Shut Up And Play The Hits Trailer

A documentary about LCD Soundsystem’s last gig last year might not be everyone’s cup of tea, but is so my cup of tea that it’s even got right amount of milk in it and is in my favourite mug just cooling to the perfect temperature.

Source: youtube.com
Albums of the Year Number 4: This Is Happening by LCD Soundsystem LCD Soundsystem’s third and apparently final album feels rather appropriately like a culmination of their career. 2005’s LCD Soundsystem set out their stall of dance-punk, and the middle section of 2007’s Sound of Silver was a work of genius not quite reflected in the rest of the album. This is Happening is where it all seems to work, though. That’s not to say there aren’t some real outstanding tracks. All I Want is one of the best songs they’ve released, Drunk Girls is an excellent song (with an accompanying excellent video directed by Spike Jonze), I Can Change is excellent and touching, and You Wanted A Hit is typically sardonic fare but LCD Soundsystem always felt like an albums band who couldn’t quite maintain the quality across a whole album. This is Happening solves that problem. It’s a single, unified, excellent album. I’m hoping that LCD Soundsystem are bluffing, or just won’t be able to keep themselves away and that this doesn’t end up being their final album. But if it is, I’ll be happy. Spotify Link

Albums of the Year

Number 4: This Is Happening by LCD Soundsystem

LCD Soundsystem’s third and apparently final album feels rather appropriately like a culmination of their career. 2005’s LCD Soundsystem set out their stall of dance-punk, and the middle section of 2007’s Sound of Silver was a work of genius not quite reflected in the rest of the album. This is Happening is where it all seems to work, though.

That’s not to say there aren’t some real outstanding tracks. All I Want is one of the best songs they’ve released, Drunk Girls is an excellent song (with an accompanying excellent video directed by Spike Jonze), I Can Change is excellent and touching, and You Wanted A Hit is typically sardonic fare but LCD Soundsystem always felt like an albums band who couldn’t quite maintain the quality across a whole album. This is Happening solves that problem. It’s a single, unified, excellent album.

I’m hoping that LCD Soundsystem are bluffing, or just won’t be able to keep themselves away and that this doesn’t end up being their final album. But if it is, I’ll be happy.

Spotify Link

James Murphy on Guardian Music Weekly

I love LCD Soundsystem, and really, LCD Soundsystem are James Murphy. However, I found the interview with Murphy on this week’s Music Weekly podcast rather annoying. Yes, things have changed since he put together his music collection, but that’s the way the world goes. Indeed, I find this whole obsession that DJs and men of a certain age have with vinyl to wear me down. I get the romance of it all, but it’s worth remembering that the sound of vinyl is far from perfect, it’s huge and annoying to store, and it degrades without having to do much to it at all. MP3s might be a different way of consuming music, but are they really worse? They give music fans a means of exploring whole expansive genres of music they may never have listened to in an amazingly short period of time, and services like Spotify just make that process even easier.

That said, everything the contributors are all spot on about LCD themselves. They’re an amazing band, throwing the towel in at the absolute top of their careers, and there are a fair few bands that I wish that had occurred to.

Drunk Girls by LCD Soundsystem: 

I always suspected that pandas were nasty pieces of work.

All My Friends by LCD Soundsystem

This truncated version might not be quite as spectacular as the album version, but hey, a bit of one of the greatest songs ever written is better than none.