LCD Soundsystem

a classic rock band

http://www.pitchforkmedia.com/article/news/146644-lcd-soundsystem-folks-help-form-classic-rock-band

Ok then

LCD Springfield

LC/DC
(well, not quite, but couldn't resist)

Does this mean we'll be hearing James Murphy aping Stephen Stills getting "sexy" on "Bluebird" type tracks?

oh. oh. oh. oh.

oh.

I'm a big LCD Soundsystem fan, but man this sounds like a bad idea even to annouce. Didn't LCD prove they could be a kick ass classic rock band with their "Jump Into The Fire" cover? Why don't they just release the next album like this and not say a word?

/waaay bummed bro

"Why don't they just release the next album like this and not say a word?"

i think this would've been more on point

Artists whose first album was pretty good, but then the second one was awesome, and then the third was just OK but really more of the same, and by the fourth one you weren't even paying attention

the end begins!

Yeah, I agree with Mackro, this is quite puzzling. I felt LCD Soundsystem were offering something rather unique, whereas...how much more "classic rock" do we need in the world?

woah that's what sprangers and wells are doing...crazy. have been wondering what they were gonna do after HN broke up.

the hockey night breakup was some real fucking bullshit, like old school 60s rock n' roll type shit.

How much more "classic rock" do we need in the world?

Do you really think this is going to sound like every other wanna be classic rock band?

yeah I wasn't clear in my original post, but it's not the classic rock thing itself that bothers me about the article, nor do I think this album will be bad, but that James and Pat felt they had to make a special statement about it.

hockey night basically was pavement with allman bros. guitar jams, i bet it sounds like hockey night

yeah I wasn't clear in my original post, but it's not the classic rock thing itself that bothers me about the article, nor do I think this album will be bad, but that James and Pat felt they had to make a special statement about it.

― Woman Who Force Madonna At House Party To Make Bold Statement (Mackro Mackro), Monday, October 20, 2008 9:47 PM (8 minutes ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

you're mad that a musican/label owner announced a new project in an interview?

ah jeez that charlatan is broadening his taint

fortunately if he's doing something pointlessly and self-statedly reactionary as "classic rock" i can probably avoid

aint nothin pointless about mansun

haha you just shifted the focus expertly

ah jeez that charlatan is broadening his taint

kegel abuse

you're mad that a musican/label owner announced a new project in an interview?

― s1ocki, Monday, October 20, 2008 2:56 PM (34 minutes ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

MAAAAAAAAD

lol, no it's just silly that of all people, james murphy had to announce a "classic rock" album. Just DO IT, dude.

LESS TALK MORE ROCK

classic rock: eno, bowie, talking heads

john cale

OH SHIT

You wouldn't be caught off guard by the new LCD album sounding like The Band?

LAST WALTZUH

they'll need a better rhythm section before they can sound like the band. and better guitar players. and better songs. and better singers. but other than that i wouldn't be too surprised.

Map of Africa did it, why can't they?

yeah i wouldn't be suprised if james murphy decided to go the band/fleetwood mac route. that's why i think it's dumb they even have to "announce" it. i mean look at the new hippy balearic thread, jaxon's west coast thread, etc, this stuff has been on people's radar now for a while now, it's not surprising james would grab the ball and decide to run with it.

surprised it hasn't happened more

yup

warning unwarranted and perhaps meaninglessly broad generalization ahead:

cali beach hippie balearic as the carefree flipside of disco?

Why don't they just release the next album like this and not say a word?

Murphy, who will both produce and play bass on the disc...

...which is a bit different to the LCD records where he does practically everything.

"..which is a bit different to the LCD records where he does practically everything."

Don't think so.

Tracklisting:
Get Innocuous! (7:11)
Drums, Vocals, Programmed By, Piano, Synthesizer - James Murphy
Guitar - Tyler Pope
Vocals - Nancy Whang

Time To Get Away (4:11)
Drums - Patrick Mahoney
Vocals, Bass, Percussion, Guitar, Clavinet, Organ, Synthesizer [Casio] - James Murphy

North American Scum (5:25)
Bass - Tyler Pope
Drums, Vocals, Organ, Programmed By, Percussion, Handclaps [Claps], Guitar, Bass
James Murphy
Handclaps [Claps] - Eric Broucek , Marcus Lambkin

Someone Great (6:25)
Synthesizer, Programmed By, Vocals, Glockenspiel - James Murphy

All My Friends (7:37)
Drums, Vocals, Bass, Piano, Synthesizer, Guitar, Percussion [Electronic] - James Murphy

Us V Them (8:29)
Bass, Guitar, Performer [Fun Machine], Handclaps [Claps] - Tyler Pope
Drums, Percussion, Handclaps [Claps] - Patrick Mahoney
Vocals - Eric Broucek , Nancy Whang
Vocals, Percussion, Performer [Fun Machine], Handclaps [Claps] - James Murphy

Watch The Tapes (3:55)
Drums, Bass, Guitar, Handclaps [Claps], Percussion, Vocals, Piano, Synthesizer [Casio] - James Murphy
Vocals - Patrick Mahoney

Sound Of Silver (7:07)
Drums, Vocals, Bass, Kalimba, Handclaps [Claps], Percussion, Synthesizer, Programmed By, Piano - James Murphy

New York, I Love You But You're Bringing Me Down (5:35)
Bass, Guitar - Tyler Pope
Cello - Jane Scarpantoni
Drums, Percussion - Patrick Mahoney
Guitar - Justin Chearno*
Piano - Morgan Wiley
Viola - David Gold (2)
Violin - Amy Kimball , Lorenza Ponce
Vocals, Guitar, Synthesizer - James Murphy

not much of a refutation

in looking at his first album artist credits, looks like he had a wide array of players on there as well but with SOS he definitely moved more in the direction of a proper "band".

just saying he is not the lone wolf in a studio with no help that that post made it out to be

Performer [Fun Machine]

thing with knobs

what on earth is a 'fun machine'

What isn't it? It is GLORIOUS. You will bow down before Fun Machine.

http://www.antisleep.com/archives/images/blog/2005-05-09_fun_machine.jpg

anyway i'd say one song out of that lot is anything approaching a 'proper band', but whatever.

To whatever degree Murphy works in the studio, it's safer to say LCD Soundsystem are a band than a solo project. They are definitely James Murphy's band, but a band they are.

We could get into the "what exactly IS a band" argument if you want!

oh we really don't! seriously, this sounds like "LCD soundsystem frontman and drummer act as rhythm section for some other dudes"; it's a bit of a leap to "why didn't LCD just go classic rock already??" when he appears to be just, you know, playing bass rather than writing the songs and playing the majority of the music.

yep

though fwiw murphy doing americana would be unbelievable

“Losing My Edge” remains one of my favourite recordings of all time

The later songs that were upthread described as “post-modern remixes of your favourite songs” in fact have all the appeal of the Counting Crows cover of “Big Yellow Taxi” or that recent cover of “Fast Car” or that awful New Radicals cover; yet somehow worse than all of these because people seem to like them? They make me feel something profound, not sadness or anger or boredom but a lack of emotion, like a vacuum of feeling, an overwhelming null

I like “Yeah” tho, too. I listened to the Nike album while working out and it was nice, I liked the instrumental version of “Someone Great”. I never liked “Daft Punk” but I heard it again a month ago and it was better than I remembered.

what songs in particular you referring to?

I have thankfully scrubbed them, but “the song that sounds like “Heroes”” and “the song that sounds like “Needle In The Camel’s Eye”” and others. They were legacy-souring to me, turned me off the band like piss in the soup

which is the one that is a "needle in the camel's eye" pastiche

those could both be "All I Want"

think for that one he at least adds enough new stuff that it stands on its own, also I guess the fact that he was able to ape one of the best songs ever is pretty impressive. the ones that bother me are the two on American Dream which sound like Remain in Light outtakes, particularly since one imitates Belew's very distinct "Born Under Punches" solo. like the one big strike against this band is they copy Talking Heads too much, idk why they decided to do that, especially on an album that's too long as it is

Ya, it was “White Light, White Heat” (aka Drunk Girls)

All I Want is “Heroes” with the guitar part from “Here Come The Warm Jets”

I hate it

I started to hear other covers in other songs that may or may not have been there. That song “Home” sounds like a David Byrne cover to my ears. (Is it? It sounds so much like something). “All My Friends” idk I got it in my head that he was trying to do a synth cover of “Where The Streets Have No Name” and I couldn’t un-U2ify my ears afterward

It’s like when somebody gets disgraced for plagiarism and then you just assume everything they’ve ever written is a lift, I guess

i attempted a discog run with these guys last year. early singles and first album are still great and fun. after that... i really love "someone great." that's it unfortunately

juan maclean, however, nothing but excellence

"home" is definitely inspired by "this must be the place" but it's not blatant enough to annoy me, i like it

the reference points of "all my friends" are pretty obviously new order (specifically "temptation") + eno but that synthesis works very well, it isn't blatantly ripping any one thing

It's been really entertaining the whiplash of sentiment turn on Murphy so completely. Short of someone staining their legacy through non-musical things (Morrissey, dude from Arcade Fire), I can't think of many artists since 2000 that have been turned on like this.

My opinion remains pretty much the same since the start - some incredible stuff and some really turgid stuff.

ugh, "watching the whiplash"

I find it amusing he actually covered "Jump Into the Fire" by Nilsson because when I first heard that song my thought was "ah, that's where LCD got it from"

dunno if "Home" cribs a Byrne song, but I like it better than any solo Byrne I've heard, for what that's worth. there is probably a site out there dedicated to compiling all the LCD references out there, similar to how they do for Daft Punk and Stereolab. the one that surprised me was "Dance Yrself Clean" being mostly cribbed from a very obscure 12 inch someone found, idk why but something about that bothered me. like maybe he thought he could get away with that one. Daft Punk did that a lot too.

ivy., I did the exact same and felt the exact same

I can’t decide if I like or dislike his MES impressions on “Edge” and “Daft Punk”, I think in the end I like it

I need to listen to Juan Mclean, it seems

This 2003 Fader article about the Rapture is interesting because it's kind of right on the cusp, when "House of Jealous Lovers" broke through. DFA here is only discussed as a record label — albeit one with a tremendous amount of input into its artists' releases. Lots of discussion of Murphy and Goldsworthy, but not even a mention of LCD Soundsystem. "The Rapture is DFA's flagship band," lol sure.

https://www.thefader.com/2015/09/17/cover-story-the-rapture-issue-15

idk i still really like the first album + early singles, sound of silver is pretty good, and even this is happening has its moments, just he gets more blatant/less creative with his inspirations as things go on and everything suffers for it

I think of the references and ripoffs sort of like cheeky sampling.

would you like to hear an old iggy pop song with worse vocals and lyrics

Sampling is already cheeky! Sampling is post-modern. Cribbing is not cheeky. I get as bothered on this topic about Schnittke Symphony 1 as I do about “Drunk Girls”

Xp lol otm

early singles and first album are still great and fun. after that... i really love "someone great." that's it unfortunately

― ivy., Tuesday, January 30, 2024 10:20 AM (twenty-two minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

juan maclean, however, nothing but excellence

― ivy., Tuesday, January 30, 2024 10:21 AM (twenty-one minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

Agree with both of these posts.

Still think "Yeah" is one of the best tracks of the 00s, so I still consider myself a fan of this band

Has he ever talked about ripping off bands in interviews? Like, does he go up to his bandmates and say this one is like David Bowie, or this one is like talking heads?

Writing a new song over a replay of an old song felt more interesting before every big pop song was doing this (or at least including blatant references to big hits of the past). Looking at it charitably, it's not that different from Jamaican "versions" and sometimes results in great songs (sometimes not).

The Dance Yrself Clean / Jamaica Running thing was pretty sus if they didn't credit the songwriters/publishers right off.

Always thought the most effective aspect of LCD was the sense of time and place - the 2000s stuff captures the feel of being ~32. Not music to be played while partying until sunrise but while drinking a couple of beers or glasses of wine and remembering when you were partying until sunrise (and the bands that moved you when you were 22).

Everything I've heard post-reunion (which is not a ton tbf, it's been so bad I'm not going to search out more) has been very going through the motions.

Yeah, I file them along with Sleater-Kinney, or maybe the Pixies. Really liked phase one at the time, no interest in the reunion.

I don't know if the s/t is considered an album, but it's my favorite of theirs. "Daft Punk," "Tribulations," "Beat Connection," "Give It Up," "Losing My Edge," and "Yeah" are all classics. There's a raw energy to those early recordings that captures the magic of their live performances better than the future studio albums.

Not sure what tainted their legacy more: the tedious "last tour/show/residency ever" (which they've done twice or 3x?) or more recently the late-stage crypto/NFT cashgrabs.

All that said, "Beat Connection" is the song I'm always surprised I still like when it comes on shuffle.

I actually just keep getting more into LCD Soundsystem. I enjoyed the first two albums when they were fresh, and I like them even more now.

It definitely helps that I don't have a huge vocabulary with his influences. I don't even WANT to know all the artists he lists in Losing My Edge, etc. Sometimes they're really obvious to me and sometimes they're not. Agree that the one that sounds like Heroes is probably too on the nose and it was a little disappointing when I realized just how hard he was leaning on other artists. However, there are a few where I definitely felt LCD's version was an improvement on the source material; I'm not going to listen to Kraftwerk's Robots, but I love Get Innocuous. Disintegration is one of my favorite Cure songs and Tonite is one of my favorite LCD Soundsystem songs and the similarities don't bother me at all.

The records I listen to most are The Long Goodbye and Electric Lady Sessions. Definitely a band that benefits from the looseness of live performance.

first time I saw them they ended with a 20 minute version of "Yeah", nothing they did the next two times I saw them was anywhere close to that

I made this playlist a few years ago based on a reddit (I think) post that matched up all the This Is Happening songs against the originals. It's pretty interesting hearing them side by side like this

https://open.spotify.com/playlist/58KqaKB2yPO1vJqEzzP83g?si=e29f861113514b6d

It makes its point, since a few of those are absolutely blatant, but imo a couple of those are stretches as direct analogs, ironically because the LCD songs are ripping off several songs at once. For example, "Drunk Girls" reminds me of "Boys Keep Swinging" by Bowie as much as "White Light/White Heat." I don't think "Pow" sounds particularly like "Born Under Punches," and I don't think "Home" sounds like "This Must Be the Place," but both sure as heck sound like the Talking Heads. And so on. I'm surprised he's never been sued, regardless - other acts have for sure been sued for far less - which makes me think he maybe worked something out with various estates and/or friends?

And of course North American Scum =
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2HwmO_GZfzI

the reference points of "all my friends" are pretty obviously new order (specifically "temptation") + eno but that synthesis works very well, it isn't blatantly ripping any one thing

otm, with a Pink Floyd reference thrown in.

I think that's why I always appreciated the band. It's a synthesis. Like, when I listen to, say, bands like the P. Furs, I hear a synthesis of Bowie, VU, Roxy Music and the Pistols. When I hear the JAMC, I hear the Ramones, Phil Spector, Beach Boys, Stooges, etc. I'm not suggesting LCD is on par with either of those acts, or as novel in its synthesizing, but like those others there's more than enough personality that I would never confuse it for its source material. (See also: Zeppelin.)

Also, they were a real gateway drug into dance and electronic music for me, in that there was so much live instrumentation and I could understand what was going on more (this was when I was starting to mess around with making music on a computer but really had no idea what I was doing or how things were made).

I feel like the interpolations are similar - they're never going to sample a record, they don't work like that, they're going to do it with their chosen toolbox. I like that even though it sometimes veers into ripoff territory. It's great when it works.

I made this playlist a few years ago based on a reddit (I think) post that matched up all the This Is Happening songs against the originals. It's pretty interesting hearing them side by side like this

https://open.spotify.com/playlist/58KqaKB2yPO1vJqEzzP83g?si=e29f861113514b6d

― nate woolls, Tuesday, January 30, 2024 12:44 PM (three hours ago) bookmarkflaglink

Thanks for this. "The Bus" is a banger.

I don't think "Pow" sounds particularly like "Born Under Punches,"

― Josh in Chicago, Tuesday, January 30, 2024 2:50 PM (one hour ago) bookmarkflaglink

Is it just the little electric guitar riff every 8 beats?

Nothing much to add except Someone Great is my favourite song of all time. Just rooted itself in me instantly with that hook and all that sadness. Can tell you exactly where I was and what I was doing the first time I heard it. Have so many associations with those first two albums (and yeah I do consider the self titled to be one). Ex of mine actually introduced me to them by putting Never as Tired As When I’m Waking Up on a mix CD for me which, in retrospect? Not that representative of their style!

s/t is totally an album; i thought the singles were collected as a "bonus disk" but the first disc was a "proper" album

"Someone Great" will always remind me of Bumble and I dedicate that song to him.

M4rk Cr4ig (aka Bimble) RIP

*Bimble

Spell check strikes again

I saw James Murphy creeping around The Four Horseman, the restaurant he owns in Brooklyn, when I met a buddy for brunch. He did look as if he'd lost his edge.

I didn't mean to bookmark, so; M4rk Cr4ig (aka Bimble) RIP

Yeah Someone Great is an incredible tune, floored me the first time I heard it. Even if everything else sucked he’s classic for that alone. And it’s more or less an original isn’t it?

He ripped off 45:33 for it

Lol

Poor Nike