MGMT’s Andrew VanWynGarden Apparently Wrote An Upbeat Dance Song About Coronavirus
Right now, the coronavirus pandemic is scaring the fuck out of the entire world. It’s causing music-festival cancellations and blockbuster-movie-release delays. It’s convincing millions of us that we need to hoard bottled water and anti-bacterial wipes. It’s got stark implications for the economy and for the coming presidential election. Maybe it’ll kill us all! So obviously, someone famous has come up with a novelty song about it.
Yesterday on Twitter, Charli XCX publicly wondered who would be the first to sing about coronavirus, which led to a fun little back-and-forth with the 1975’s Matty Healy.
which artist do we think will name check coronavirus in their lyrics first?
— Charli (@charli_xcx) March 4, 2020
Honestly why this new album is delayed https://t.co/PaF7Iy4gO1
— (@Truman_Black) March 4, 2020
I basically did this tweet for you.
— Charli (@charli_xcx) March 4, 2020
Novelty-song baron “Weird Al” Yankovic has already come out publicly and said that he will not be the guy to do the coronavirus song, despite the obvious ways it could fit into his repertoire.
Yeah, no, sorry. Not gonna do "My Corona."
— Al Yankovic (@alyankovic) March 3, 2020
Instead, that distinction seems to belong to MGMT leader Andrew VanWyngarden, who is apparently in the process of recording a track called “Oh No Corona.” Yesterday, as this Reddit thread points out, an account in VanWyngarden’s name tweeted a 52-second teaser on SoundCloud. (This VanWyngarden account has only been active since last month, but MGMT’s account has retweeted it, so it seems to be real.) From what we can hear, “Oh No Corona” is a wormy and fast-thumping Euro-dance track with lyrics that I can’t make out. Do with this what you will.
I didn’t finish it today but this is a teaser https://t.co/N8ViSwdi3h
— Andrew VanWyngarden (@awvanwyngarden) March 5, 2020
We all have fun on this website, right? We’re not just gritting our teeth while staring into nerve-shattering oblivion? Good.