It’s three years ago today that my favourite band took to the stage for the last time in the grand setting of Madison Square Garden, NYC. LCD Soundsystem’s demise was a bit of a surprise to many, after releasing three fantastic albums to critical and commercial success – but they left fans with one of the most epic finales a band has ever had with that concert. Although I wasn’t there, the MSG concert helped cement the band’s status as my favourite.
I first heard an LCD song in 2008. As I recalled in my pre-review for GTA V, the launch trailer for Grand Theft Auto IV included a catchy track in the background whilst the main character strutted around an homage to New York City. I liked it on first listen. There was a simple but captivating electronic build-up in the background, and then a drone-like repetition from a woman of “You can normalize; don’t it make you feel alive”. It was something special. In my early experiences with online music, I searched the web for what this tune was. It was “Get Innocuous!” by LCD Soundsystem.
Little could you tell from the advert, but the song was a 7 minute 11 second masterpiece. It takes about 1 minute 30 seconds for the drums to kick in, for reference. In a world full of short, poppy, nonsense music – this was a revolution. The build-up took minutes, then the drums came in, the verse came in, then the chorus and then a two minute wind down. It was a miniature opera, complete with violins at the end. I absolutely loved “Get Innocuous!”. And then I found there was so much more.
I casually browsed YouTube and found other LCD songs that were certifiably brilliant. “Losing My Edge”, “Yeah”, “Someone Great” and “All My Friends” spring to mind. All these little songs really were a great addition to my iPod, but they still weren’t my favourite band at that point, an honour that went to The Killers. I didn’t have a full LCD album yet, and little did I know, that the songs that I had were only half of the finished product.
“Get Innocuous!” remained my favourite LCD Soundsystem song until well into 2009. I’d give all of the others a customary enjoyable listen, but nothing quite compared to the grandeur of the first song I’d heard. A simple lyric search changed my entire attitude towards the band, and a lot more in consequence.
It was “Someone Great”’s lyrics that I searched for at one point that year. The meaning of the song was puzzling me, and I was looking for guidance on what some of the lines actually meant. I didn’t find a definitive answer to my question; LCD’s central influence James Murphy has never clarified exactly what the song is meant to mean, but I did discover that there were extra verses that I’d never heard before. How could this be?
I went back to my source at YouTube and found that the version of “Someone Great” that I’d heard, which was the official video version, amounted to nothing more than a radio edit. There was another two minutes of the song that I’d never heard before. Rarely do you ever get the chance to listen to a song for the first time again, but that day I did. The song enveloped an entire new meaning behind the childish glockenspiel that plays through the song. The song that I’d enjoyed before became one of my most cherished in little over six minutes.
I had a similar reawakening with each of the other LCD songs I’ve mentioned so far. Little verses, hooks and more hidden behind edits. The one song I remember most vividly listening to again was “All My Friends”, a song where Murphy looks back on his past with longing but no regrets. It spoke to me so much in a time where I was beginning to understand that my childhood was nearly over, and that the friends I had might not always be there – with university on the horizon. It is still, undoubtedly, my favourite song. With every passing year, the feelings and message of the song becomes more and more true and profound.
LCD had then become a strong contender for my favourite band, but not quite on the level of The Killers. It was 2010 before LCD Soundsystem really took that honour, with the release of their third and final album: This Is Happening.
I didn’t really know much about the release of the album until one of my friends mentioned that they’d seen an LCD song on the music channels. I thought it was strange, and through online research I’d found that they’d released a new single: “Drunk Girls”. Imagine my delight when I learned that it was the first single from a new album.
“Drunk Girls” is as much of a pop song as LCD Soundsystem can do, and I enjoyed it – but when the album came out during my pre-exam study leave, I heard the epic songs that I expected from the band I’d come to love. The opener “Dance Yrself Clean” is well over eight minutes long, with a slow intro of drums and quiet vocals. But then the beat kicks in and it’s an unforgettable experience packed with funk and anguish. It’s an absolute tour-de-force, and then there are another eight great songs on the record.
After finding several songs that ranked among my favourites on this new album, I decided it was high time that I went through the LCD Soundsystem back catalogue and pick up the full albums that I’d neglected to commit to until then. Sound of Silver, their second album, is packed full of songs that I’d loved individually – and is even better when listened to as a complete package. Their first self-titled album was laden with songs that appealed to my growing taste in electronic music. LCD Soundsystem’s three albums, and their EP including the super long electronic opera “45:33” (it’s even longer than the name would suggest), were and still are the definition of the music I like.
LCD Soundsystem then became my favourite band. And then not eight months after they had reached that significance to me came the announcement that they were to end the band with a concert in New York. It’s fair to say I was upset by the decision.
Even though I was only 16 at the time, I looked into buying tickets and going over the Atlantic to Madison Square Garden for the show. The tickets themselves sold out within 60 seconds, and of course I wasn’t fortunate enough to get any. Considering the grand cost of the entire journey, it was probably a good thing in the long run that I didn’t have any luck.
So, I resigned myself to watching the end of my favourite band on a live stream on April 2nd 2011. As it turned out, I went to a friends’ house for a party and consumed far too many drinks of consolation – but I like to think that I commemorated the occasion to an extent. The next night I listened to an audio stream of the entire 4-hour concert. It was an experience in itself just listening to it. I was taken aback by how fantastic this electronic band sounded live. They were even better than on record! Although there was sadness about the fact that I wasn’t there, and that my favourite band had ended – I was once again astonished by how good LCD Soundsystem were.
Almost eighteen months later came the official concert movie, “Shut Up and Play the Hits”, so named because of the input of Arcade Fire frontman Win Butler whilst his band were being ramblingly introduced by Murphy before their guest appearance at the MSG concert. It was being screened in Aberdeen, shortly before I moved there to begin university, and thankfully this time I was able to make the pilgrimage to “see” my band.
Seeing SUAPTH was an amazing experience. James Murphy himself mixed the audio for the whole movie, which was an interesting documentary based around Murphy in the days before and after the concert. Of course, it was interspersed liberally with video from the concert. It sounded good through my audio stream, but in a cinema with proper audio – it was immense.
SUAPTH was as good as I thought it’d be, but I still wanted to see the whole thing. A few months later I got my wish as the DVD release of SUAPTH brought with it the full 4-hour concert. That was even better. It didn’t help my feelings of regret about not being there, but it showed me that the funeral of my favourite band was indeed the best one ever. In typical LCD style, there was laughter and tears throughout from the band. They put their heart and soul into the performance and it showed. You can forgive James’ progressively drunken state, as he deals with ending what was his livelihood for ten years in front of thousands of people.
LCD are still my favourite band, even though they’re music is becoming less ‘modern’ than it ever was. Apart from the release of “Live Alone“, a Franz Ferdinand cover, in late 2011, there has been nothing more from the band at all. Nancy, Pat and Tyler have gone on with their other musical projects. James has done almost everything under the sun since leaving the band other than making his own music. He’s even launched his own brand of coffee.
Still, though, the fallout of the concert has not settled. The full audio album will be released on May 19, and will take pride of place in my iTunes library instantly. Hearing the songs live gives them another dimension of emotion that a studio produced record can’t achieve. The way that songs like “Tribulations” and “Movement” are introduced, in particular, are the result of an evolution of the songs coming from years of playing them after being recorded first. It’s an evolution that has brought another level to the songs.
James Murphy was worried back in 2002 that he had become outdated in his DJ profession and wrote “Losing My Edge” as an ode to what he thought was his demise. 12 years on from then, and 3 years after the balloons dropped on his music world-changing band, his music has certainly not lost its edge.