Posts Tagged ‘LCD Soundsystem’

LCD SOUNDSYSTEM – ” Shut Up and Play the Hits ” (2012) Documentary

Posted: May 25, 2020 in MUSIC
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Three years ago, hundreds of friends and thousands of fans converged on Madison Square Garden for LCD Soundsystem’s farewell performance. All the while, the cameras were rolling, resulting in Shut Up And Play the Hits, a documentary that follows James Murphy and the band in the days leading up to, during and after the tumultuous four-hour farewell. Directors Will Lovelace and Dylan Southern use a staggering number of cameras and crosscut liberally to provide an experience that’s arguably even better than seeing the band live (okay, maybe not quite that good but…). And the scenes outside the concert footage are equally compelling.

On April 2nd 2011, LCD Soundsystem played its final show at Madison Square Garden. LCD Soundsystem frontman James Murphy had made the conscious decision to disband one of the most celebrated and influential bands of its generation at the peak of its popularity, ensuring that the band would go out on top with the biggest and most ambitious concert of its career. The instantly sold out, near four-hour extravaganza did just that, moving the thousands in attendance to tears of joy and grief, with NEW YORK magazine calling the event “a marvel of pure craft” and TIME magazine lamenting “we may never dance again.”  SHUT UP AND PLAY THE HITS is both a narrative film documenting this once in a life time performance and an intimate portrait of James Murphy as he navigates the lead-up to the show, the day after, and the personal and professional ramifications of his decision. Watch the official trailer here

The official trailer for SHUT AND PLAY THE HITS, the music documentary on LCD Soundsystem’s last ever gig at Madison Square Gardens.

LCD SOUNDSYSTEM – ” American Dream ” Best Albums Of 2017

Posted: December 5, 2017 in CLASSIC ALBUMS, MUSIC
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unnamed 21 e1504217047335 Top 50 Albums of 2017

When David Bowie gives you the seal of approval, you can turn a permanent conclusion into a five-year hiatus and a stellar return album. James Murphy and co. ended all the rumors once and for all with American Dream and did so with a bang. The album feels incredibly present, addressing the pervasive existential loneliness and concern while bringing the family back together.

American Dream retains all of LCD Soundsystem’s ability to fill the dance floor and bring tears to your eyes. There were plenty of fears that they’d lose the goodwill earned by a public exit, but with an honest, powerful record like this, LCD only further cemented their spot .

Post-hiatus records tend to be mediocre attempts to rejuvenate the enthusiasm of the past. Fans probably applied this to James Murphy’s band, wondering how American Dream, the first LCD Soundsystem record in seven years, could live up to 2007’s Sound of Silver or 2010’s This Is Happening. Thankfully, American Dream is a beautiful work of art about aging, regret and an arduous search for meaning, an expansive record that explores a variety of sounds and themes, but it never feels confused or lost. As Murphy’s vocals dreamily weave their way into the intro of opening track “Oh Baby,” you immediately know that this is a different LCD Soundsystem. The frantic energy of hits such as “Get Innocuous!” and “Movement” is gone, but not necessarily missing. Sonically, American Dream is more spacious than its predecessors. This dreamscape suits a record that’s aware of beauty in life, but invariably realizes that what it once thought was beautiful is merely an empty void.

Essential Tracks: “oh baby”, “call the police”, and “i used to”

Yes, it sounds like a U2 song. Yes, they quit and came back in less time than many artists take just to write and record a new record , James Murphy complained about never playing on SNL..  James Murphy asked his fans to give him a number one record. But who really cares when the song is this good? LCD are the rare band that deals in singles and albums. Their long players play well all the way through and their singles are mountain peaks across the horizon of music.

If you wondered if their brief but well-discussed exit robbed them of their excellence – “Call the Police” was the ideal defeat of that worry. The propulsive song never relents from the click track at the top through Mahoney’s constantly locked groove, never straying from perpetual forward motion. The pieces continue to stack until you are in an F-Zero straight race for the goal. The understated lower case titles perfectly represent this song that is so much more compelling than it acts like it is.

LCD SOUNDSYSTEM – ” American Dream / Call The Police “

Posted: May 6, 2017 in MUSIC
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LCD Soundsystem promised two new songs last night, and you can hear them now below. These are the first new tracks from James Murphy and co. since 2015’s one-off bummer jam, “Christmas Will Break Your Heart.”

“Call the Police” begins in similarly bleak territory: “We all know this is nothing / This is nowhere,” Murphy sings to open the track, his vocals intertwined with uplifting guitars that call to mind Bowie’s “Heroes.” From there, Pat Mahoney’s drums jump in and it’s off to the races—the hard-charging dance-rock odyssey stretches past seven minutes, but manages to feel instead like a gloriously fleeting burst of escapist mania.

“American Dream,” on the other hand, feels dreamier, more garbled—Murphy’s voice itself is far more sorrowful here, even as he offers what reassurances he can: “But that’s okay / And that’s okay.” Gossamer synths surround his howls and the track crescendos until collapsing just past the six-minute mark, as if it can’t bear the weight of all that disappointment anymore. It’s bittersweet, but this is nothing if not a triumphant return for LCD.

“i (james) mixed ‘American Dream’ at DFA Studios, and my friend Dave Sardy mixed ‘Call the Police’ at his sweet place in LA last week,” wrote Murphy in a Facebook post yesterday. ”[We] shuttled them quickly to the great Bob Weston (at Chicago Mastering Service) to master them so we could get them out today.”

The band’s new record is in the final stages now—”seriously almost done with the LP,” Murphy wrote in the same post—and we could not be more excited for it.

Murphy also adds that the new LP (the band’s first in seven years) is almost finished, and that there are “1 more vocal and 2 more mixes to go.” He says they also aim to have a vinyl release on the same day as everything else, so that’ll hold the album up just a tad.

And, to further sweeten the deal, Murphy says in his post that the band will be going on tour, and intimates he’s doing as much as possible to keep the show’s from being in some “mega-dome” where half of the crowd needs “binoculars to see if pat is actually behind the drums or if it’s louis ck or something.”

Listen to “American Dream” and “Call the Police” here

GANG OF YOUTHS – ” All My Friends ” Cover LCD Soundsystem for Like A Version

Posted: January 14, 2016 in MUSIC
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Gang of Youths bring us the longest cover in Like A Version history, a triumphant version of LCD Soundsystem’s classic ‘All My Friends’. Like A Version is a segment on Australian radio station triple j. Every Friday morning a musician or band comes into the studio to play one of their own songs and a cover of a song they love.

Popular Sydney outfit Gang Of Youths swung by the triple j studios this morning to lend their name to the Like A Version hall of fame with a paradigm-busting seven-and-a-bit-minute full cover of lengthy mid-2000s indie anthem All My Friends, by LCD Soundsystem.

Batting away breakfast co-host Alex Dyson‘s inquiry as to whether the lads would be taking the “radio edit” route given the original’s more-than-seven-minute run time, Gang Of Youths bring a distinctly rockier vibe to the track, doing away with its iconic, persistent piano line in favour of some sparkly guitar strumming, but otherwise they do an honestly pretty tremendous job at evoking the slow-build vibe of melancholic reflection that so indelibly defined LCD Soundsystem’s original — and, to their credit, the ultimate payoff, around the six-minute mark, is fittingly ethereal, infectiously ebullient, and impossible to deny.

Get amongst what we are led to believe is officially the longest Like A Version cover in history — certainly, it ranks among the most polished, at any rate