LCD Soundsystem

Have at it, at your leisure

https://uproxx.com/indie/lcd-soundsystem-shut-up-and-play-the-hits-10th-anniversary/

Sound of Silver is still the shit.

Again: He had the right to bring back his band! But LCD Soundsystem’s subsequent “reunion” (if we should still even classify it that way as this point) has transformed Shut Up And Play The Hits into a completely different film.

Not if you've completely ignored the reunion!

Somehow this author has written an embarrassing cri de coeur about how he is embarrassed by yet drawing attention to his earlier cri de coeur, becoming exponentially wack

funny that people seem to be realizing just now that LCD's audience was primarily made out of guys like James Murphy. I agree that the band's hangup with being cool and doing things "the right way" was obnoxious; Murphy treated his music career like a 12 year old imagining himself in the NFL. everything he does is so calculated and self-aware.

otoh they made a ton of great music, I'm listening to This is Happening now and it's still great. dare I say the best "we're out of ideas" album since Orbital's Middle of Nowhere? had he removed tracks 6-8 it would've been such an amazingly tight single LP.

now I just picture him goofy doing Clorox ads with Eric Wareheim. There's advantages to bleach! Advantages!!

I guess the upshot of seeing that malfunctioning show was seeing Murphy and the band NOT so calculated or self-aware. It was a bunch of guys really struggling and trying to get their equipment working, knowing full well they were letting everyone down. Like he seemed pretty damn humble offering the new album for free as a way of making amends.

At apefest vibing to lcd soundsystem pic.twitter.com/FcNVAekglz

— jpegZoidberg (@BitcoinZoidberg) June 20, 2022

the coins...are coming up from behind

Gotta pay the bills aintcha?

Lmao

when we needed him most pic.twitter.com/kSeu8vUeOb

— LGBTQIA2S+ Enjoyer (@MyDudeDingdong) June 21, 2022

At least that performance seemed marginally more energetic than when the did SNL

Lmfao at both these charlatans and HAIM having their threads bumped for playing an NFT festival. They were always fuckin grifters and you critics were the mark

Forgive my glee

"Band playing a gig for money" is not what grifter means.

Given the number of shows LCD probably played for audiences that were 90% coked-up trustafarians and finance bros circa 2005-8, playing a NFT festival is VMIC IMO.

Same energy

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Otc8CboPT2s

Where are your apes tonight??

bathing

NFT Soundsystem

https://zh-cn.facebook.com/TommySiegel/photos/a.814196891929314/2873115809370735/?type=3

just listened again for the first time in several years ... didn't get it back then, didn't get it when they were brand new and don't get it now.

what am i missing?

best thing i can come up with is i was born too early ('76) for this to hit right.

Nah, I was born in 1975 and it's fine. Think of it as an extended post-modern remix of all your favorite post-punk and art-pop or what have you all at once.

They have a greatest-hits collection worth of classic songs. Like the Cars, say. (Ducks before the Cars stans start throwing things.)

They just announced some shows in Chicago - I saw them in November and it was awesome, more than made up for the last time I saw them when their equipment malfunctioned and they kept stopping the show in mid-song.

they're reasonably good at synthesising all their hip 70s/80s post-punk/art rock influences into something distinct and compelling (if derivative, sometimes far too blatantly). they're at their best when the exact mix of reference points isn't so obvious though

I dunno, I think they're often pretty good when they're obvious. Like on "Home" or "All I Want."

I tend to conflate them with the whole DFA stable. Those DFA compilations were crucial listening for me at the time.

Those comps were super cool, not least the LCD tracks. I guess what set LCD apart is that they actually managed a few solid full-lengths as well.

Yeah, and their sensibility shaped the whole label.

This prompted me to put on the 2nd DFA comp, which I'm enjoying. So many good tracks.

DFA drum sound is all time. Hi-hat

DFA also responsible for one of my favorite-ever ilm threads: What the hell, let's all SING "House of jealous lovers"

what set LCD apart is that they actually managed a few solid full-lengths as well.

Juan has about 20 solid full-lengths, EPs, and EP-length 12”s

I remember when that DFA comp came out and there’s the remastered/re-recorded version of “Optimo” on it and I thought “this is all I want is for Tim G to produce new Liquid Liquid music”

"Bellhead"!

https://i.imgur.com/xr8iix4.jpeg

I still like and listen to LCD Soundsystem, but wow, Losing my Edge hits differently at 44 than it did at 22.

My mistake I just woke up!!

LCD Soundsystem is such a time/place thing for me, like I discovered that first record when I got into college, Sound of Silver around when I hit legal drinking age, and This is Happening when I was really going out a lot, so all three of those records bring back a lot of (mostly good) memories. But I haven't really been interested in relistening to them.

“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