LCD Soundsystem - LCD Soundsystem

Released in 2005 at a time when the majority of music being produced was edgy electronic music, very little comes close to LCD Soundsystem’s eponymous debut album. The LP consists of two discs; the first, a full album of new, previously unreleased tracks and a second disc featuring their singles since 2002.



Anyone who listened to the band’s first produce, the double single Losing My Edge / Beat Connection will know that it promised much. Losing My Edge perfectly captures zeitgeist for independent music during the 00s, through the lyrics of the band’s leader, front man and main composer, James Murphy. Murphy describes how people change their musical tastes in order to be cool and subsequently his tastes which he lists extensively, including the likes of Can, Liquid Liquid and Daft Punk are well out of date and he is losing ground to the kids from Paris and London ‘coming up from behind’. However the fact that Murphy continues to make music purely for himself and not to be cool means he will always transcend these ‘kids’. Clearly then LCD Soundsystem are not your typical electro band and the rest of Disc 2 is made up of a combination of long, layered electro tracks such as Beat Connection and Yr City’s a Sucker full of wonderful synth melodies and shorter tracks like the funky garage rock influenced Give It Up.

The first track of the actual album, Daft Punk Is Playing At My House, gives Daft Punk their second reference from the band and tells the story of a party where Murphy played real music rather than the commercial spew they would hear if they ‘go down town’. Like Losing My Edge, this track is an example of where the band have shown that electronic music can be more than just a hook and a song built around it, it can have meaning and resonance. This is also shown on Too Much Love which talks about how you can love something one day and hate it the next, and On Repeat which suggests that music made now is just a copy or variation of what has gone before, which, as this album shows, is not necessarily a bad thing.

The album also contains some simply brilliant tracks. Never as Tired as When I’m Waking Up is a perfect homage to Pink Floyd’s Dark Side of the Moon and the excellent Tribulations is one to satiate the danceheads, although they may struggle to find much else on this album. However I, as the band did, saved the best until last. Great Release, the final track on the album, blows the eight tracks gone before completely out of the water. After two minutes of a quiet drum beat and simple chord progression, the track evolves into a perfect ambient pop song with Murphy’s distant, echoey vocals gradually faded out.

Despite some weaker tracks such as Thrills and Disco Infiltrator the worst that can be said about the album is that not all of it lives up to the promise of the band’s earlier singles. The band combines an unusual array of musical styles and instruments ( a favourite being a cowbell which finds its way onto most tracks) to produce an electro album which future musicians, let alone electronic artists, should all gain inspiration from. It seems that LCD Soundsystem are the thinking music fan’s electro band, with the meaning behind some songs more prominent than the music itself, and in a time where the meaning behind a lot of music is money, this is something to be treasured.

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