"This Is Happening": the third album by LCD Soundsystem

why?

"tale of woe"? what song are you listening to?

surely the "slave to money" line is made even MORE ironic given the background/history of the song

Millionaires are only allowed to sing about how happy they are being millionaires. That's pop law.

This is derailing the discussion further, but ok, i'll explain. BTW, I realize this is a personal hang-up and not a universal argument, so I don't expect you to agree. It's the same problem I have with Trent Reznor and Morrissey. In the early days I could buy their anger and isolation but once they got huge, that type of lyric just didn't make sense. I greatly prefer instrumental music to vocal tracks as well, so there's that too. But in BSS I translate the chorus 'it's a bittersweet symphony, this life' to 'it sucks to be a rockstar doing tons of coke and banging groupies'.

yeah but you can't find a good melody for that sort of lyric

look at Kanye now.

To be fair, BSS was the song that made Ashcroft a massive coke-snorting groupie-banging rock star (if he ever banged groupies). (As opposed to banging the girlfriends of guys in bands he was touring with / ripping off.) They really weren't huge before that song.

yeah thats why i dont understand brotherlovesdubs comments

It makes more sense if BLD is an American; the impact of that song was such that I assumed they'd been massive in the UK for a while and I was just now noticing them.

yeah I dunno this image of Ashcroft is totally wrong/made up sorry

also just seems odd to me to assume that all lyrics (esp by someone like MORRISSEY wtf) are somehow first-person narratives

History hit number 8 in the charts after they split, but they really weren't big.; that was their only hit I think Dickie just acted as if they should be.

Similar talk of author-as-narrator-(or-not) in the PJ thread.

I think it's touching, the belief that people wit fame and money don't feel angry and isolated, especially someone with a personality as toxic as Morrissey.

Optimistic:

http://cgi.ebay.com/2-TIXs-4-2-LCD-Soundsystem-132-MSG-/290525489357?pt=US_Tickets_all_in_one&hash=item43a4ab28cd

I prefer instrumentals to vocal tracks. That's the bottom line here.

lol i clicked on this thread trying to figure out why there's so many new posts when this record's like a year old and everyone's talking about "Bittersweet Symphony"?

Dickie Ashcroft a millionaire? In 1997?! Most of Verve were probably on the dole when BSS was being written in 96. They'd had a low selling album 2 years prior to BSS charting then split up almost as soon as it was released. Their position on the 1995 Glastonbury bill the summer they split was 4th between Veruca Salt and The Charlatans. On the small stage.

did they end up with anything after the lawsuits?

they didn't get shit from BSS. every single penny went to Allen Klein/Jagger/Richards

The credit inside the sleeve is to Jagger Richards. They thought about not even putting the song on the album at first. Can't blame them really.

Jagger/Richards also forced them to sell the song to Nike for a superbowl commercial. Ashcroft gave away their paltry share of the proceeds to charity.

then he banged some groupies and did another line

I guess they still got album sale $?

yep

the funny thing to me is that the verve song the oldham song sound a lot like each other, and the jagger/richards song and the staple singers song sound a lot like each other, but the oldham song and the jagger/richards song, the two that have the same title and the same writers, hardly sound alike at all. if he had just released it as an andrew loog oldham song with a different title and kept the songwriting to himself, i can't see how mick and keef would even have had a clue that their song was somewhere in there.

yeah I agree - I sure don't hear it!

'jamaca running' beat is a lot looser/clankier than 'dance yrself clean' if you compare them directly. if the pool were going to sue, then it would all have to hang on those two chord stabs and if they're distinctive enough as a composition; sorry, but nobody can say they 'own' two chord stabs.

lol i clicked on this thread trying to figure out why there's so many new posts when this record's like a year old and everyone's talking about "Bittersweet Symphony"?

yeah no shit

first song is a rip of the Pool's "Jamaica Running"

― jaxon, Monday, April 12, 2010 4:57 PM (9 months ago) Bookmark

It also has a massive Casiotone For The Painfully Alone debt (vox, lyrics, casio solos) which is not as obscure but I feel it much more.

1st part of "Dance Yrself Clean" is a total C4TPA homage.

― _▂▅▇█▓▒░◕‿‿◕░▒▓█▇▅▂_ (Steve Shasta), Thursday, July 29, 2010 10:07 AM (6 months ago)

k seriously i have been refreshing the ticketmaster page since 10:55 and I tried to buy ONE ticket at any price in any section etc the instant the page went up, and it says there's nothing available

what the fuck is going on

seriously. lame.

I mean, there is 0 possible way it could have actually sold out in the approx 5 seconds btwn going live and me clicking "Find tickets"

http://twitter.com/#!/lcdsoundsystem/status/36096706370080769

glad to know StubHub has like 900 tickets starting at $115 though

kermit the frog homage

xp

horribly annoying and gutting. of course i feel like a dick because i managed to get one during the presale, but it's in the mezzanine and i want to be on the floor plus my friends can't get tix so i'll be on my own.

this was an even bigger joke than the presale.

otm

^^^

one fucking pissed-off Stevie tbh

http://twitter.com/lcdsoundsystem/status/36102603230294016

k seriously i have been refreshing the ticketmaster page since 10:55 and I tried to buy ONE ticket at any price in any section etc the instant the page went up, and it says there's nothing available

what the fuck is going on

lol guys this is honestly some ticketmaster 101 shit, if a show does NOT "sell out" instantly it's a surprise

this entire thing is a total joke, of course they're going to reform, but I still wanted tickets. Not sure why they can't have a second (or third) MSG show.

ok this is happening:
Fuck You Scalpers, Terminal 5 Shows Added:
http://lcdsoundsystem.com/main/archives/647

totally superb post from the man.

Just finished reading that. James Murphy is awesome. His band is awesome. After these shows, can they please work on Nancy's solo album?

great post, james murphy seems like a quality guy

I don't know. I agree with the sentiment of course, but this "OMG! Scalpers!" stuff just seems weird to me. I can't believe that he's so naive that he wouldn't expect scalpers to be buying tickets. He says in that post that he thought the show might sell out in 10 days. Surely he must have expected scalpers to buy up a generous amount of the tickets if that was the case? Of course it sucks, but I feel like this faux naive we-had-no-idea-this-would-happen-honestly-guys stuff is covering up for a complete shitfest of a presale that should have had more thought put into it.

I think the problem is that nobody BUT scalpers got tickets.