This Is My LCD Soundsystem Post

Wait until they hear "Get Innocuous"


Probably my favorite band, um, recording moniker. You really do have to remind yourself that James Murphy crafts 99.993% of LCD's material. Listen to yourself say it: "James Murphy is LCD Soundsystem." It is how he expresses himself. The depth with which he expresses himself on his new record due out in March, Sound of Silver, devastates me.

So far, LCD Soundsystem has been about levity and play. Its most lauded song, "Losing My Edge", is about not taking oneself seriously. "Beat Connection", "Too Much Love", and "Never As Tired As When I'm Waking Up" are about The Game. There was the extremely unsubtle swipe at every artist that released a song in 2003, "Yeah." In 2005 Daft Punk played his house and fat guys were singing left and right. Now believe me, I know that "On Repeat" and "Disco Infiltrator" are about The System. But though the lyrics can at times be most relevant and weighty, the frivolity of the music and the "geek out" reactions that occur to it make LCD's catalogue prior to S.o.S., make James Murphy prior to sometime after the self-titled release, seem immature.

LCD Soundsystem had a pretty big impact on the indie dance music scene. It opened the flood gates, and now more than ever, truly immature music is overwhelming the market, e.g. The Klaxons, Kitsune. It is only fitting that LCD, (let's just say) the band, that arguably spawned this epidemic, cure it. Well, Sound of Silver is a very mature record. The "silver" is polish. Before you even listen to the record, Murphy is conveying through the title that what you're about to hear is not cheap and quick, but painstaking and rich.

Murphy has always proclaimed a deep love for disco, the genre of silver, and on Silver he immediately honors it with a new standard, opener "Get Innocuous." No dance punk here, thus, we are healed. "Time to Get Away" bluntly advises knowing when to call it quits, when to stop feeling guilty and when to move on, and the music falls in line as well, no house synths, no arpeggios, just simple Rock. "Daft Punk Is Playing At My House" is a poor man's "North American Scum," a song which wisely realizes that most people in Europe are snobby assholes, and that N. Americans that don't embrace their own culture are even bigger assholes (e.g. me, but I really am trying to change now-- I just downloaded all the records by The Doors. Strange Days is great). "Us V. Them" places rock before disco, flipping the "Beat Connection/On Repeat" formula, and reiterates the Caddyshack "slobs" (us) v. snobs" (them) theme. "Watch the Tapes" informs Upper-Middle class America that it sucks. "New York I Love You, But..." hypothesizes that New York reached its capacity in culture, in business, in population some time ago, maybe 5 or 10 years, and that any further development will actually suffocate the city to such a degree that, well, you better have an awesome girlfriend before you move there. ("Mother told you true... maybe there'll always be someone there for you and you'll never be alone... but maybe she's wrong, maybe I'm right... and so here's this song.") But I haven't even talked about the good songs yet.

The title track really breaks new ground in terms of LCD. Just when you think you're going to get a disco banger, when that beat and that bass get you going, the piano sounds, the drip efx kick in, and the cerebral smacks you in the face. You're paralyzed. Even when the bass returns, you don't move, you just stand there, jaws agape, "Ahing" along with Murphy at his ethereal creation.

"All My Friends"-- I know what every critic is going to say about this one: "Here, Murphy masterfully apes New Order"-- should not be so quickly classified. It is much more than a New Order pastiche. First, the piano is so sincere and almost overly symbolic: you touch it, converse with it, no third party (power) necessary, just you and an old friend. Second, the song's message. The song warns against forgetting your friends and the importance of shared human experience, warns against becoming an introvert and a workaholic. This is a song that each male prep school in the country's graduating class should play at its senior prom. Trust me.

Lastly, there's "Someone Great", James Murphy's song about loss. Whether he's talking about a parent or his first love or his best friend, shit maybe even his dog, it doesn't matter, the phrasing is that beautiful:

"To tell the truth I saw it coming / the way you were breathing. But nothing can prepare you for it / the voice on the other end... the coffee isn't even bitter / because what's the difference... and then it keeps coming / til the day it stops... there shouldn't be this reign of silence / but what are the options / when someone great has gone?"

James, clearly you decided to grow up. Thanks, bro. Before Sound of Silver you gave me music I could enjoy, now I have something to cherish.