Indiscretions, news, reviews and revelations: Qobuz puts the cards on the table in an interrogation of music news. The truth is always a pleasure to hear, no? LCD Soundsystem
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LCD Soundsystem debuted with "Losing My Edge," a single that became one of the most talked-about indie releases of 2002. A self-effacing spoof of the outrageous pissing contests that often occur whenever music geeks cross paths ("I was at the first Can show in Cologne," etc.) laid over a puttering electronic beat with the occasional bursts of discoid clatter, the track was also one of the first released on the DFA label. Several magazines and newspapers would eventually declare James Murphy, the man behind both LCD Soundsystem and DFA, to be one of the coolest people on the planet.
Years of obscurity and the occasional poor decision preceded this. Just before Murphy began to cut his teeth in the '90s, first as a member of Pony (an average post-hardcore band with heavy debts to its inspirations) and then with Speedking (a much stronger, more unique band), he passed up the opportunity to write for the popular sitcom Seinfeld. All the time spent toiling in indie rock took a toll on Murphy, but he built his own studio and became increasingly adept at engineering and producing other bands. While working on David Holmes' Bow Down to the Exit Sign, he struck up a relationship with programmer/producer Tim Goldsworthy that developed into a partnership. By the end of 2002, there were several releases on Murphy and Goldsworthy's DFA label, most of which involved the duo in some capacity. LCD's "Losing My Edge," backed with an excellent neo-post-punk dance track called "Beat Connection," was one of them.
Murphy eventually scattered three other LCD singles through the end of 2004 and released the full-length LCD Soundsystem in January 2005. At the time of its release, the DFA label was more popular than ever; Murphy and Goldsworthy had remixes for Metro Area, N.E.R.D., Le Tigre, and Junior Senior behind them, as well as failed sessions with Britney Spears that might have benefited from an interpreter. Janet Jackson was another unlikely admirer seeking the duo's assistance, but Murphy didn't bother to follow up on her request.
Murphy did respond to Nike, who commissioned him to record a lengthy piece of music as part of a promotion. 45:33, released in October 2006, was aimed at joggers, but Murphy later confessed that he didn't jog himself -- mixed martial arts were more his thing, he claimed -- and was driven by the opportunity to make something in the vein of Manuel Göttsching's early-'80s electronic landmark E2-E4. (DFA would later issue 45:33 on CD, breaking the track into six parts and adding three additional cuts.)
The second proper LCD Soundsystem album, Sound of Silver, was released in March 2007. It contained Murphy's most affecting songwriting and peaked within the Top 50 of the Billboard 200. Led by the single "Drunk Girls" and an accompanying Spike Jonze-directed video, LCD Soundsystem's third studio album, This Is Happening, was released three years later. Riding high on the acclaim the album garnered, the band toured the world with fellow dance-pop group Hot Chip for much of 2010. While in London on June 29 of that year, the group recorded a full-band session at Miloco Studio. The freewheeling recording of the show was released by DFA as London Sessions in January of 2011. Right around this time, Murphy announced that he was retiring the LCD Soundsystem name. The band played a farewell show at a sold-out Madison Square Garden in New York on April 2, 2011 and released the set the following year as The Long Goodbye: LCD Soundsystem Live at Madison Square Garden.
In the years following, Murphy kept very busy with a variety of projects. He produced Arcade Fire's Reflektor, remixed a David Bowie track, designed special 11-foot tall speakers for DJs, created his own brand of coffee, opened a wine bar, and did the score for Noah Baumbach's film When We Were Young. In late 2015, rumors began circulating that LCD was re-forming, but these were quickly shot down by the band's label, DFA. These denials proved to be a smoke screen and the group issued a new single, "Christmas Will Break Your Heart," before the year's end. Soon after, they announced plans to headline Coachella, play a series of live dates, and release a new album in 2016. While the effort did not materialize that year, LCD did deliver a pair of songs in May 2017, "Call the Police" and "American Dream." They proved to be the first singles from American Dream, the band's fourth proper album. Featuring Murphy playing most of the instruments, with help from live bandmembers multi-instrumentalist Al Doyle, vocalist Nancy Whang, keyboardist Gavin Russom, bassist Tyler Pope, and drummer Pat Mahoney, the record was released in September of 2017 by the band's new label home Columbia. It was their first album to reach the top of the Billboard Charts and the song "Tonite" won a 2018 Grammy Award for Best Dance Recording. While the band was out touring the world behind the album, they stopped at Electric Lady Studios in New York to record part of their live set (along with covers of Heaven 17's "(We Don’t Need This) Fascist Groove Thang" and the Human League's "Seconds") for posterity under the title Electric Lady Sessions. The LP was released in early 2019 by DFA.
© Andy Kellman & Tim Sendra /TiVo
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Electronic/Dance - Released September 1, 2017 | DFA Records - Columbia
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LCD isn't dead! After having solemnly interred his group at a farewell concert in April 2011 in Madison Square Garden in his native New York, James Murphy has reawakened the beast, six years later, with American Dream. Dressed up like a twenty-first century David Byrne (striking on Other Voices, whose chorus sounds like classic-era Talking Heads), the leader and his motley crew have brought out a fourth album organised around blends of rock, punk, funk and electro. This album is LCD Soundsystem through and through, with more classic songs (Call the Police, an interesting meeting of David Bowie and U2), and fewer purely dancefloor numbers (Other Voices will get you up and dancing all the same) Talking Heads, then, as ever: but also Berlin-era Bowie (Change Yr Mind and Black Screen), as James Murphy's other major influence. A whisker off a half-century old, he didn't need to reinvent LCD Soundsystem - but rather, to bring their unique sound into bloom: to enshrine this music which he has sculpted since the mid-2000s, blending punk swagger, electro sounds, new wave gloom, the hedonism of dance, and the weight of the political context of the moment. © MD/Qobuz
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Electronic/Dance - Released May 17, 2010 | Parlophone UK
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Following up Sound of Silver was never going to be easy for LCD Soundsystem. There was so much positive reaction from music fans, the press, from everywhere, really, that almost any move James Murphy made was bound to be seen as inferior, or at the very least, flawed in some way. To his credit, he doesn’t try to do anything dramatically different on This Is Happening. There are no attempts to hit the top of the charts (a point made crystal clear in the song “You Wanted a Hit”); conversely, there are no attempts to dirty up the sound or make it more challenging. There are no radically new elements added to the LCD sound, nothing subtracted either. Murphy is definitely a savvy enough musician to know when things have gotten stale and need to be changed up; he at some point must have decided (correctly) that the time for a reboot hadn’t arrived yet for LCD. Another record of long, dancefloor friendly disco-fied jams mixed with punchy rockers and paced with a couple introspective midtempo ballads is still perfectly acceptable, especially when it’s as tightly arranged, energetically played, and thoughtfully constructed as Happening is. Murphy’s highly skilled production is all over the record, from the squelchy layers of synths, the dry punch of the drums, and the tricks and surprises that bring the songs to life, to the way he makes it sound like a live band when it’s just him (though there are the occasional people helping out, most notably Nancy Whang on backing vocals). And while there isn’t a song as staggeringly emotional as Silver’s “All My Friends,” or as simply and heartfelt as its N.Y.C. tribute “New York, I Love You But You're Bringing Me Down,” Murphy continues to expand as a songwriter and lyricist. He’s still the master of deadly zingers ("Eat it Michael Musto/You’re no Bruce Vilanch") and hilarious streams of lyrical gems (all of “Drunk Girls”), but songs like the nakedly emotional "I Can Change" (which includes the sweetly romantic plea for someone to “bore me and hold me and cling to my arm”) and the insistently melancholy “Somebody’s Calling Me” show continued growth and impressive range. Of course, if you aren’t all that interested in lyrics, artistic growth, and feelings, you can just crank up songs like "One Touch," "Pow Wow," or "Home" real loud and dance. At heart, Murphy remains a dance music producer and these tracks reveal him at the top of his game. This Is Happening doesn’t quite reach the monumental heights of Sound of Silver, but it serves as an almost-there companion and further proof that LCD Soundsystem is one of the most exciting and interesting bands around in the 2000s.
© Tim Sendra /TiVo
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Pop - Released January 24, 2005 | Parlophone UK
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Pitchfork: Best New Music
If a music-nerd version of Animal House set in 2005 is ever made, "Daft Punk Is Playing at My House" -- the boisterous opener of LCD Soundsystem -- would make an ideal theme song for the fraternity on which it is based. The self-conscious, awkward music obsessives pledging into this fraternity would have to pass a complex trivia test, own a compulsory list of records, and, as a hazing ritual, ask to dance with someone in public. If LCD Soundsystem's James Murphy were the least bit open to the concept, he could be the fraternity's advisor. Judging from a handful of singles and this album, he'd be more than qualified. His first A-side, 2002's "Losing My Edge," laid all his cards on the table, name-checking nearly everything that has been branded indispensable by a record store clerk during the past 20 years. This is someone who clearly owns tons of records and cannot escape them when making his own music. Acid house, post-punk, garage rock, psychedelic pop, and at least a dozen other things factor into his songs, and he's not afraid to be obvious. On occasion, he doesn't even allow fellow nerds to play guessing games. This is the case with "Never As Tired As When I'm Waking Up" -- drowsy/dazed John Lennon vibes through and through -- as well as the drifting/uplifting "The Great Release" -- an alternate closer to either of Brian Eno's first two solo records. Otherwise, Murphy's songs cough up references from his subconscious or are put together as if he's thinking more like a DJ, finding ways to combine elements from disparate sources. "Movement" careens into high-energy guitar squall after a pounding beat and cranky synths; "On Repeat" happily replicates the scratches and jabs of guitar heard from A Certain Ratio, PiL, and Gang of Four, but its mechanical pulse and curveball synth effects couldn't be any more distanced from those three groups. Nothing here exceeds the brilliance of "Beat Connection" or "Yeah." Like just about everybody else these days, Murphy's more skilled at creating isolated tracks than making full-lengths, even though this particular full-length has few weak spots and unfolds smoothly as you listen to it from beginning to end. The bonus disc, containing all the stray single tracks, adds a great deal of value.
© Andy Kellman /TiVo
Electronic/Dance - Released October 6, 2017 | DFA Records - Columbia
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Electronic/Dance - Released March 12, 2007 | Parlophone UK
Compared to the first LCD Soundsystem album, Sound of Silver is less silly, funnier, less messy, sleeker, less rowdy, more fun, less distanced, more touching. It is just as linked to James Murphy's record collection, with traces of post-punk, disco, Krautrock, and singer/songwriter schlubs, but the references are evidently harder to pin down; the number of names dropped in the reviews published before its release must triple the amount mentioned throughout "Losing My Edge." There's even some confusion as to which version of David Bowie is lurking around. One clearly evident aspect of the album is that Murphy has streamlined his sound. All the jagged frays have been removed, replaced by a slightly tidier approach that is more direct and packs more punch. Murphy comes across as a fully naturalized producer of dance music -- especially on "Get Innocuous!" -- as opposed to a product of '90s indie rock who has made a convincing switch-up. And yet, the album's best song is sad, should not be played in any club, and it at least matches the work of any active songwriter who has been praised. "Someone Great," a bittersweet pop song built on swelling synthesizers and a dual vocal-and-glockenspiel melody, could definitely be about a devastating breakup ("To tell the truth I saw it coming/The way you were breathing"), at least until "You're smaller than my wife imagined/Surprised you were human," which could mean the song either took a turn for the absurd or is about the death (and funeral) of a loved one. Either way, it is the most moving song Murphy has made, and it only helps further the notion that he should be considered a great songwriter, not simply a skilled musician with a few studio tricks and the occasional clever quip. The closer, "New York, I Love You But You're Bringing Me Down," seals it: "New York, you're perfect, oh please don't change a thing/Your mild billionaire mayor's now convinced he's a king/And so the boring collect -- I mean all disrespect/In the neighborhood bars I'd once dreamt I would drink." If he keeps it up, he'll be writing songs for Pixar by 2020.
© Andy Kellman /TiVo
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Electronic/Dance - Released February 8, 2019 | DFA Records - Columbia
While out on their 2018 tour behind the comeback album American Dream, the full LCD Soundsystem band swung into Electric Lady studio in New York to record their live set plus a few covers. This was something they had done before on The London Sessions back in 2010, and much like that album, this is an important document of a band at the height of their powers (again). Snapping through lively versions of songs from the album, the group balances the various synths, drums, and guitars into a lively, pulsing sound for James Murphy's always trenchant vocals. It's an act they've being pulling off for a long time and it still doesn't sound at all tired. It helps that Murphy wrote a fine bunch of songs, from the rambunctious ("tonite") to the poignant ("oh baby") to tracks that rage like Gang of Four at their best ("emotional haircut"). It also helps that the band play everything with passion and fire, like they are in a sweaty club instead of a legendary studio playing to no one. Added to the cracking versions of their own songs are covers of Chic (a scratchy "I Want Your Love" sung with gusto by Nancy Whang) and songs by two titans of synth pop. They assay a faithful rendition of the Human League's "Seconds" that finds Murphy doing his best Phil Oakey impression and a take on Heaven 17's "(We Don't Need This) Fascist Groove Thang" that's breathless fun. It's a fitting end to a set that's played and sung with inspired energy -- one that shows that LCD Soundsystem are still one of best working bands around even as they near their second decade of getting dance floors moving.
© Tim Sendra /TiVo
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Electronic/Dance - Released April 19, 2014 | Parlophone UK
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Although The Long Goodbye: Live at Madison Square Garden isn't LCD Soundsystem's only live recording, it is easily their most definitive. Recorded during their farewell show, the album captures the band's final performance in its entirety, leaving nothing out as James Murphy and company play their way to early retirement. The celebratory energy of the explosive opening track, "Dance Yrself Clean," makes it clear that this show is meant to be a party and not a wake, and to that end LCD Soundsystem spend the next three hours working their way through their incredible back catalog, delivering everything from their iconic first single, "Losing My Edge," to the sprawling "45:33." While no one likes to see a great band call it quits, fans couldn't ask for a better goodbye than one that gives them the chance to relive the band's final show whenever they want, making The Long Goodbye an essential buy for hardcore fans of the now-defunct dance-punk outfit.
© Gregory Heaney /TiVo
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Electronic/Dance - Released April 19, 2014 | Parlophone UK
Although The Long Goodbye: Live at Madison Square Garden isn't LCD Soundsystem's only live recording, it is easily their most definitive. Recorded during their farewell show, the album captures the band's final performance in its entirety, leaving nothing out as James Murphy and company play their way to early retirement. The celebratory energy of the explosive opening track, "Dance Yrself Clean," makes it clear that this show is meant to be a party and not a wake, and to that end LCD Soundsystem spend the next three hours working their way through their incredible back catalog, delivering everything from their iconic first single, "Losing My Edge," to the sprawling "45:33." While no one likes to see a great band call it quits, fans couldn't ask for a better goodbye than one that gives them the chance to relive the band's final show whenever they want, making The Long Goodbye an essential buy for hardcore fans of the now-defunct dance-punk outfit.
© Gregory Heaney /TiVo
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Dance - Released March 25, 2011 | Parlophone UK
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Electronic/Dance - Released December 3, 2010 | Parlophone UK
Following up Sound of Silver was never going to be easy for LCD Soundsystem. There was so much positive reaction from music fans, the press, from everywhere, really, that almost any move James Murphy made was bound to be seen as inferior, or at the very least, flawed in some way. To his credit, he doesn’t try to do anything dramatically different on This Is Happening. There are no attempts to hit the top of the charts (a point made crystal clear in the song “You Wanted a Hit”); conversely, there are no attempts to dirty up the sound or make it more challenging. There are no radically new elements added to the LCD sound, nothing subtracted either. Murphy is definitely a savvy enough musician to know when things have gotten stale and need to be changed up; he at some point must have decided (correctly) that the time for a reboot hadn’t arrived yet for LCD. Another record of long, dancefloor friendly disco-fied jams mixed with punchy rockers and paced with a couple introspective midtempo ballads is still perfectly acceptable, especially when it’s as tightly arranged, energetically played, and thoughtfully constructed as Happening is. Murphy’s highly skilled production is all over the record, from the squelchy layers of synths, the dry punch of the drums, and the tricks and surprises that bring the songs to life, to the way he makes it sound like a live band when it’s just him (though there are the occasional people helping out, most notably Nancy Whang on backing vocals). And while there isn’t a song as staggeringly emotional as Silver’s “All My Friends,” or as simply and heartfelt as its N.Y.C. tribute “New York, I Love You But You're Bringing Me Down,” Murphy continues to expand as a songwriter and lyricist. He’s still the master of deadly zingers ("Eat it Michael Musto/You’re no Bruce Vilanch") and hilarious streams of lyrical gems (all of “Drunk Girls”), but songs like the nakedly emotional "I Can Change" (which includes the sweetly romantic plea for someone to “bore me and hold me and cling to my arm”) and the insistently melancholy “Somebody’s Calling Me” show continued growth and impressive range. Of course, if you aren’t all that interested in lyrics, artistic growth, and feelings, you can just crank up songs like "One Touch," "Pow Wow," or "Home" real loud and dance. At heart, Murphy remains a dance music producer and these tracks reveal him at the top of his game. This Is Happening doesn’t quite reach the monumental heights of Sound of Silver, but it serves as an almost-there companion and further proof that LCD Soundsystem is one of the most exciting and interesting bands around in the 2000s.
© Tim Sendra /TiVo
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Electronic/Dance - Released August 10, 2018 | DFA Records - Columbia
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Dance - Released December 13, 2010 | Parlophone UK
In the midst of their 2010 world tour, LCD Soundsystem stopped off at Miloco Studios to record their live set. Utilizing a full band with skills honed to a fine point by the road, the resulting album is incredibly focused and powerful. Both the band and frontman James Murphy are at the top of their considerable games as they motor through what could almost be a "greatest hits of LCD" set (minus a few choice tracks like "Losing My Edge" and "North American Scum"). Highlights are rambunctious charges though "Daft Punk" and "Drunk Girls," the lovely Eno-inspired "All I Want," a forcefully funky take on "Pow Pow," and a stuttering "Us v Them." Since Murphy creates the Soundsystem's records mostly by himself, it’s very interesting (and impressive) to hear how the band takes the precise studio sound of the albums and makes it come alive. Everything that makes LCD so impressive is captured on London Sessions and then some. The propulsive beats of the locked-in rhythm section of Tyler Pope on bass and Pat Mahoney on drums, the complex and funky interplay of the guitarists (Matthew Thornley and David Scott Stone), and the keyboard manipulations of Nancy Whang and Gavin Russom (on what looks like enough vintage electronics to launch an early Apollo rocket) are equal to the studio albums. The group vocals that back Murphy, both chanted and sung in doo wop harmonies, are quite different than the usual LCD approach and help to humanize the sound even more than usual. When you put Murphy’s unusually elastic and inspired vocals, which range from insistent to hilarious, on top of the band’s sound, you’ve got the 2000s equivalent of Talking Heads when they expanded the group and became a huge force of oddball funk. It’s a more intense and synthesized version, and Murphy is no David Byrne (since he’s more likely to be in a dirty T-shirt than a big suit), but this wouldn’t work half as well if he were. His hopped-up hipster everyman with a bruised heart style is perfect for the band’s small-club intensity, and the album leaps out of the speakers with an intense power that makes it more than just a commemoration of their 2010 tour; it’s a vital addition to their already near-perfect catalog. It’s also more proof that LCD Soundsystem just might be the best band of the decade.
© Tim Sendra /TiVo
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Pop - Released November 12, 2007 | Parlophone UK
LCD Soundsystem's James Murphy was commissioned by Nike to write 45:33:00 as a piece of exercise music for part of their Original Run series. Murphy composed the track as a continuous piece tailored to the length and variation of a standard workout. In addition to its novelty, 45:33:00 is a brilliantly arranged and compulsively listenable track spilling over with the burbling, kinetic energy and gleaming production flourishes typical of LCD Soundsystem's work. Originally available only digitally, the track was released on CD in late 2007. Complex, fun, and meticulously put together, 45:33:00 sounds even better pumping from a home stereo than it does through an iPod while jogging. Three bonus tracks, previously unavailable in the U.S., round out the package, and make it a must for LCD Soundsystem fans.
© TiVo
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Electronic/Dance - Released March 10, 2006 | Parlophone UK
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Pop - Released January 14, 2005 | Parlophone UK
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Dance - Released November 10, 2009 | Parlophone UK
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Punk / New Wave - Released February 20, 2007 | Parlophone UK
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Pop - Released December 6, 2010 | Parlophone UK
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Pop - Released February 28, 2005 | Parlophone UK
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Qobuz Music Update: Monday 4th January, 2016
Indiscretions, news, reviews and revelations: Qobuz puts the cards on the table in an interrogation of music news. The truth is always a pleasure to hear, no?