LCD Soundsystem - LCD Soundsystem

LCD Soundsystem - LCD Soundsystem

Published in 2005

Wikipedia

First off, I'd like to thank Grooveshark for introducing me to LCD Soundsystem, and for their incredible service. Secondly, when I was feeling like not listening to this anymore, Arianna interveined and told me about how much she liked this group, giving me fresh ears for it. If it weren't for her timely intervention, I might have missed out on this band for another year.

This is an interesting record. I say interesting a lot on here, but this time I mean it in a strict way. I mean that the actual record interests me, but, from time to time, it is difficult for me to remain interested. The more time I spend with it the more I realize how good it is, and yet, I still cannot say that I love this album.

I experience moments in which I am completely inside of the music, but these are not in the same way that I get involved with a Megadeth album. I am never inside the moment with it, but looking at it from the outside with a kind of jaded gaze.

Even the moments in which I am singing along, bobbing my head and such, I feel required to put some space between my animal enjoyment and my intellectual enjoyment.

Musically, this album is right up my alley. It's a deeply produced rock/electronic/hiphop/trance/house mix, which sounds like it would be cacophany, but works well in the moment. The opening track uses it's time to mix styles and build up to a climax, then continues to use the music past that point. It's a great song. Disco infiltrator is a fucking great song, and the beats for the rest of the tracks are this good already.

Lyrically, the songs are strong. Losing my Edge is a triumph for sheer interesting lyrics, and long form musical history. Also, for the criticism of jerk offs like me that delve into the history of music as if we were a part of it, when we are really only observers. It's a classically awesome song.

So far, I'm gushing about this album, and maybe that is because my criticism is so small, but it is a potent one. I don't feel that this album was made for me. I don't think that the band wants me to be their fan. Thy seem to be striving for a fan who is ironically detatched from the world of music and recognizes how derivitive music is as a whole. While I recognize these parts as ironic too, I have to say that they are not as ironically motivated as one would hope.

What I mean is that the aformentioned Losing My Edge assumes that you'll understand his point of view, and look at it through the detatched eyes of someone who thinks these things. I'm not saying that this feeling is false, but the most amazing thing is that the band seems to think that the feeling is false.

It shouldn't though. This is a song about the insecurity and loss that a person can feel. Like when I read a blog that I know is better than mine (look up and to the right) and think about how I am never going to be as good as them. My writing is pedantic, my words are used over and over, and I only write to figure out how to run away from the things that make me feel uncomfortable, and how all I really want is one person out there to recognize how hard I want to be noticed and picked up and invited and to reach the moment where I say something and people listen. But that moment, the one where I an acclaimed and appreciated, will be the moment that I think about the people who wrote those better blogs, and how mine wasn't the best. The insecurity there is a sincere thing, and to play it with detatchment is strange.

Well, this got personal. This is a great album, assuredly. You really should give it a shot, because it is very likely that you'll find at least one song that must be played at a party. And what more could you ask for?

"I'll solve it or my name isn't Mik Dtctiv."
Matt