AR: LCD Soundsystem

LCD Soundsystem - LCD Soundsystem (2005)

He didn't explicitly ask for it, but this one is coming straight from the Dheintime request line. We've been riffing jokes* off of the wry quips from "Losing My Edge," the spoken word post-punk single from LCD Soundsystem that lists all of the band's hipster influences and betrays the paranoia that cooler youths are chasing them down. It appears on the second disc of this impossibly hip post-disco-dance-punk album by James Murphy and crew, and it put the band out nerd foot first - we just don't talk about influences, we overtly mock that pretense (while admitting it in ourselves) right there in our debut single. All over a borderline krautrock beat that gets layered to perfection through the song's course, all while insisting the indie-cred of "I was there!" at all kinds of seminal events, from CBGB's to Captain Beefheart rehearsals, before collapsing into a blitz of name-dropping. It's a great move, a fantastic and funny song, and a representative treasure from this critics' / dancefloors' darling.

*- We particularly laugh about "I heard you have a compilation of every good song ever done by anybody" and "I'm losing my edge ... to the art-school Brooklynites in little jackets and borrowed nostalgia for the unremembered eighties," and "I heard everybody you know is more relevant than everybody I know." It is not particularly hard to turn these into frisbee jokes - "I heard you have a throw for every good stall count, from 7 ... to 9." Anyways, it was funny that the first time Justin mentioned that I came to mind when he heard this song about listing all of these rock influences, it took me exactly negative three seconds to know the song to which he was referring. LCD Soundsystem is not exactly obscure, but being familiar with them is worthy of certain club membership. One *could* note the irony of two people using an ironic song about pretentiously name-checking music influences to feel cool about knowing the same "hip" band who performs said song, but that might cause my metahead to explode.

"Losing My Edge" actually reflects a lot that's going on in this album, even though it was written / released a few years before the eponymous debut full length made it to the stores. LCD Soundsystem is all about knowing influences and catching the injokes - the attitude is overtly one of the quick-witted hipster, and record clerk sarcasm penetrates throughout. In its unabashed drive to be ironically cool, though, the music manages to pull off an endearing sincerity - somewhere in there it's no longer disco-riffing because it's funny, but disco-riffing because this is what disco could have been. The marriage of bassy dance beats and real rock buzz, synths and snarling punk attitude, drum-sets and 808s all give off an above-it-all but down-in-it air, all the while being very, very overt about the musical lineages that got them here. There's something upfront and great about this dizzyingly intention-masked disc, and one can't help but get the feeling that all they really want to do is the black-clad cool kids on the dance floor. LCD Soundsystem was a long-anticipated debut based on the strength of the band's singles from 2002-05, and the freshman effort from the band pulled off the trick - the new material is great, and the backup disc of those very singles saves the bin-divers a lot of trouble. This album is a must if you're interested in knowing the state of the early 2000s hipster, and hey - it's got a nice beat and you can dance to it, too.

The opening track "Daft Punk is Playing at My House" is a driver based on the stupidest but most grin-inducing riff you will hear. I'll even transcribe it: A-D-C-A, A, A-A, A-D-C-A ad infinitum. Simple but rousingly effective, this is the first of two "Daft Punk" references on the album (and just in case that has no significance for you, Daft Punk is a French electronica band that wouldn't necessarily be the first thing indie-punks would be into ... unless they were second level indie-punks). That simple riff and snarl are combined over an ever-varying timbre of drum-fills, hand-claps and drum machine hi-hat fills. An amazing display of the punk-disco aesthetic, this is a fantastic opener.

Much of the rest of the disc of new material shares this energy but also walks the fine line of overtly sound-checking influences and maintaining originality / non-derivative status. "Too Much Love" is a straight up Remain in Light era Talking Heads groove; "Movement" is a sort of play on The Fall (check "Repetition" for something in the general ballpark); the closer "Great Release" is a lovely and thoroughly obvious homage to Brian Eno's ambient Another Green World sound; and "Never as Tired When I'm Waking Up" is the most obvious Beatles "Dear Prudence" nod, um, ever. The record collection is out in full force and, imho, is used effectively - it's easy to catch the references while never getting the impression that a cover band has stolen the stage. LCD Soundsystem is a unique-enough sounding band to be able to step on other material and render it unredundant, which is a great thing, if not necessarily a groundbreaking one.

The only thing resembling a low point on disc 1 is the buzzed-out drum rattler "Thrills" which is just a hair too much out of the MIA school for my tastes. It's not bad, just less present than the rest of the cuts. And speaking of present, the new dance / house tunes included throughout disc 1 - "Tribulations," "On Repeat," and "Disco Infiltrator" - all absolutely bring it. I hate to keep running to the genre name to describe it, but this is just disco punk groove - trance rendered through loops and grooves and a rougher edge than you typically hear from electronic house music. The tunes stay interesting across multiple repeats of patterns and varied elements; it's dope stuff, right in the LCD wheelhouse.

And all of that is before you get to the aforementioned second disc, the previously-released collection of DFA singles. "Losing My Edge," referenced above, sounds like an easy idea, but it's pulled off impeccably and is extraordinarily entertaining in music alone - definitely one of the best singles from the aughts. The twice taken ride of "Yeah (Crass Version)" and "Yeah (Pretentious Version)" is phenomenal - the former is blistering, blurred edges fuzzed out ecstacy on a classic disco beat, the latter the best nine minute electronic instrumental intro of any song I've heard. "Beat Connection" finds LCD S in pulsing chill rave mode before accelerating to emphatic declarations of the "saddest night out in the USA." "Yr. City's a Sucker" also resides somewhere near Talking Heads-land but veers slightly with both its fluttering electro-elements and a residual hand-clap beat that makes it sound like a bizarre line dance, too. "Give it Up" is the counterpart to "Daft Punk..." with a little more of a booty-shake insistence; its rhythmic chant "These are the parts of a terrible past / These are the things we can live without" is an earworm. Again, there's really only one thing on the disc that isn't stellar - "Tired" is a little too much psychedelic garage and/or Hüsker Dü freakout to mesh well with the rest of this disc. It's not bad, just kinda left field, and it's 3.5 minutes are a small price to pay for the brilliance collected here. Basically, if you have any affinity for punk, disco and dance hall trance music, this disc alone is worth the price of admission; it won't just make your toe tap but will actively shake your ass.

Should be clear - this is a great album with just a couple of blips keeping it out of the pantheon. I also highly recommend it for a running mix, as those 808-kit combos will get you pulling your knees up and through with ferocious intentions. Great pair of discs, great debut, and an excellent window into the indie-dance marriage that occurred in the early 2000s and split into factions very quickly. Don't miss it.

Status: Recommended
Nyet's Faves: "Daft Punk is Playing at My House" and "Losing My Edge"