transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 to 1991. A flagship communist state, ...

synth-pop Synth-pop (short for synthesizer pop; also called techno-pop; ) is a subgenre of new wave music that first became prominent in the late 1970s and features the synthesizer as the dominant musical instrument. It was prefigured in the 1960s ...

was influential to the song.

Release

Leading up to the song's release, the band made several posts on their social media hyping up the album and then upcoming single. On October 12, 2017, the band posted a video clip of the beginning instrumental of the song to their social media with the caption "#LittleDarkAge". "Little Dark Age" was released as a digital single on October 17 through

. The song was released with an accompanying music video.

Artwork

The cover art for the single is taken directly from a work of Japanese

manga Manga (Japanese: 漫画 ) are comics or graphic novels originating from Japan. Most manga conform to a style developed in Japan in the late 19th century, and the form has a long prehistory in earlier Japanese art. The term ''manga'' is u ...

artist

Suehiro Maruo (born January 28, 1956 in Nagasaki, Japan) is a Japanese manga artist, illustrator, and painter. Biography Maruo graduated from junior high school in March 1972 but dropped out of senior high school. At the age of 15, he moved to Tokyo and began ...

. In the text-bubble, the character states the following: "Oh, OK. It's bad to ask for something without offering something in return. So I will show you some magic. No tricks here. I call this 'Discovery of Africa.'"

Critical reception

''Little Dark Age'' received generally positive reviews from critics. Writing for ''

Spin Spin or spinning most often refers to: * Spinning (textiles), the creation of yarn or thread by twisting fibers together, traditionally by hand spinning * Spin, the rotation of an object around a central axis * Spin (propaganda), an intentionally b ...

'', Jeremy Gordon called the song "grim and playful". He said the song and video were "dark, but only a little, and the vibe feels appropriate for where they are now—older, and without office jobs, but recognizant of what's still gone wrong." In late 2020, it experienced a resurgence in popularity due to a viral

TikTok TikTok, known in China as Douyin (), is a short-form video hosting service owned by the Chinese company ByteDance. It hosts user-submitted videos, which can range in duration from 15 seconds to 10 minutes. TikTok is an international version ...

trend where hundreds of thousands utilized the song.

Music video

The music video for "Little Dark Age", directed by David MacNutt and Nathaniel Axel, premiered on October 17, 2017. The video was considered out of character and surprisingly gothic for the band. Jeremy Gordon of ''Spin'' called the video "

Dada Dada () or Dadaism was an art movement of the European avant-garde in the early 20th century, with early centres in Zürich, Switzerland, at the Cabaret Voltaire (Zurich), Cabaret Voltaire (in 1916). New York Dada began c. 1915, and after 192 ...

-esque". As of August 2022, the video has been viewed over 100 million times through the band's official

Vevo Vevo ( , an abbreviation for "Video Evolution", stylized as VEVO until 2013) is an American multinational video hosting service, best known for providing music videos to YouTube. The service is also available as an app on selected smart TVs, di ...

account on YouTube.

Credits

* Andrew van Wyngarden – vocals, synthesizer, programming, producer * Ben Goldwasser – synthesizer, programming, producer * James Richardson – additional bass guitar * Patrick Wimberly – producer * Dave Fridmann – producer

Charts

Certifications

References

{{authority control 2017 singles 2017 songs Columbia Records singles MGMT songs Song recordings produced by Patrick Wimberly Songs written by Andrew VanWyngarden Songs written by Benjamin Goldwasser Internet memes introduced in 2020 Nationalism